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University Sues Student For Graduating Early
"A student who attended a private German economics and business university is being sued by the school because he finished his degree too quickly. Marcel Pohl finished 60 exams in 20 months, completing 11 semesters worth of work in only 3. The school says it is due an extra €3,000 for lost income because, "its fees are the total price for the studies, independent of how long the studies last." "When I got the lawsuit, I thought it couldn't be true. Performance is supposed to be worth something," Pohl said.
Not sure about Germany, but around here they charge by the credit hour for part time (typically under 12 credit hours per semester), and anything considered "full time" (12+ credits/semester) is under a flat "full time" tuition rate. However, at least at my college, we had to get special permission to take more than 18 credits per semester (15 was considered normal, but I know this varies a lot from college to college). I wanted to get my degree is four semesters, but my advisor made me do it in six (eight is the "ideal" for a four-year degree).
Seems odd to me that one could get both bachelors and masters degrees from a university solely by passing a set of exams. In other words, there was no course work required (though it sounds like he did have to complete an internship). A big part of university should be learning how research and think critically - then apply both to the world around you. Doesn't seem like much of that was happening here. This smells like a for-profit diploma mill.
I can't say that I feel sorry that a school that has likely been gaming the education world got gamed by a few students.
Private universities are a rare breed in Germany, there are only a couple, and, like the article demonstrates, they are largely in the ripping-people-off business. The majority of universities, and, in particular, the scientifically good universities, only change a nominal fee per semester - something like 500 euros nominal administrative fee or such. Been a while - I attended while the dinosaurs still roamed the earth ;)
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
He went to a private university, which can charge a lot more. How much you pay for education also depends on the state you're in. My state (NRW) was ruled by the anti-tuition SPD/Greens, then switched to a tuition model in 2005 under the new CDU/FDP government and then in 2010 abolished tuition again, when the SPD and the Greens returned. Still, there are some fees that are not considered tuition that you still have to pay, but that amounts to about 200 € per semester (e.g. a mandatory public transport ticket). Even tuition is usually only 250 €, 500 € or 1000 € per semester in publicly funded universities.
Healthcare isn't free at all, it's just that health insurance is mandatory and also part of the welfare here. There are some corner cases where you can end up without healthcare at all, e.g. when you're self-employed.
All depends upon what they cram into each of those credit hours. 18 hours as an undergraduate left all sorts of spare time, and I knew a few that were taking 21-24 credit hours. 13 hours of graduate classes damn near killed me. 60 hours of various basket and matt weaving courses a week might get a trifle boring. 60 hours of multi-variable partial differential equations, related topics, and applied physics/engineering courses will be slightly harder to pass, if not impossible, if the material is not already known to you.
2 things, I'm not trying to be insulting here - at my school, at least, every undergraduate hour was expected to require 1-2 hours per week of study for the target student to pass with a reasonable grade. Graduate level courses, on the other hand, required 5-8 hours each week. A slight difference, which is why an average full time graduate student usually only took 2 classes per semester with independent study time (ie, thesis/dissertation work) for the remaining hours to get to 9 hours.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.