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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.
If they wanted to charge by the credit hour, they should have done so.
why not go all the way and say for X cash you get X degree.
As they don't seem to care about any ones Performance just the cash.
Well, let's just say my wife would have lawyered up long ago!
... what do you expect? America is infested with "business" and "management" degree-holders who don't contribute anything, don't produce anything, don't create anything, and yet have managed to worm their way into control of a substantial portion of the economy; and with schools that cater to those hoping to join their ranks. I'm not at all surprised that Germany has the same problem, or that such people turn on each other at the least opportunity. No honor among thieves.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Yet another company trying to legislate itself a profit.
As far as the law *should* be concerned, unless the university had in its contract terms restricting how quickly you can graduate or something to that effect, there's no case here. If they didn't think of that, it's their own damn fault for writing a contract with a "loophole" (although I'd say that graduating that quickly by actually doing all the work quickly isn't a loophole, it's just the right way to do it).
We really need to toughen the laws on frivolous or groundless cases.
Top 3 reasons why that was a stupid move:
1) You are attempting to sue a genius, your odds of winning are not exactly great.
2) You just wasted hundreds of thousands in free marketing opportunities. Instead of praising the student in the media (along with your University's name), you may now end up being hated in the media.
3) Punishing your own clients and making it public has never ammounted to a great business strategy.
That's more or less how such "private" commercial universities work.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Can you please stop posting articles from the Local? As I've explained in other threads, it's a "service" that steals content without attribution from local news sources in Germany Sweden and Switzerland, summarizes it, translates it to English, and sensationalizes it, then makes money off of your page views.
It's crap, it's misleading, and at times it's just plain wrong. Pop over to the EnglishForum.ch if you want to see what expats in the area actually think of the Local.
As for this article, we're undoubtedly missing part of the story. Wait a few hours and see what develops once someone links a real news source.
Best comment from the original article:
"This story really hits home because the same thing happened to me. I finished early, yet was still expected to pay the full fee. In fairness, I should point out it was with a hooker instead of a University. But it's kind of the same thing... right?"
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.
That was how my college viewed the laptops purchased through the school. They were supposed to be paid along with the tuition bill over four semesters, but nearly half of the freshmen didn't make it past the second semester but still kept the laptop. The school would send a letter to them saying to return the laptop, pay the money or possibly face legal action. It usually didn't work, but the school made up for it by charging everyone $2500 for a laptop that would have been around $1500 retail (including three year warranty).
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.
that you pay a university so they can pay rent, salaries of their professors and various other expenses necessary to actually have a university. A person who completed 11 semesters of work in 3 clearly didn't sit in classes (much), thereby not expending the time of instructors nor the space in the lecture halls. As an old room mate of mine used to do in university, he probably signed up for the class and went to the instructor on the first day of class and asked for the final exam.
I'm not sure what the university thinks they lost, aside from some obtuse reference to some sort of IP claim for the quality of the education they gave the guy, which clearly couldn't have been much, since he probably didn't attend classes.