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How American Students Can Get a University Degree For Free In Germany
HughPickens.com writes: BBC reports that Germany has abandoned tuition fees altogether for German and international students alike and more than 4,600 US students are fully enrolled at Germany universities, an increase of 20% over three years. "When I found out that just like Germans I'm studying for free, it was sort of mind blowing," says Katherine Burlingame who decided to get her Master's degree at a university in the East German town of Cottbus. "I realized how easy the admission process was and how there was no tuition fee. This was a wow moment for me." When Katherine came to Germany in 2012 she spoke two words of German: 'hallo' and 'danke'. She arrived in an East German town which had, since the 1950s, taught the majority of its residents Russian rather than English. "At first I was just doing hand gestures and a lot of people had compassion because they saw that I was trying and that I cared." She did not need German, however, in her Master's program, which was filled with students from 50 different countries but taught entirely in English. In fact, German universities have drastically increased all-English classes to more than 1,150 programs across many fields.
So how can Germany afford to educate foreign students for free? Think about it this way: it's a global game of collecting talent. All of these students are the trading cards, and the collectors are countries. If a country collects more talent, they'll have an influx of new ideas, new businesses and a better economy. For a society with a demographic problem — a growing retired population and fewer young people entering college and the workforce — qualified immigration is seen as a resolution to the problem as research shows that 50% of foreign students stay in Germany. "Keeping international students who have studied in the country is the ideal way of immigration," says Sebastian Fohrbeck."They have the needed certificates, they don't have a language problem at the end of their stay and they know the culture."
So how can Germany afford to educate foreign students for free? Think about it this way: it's a global game of collecting talent. All of these students are the trading cards, and the collectors are countries. If a country collects more talent, they'll have an influx of new ideas, new businesses and a better economy. For a society with a demographic problem — a growing retired population and fewer young people entering college and the workforce — qualified immigration is seen as a resolution to the problem as research shows that 50% of foreign students stay in Germany. "Keeping international students who have studied in the country is the ideal way of immigration," says Sebastian Fohrbeck."They have the needed certificates, they don't have a language problem at the end of their stay and they know the culture."
University is pretty cheap in almost all Europe. Most countries have tuitions of about 1000$ per year, which include administrative costs. More than a few countries offer completely free university to EU citizens and Finland offers free university to non-EU citizens too.
I love Germany, but I don't know of any German beers that are all that good. They certainly have the reputation but the reality has always been disappointing.
The unusual quality that might irritate people used to Bud Light is called "taste", and is usually considered a good thing in beers.
Stephan
US: The vast majority of people have access to a decent university education based on many different assessment factors.
Germany: If you got poor grades in school, forget about going to a university. The state channels you into different areas of the economy, whether you like it or not, and whether you could have actually succeeded at university.
You can't really compare the two systems. Each has it's own rewards and costs. In Germany (and most of the world, for that matter) they don't value a humanities-based education as much as Americans do, where even engineering students must take basic courses in civics, literature, etc. In America, a large part of higher education is about crafting learned, "well-rounded" citizens. That ideal isn't nearly as strong in Germany. OTOH, because that ideal is so lofty, it's hard to justify the public expense of providing a free university education to a large segment of the population**. Whereas in Germany, fewer people pursue or even complete a university education, so the costs are much less.
** Witness the way that most Americans joke about "basket weaving" classes. I used to think it was a joke, too, until I was 35 and weaving the seats for reproduction Shaker chairs to use in my dining room and thinking to myself that weaving is helluva complex, actually quite interesting, and it was a shame I didn't take such a class in college, when I had more time to pick up such skills.
Wow, articles about nonsense, because americans can not believe that "not being 100% capitalistic" is not the same as being socialistic or communistic.
Look at this, an extract from the german constitution:
(1) Alle Menschen sind vor dem Gesetz gleich.
(2) MÃnner und Frauen sind gleichberechtigt. Der Staat fÃrdert die tatsÃchliche Durchsetzung der Gleichberechtigung von Frauen und MÃnnern und wirkt auf die Beseitigung bestehender Nachteile hin.
(3) Niemand darf wegen seines Geschlechtes, seiner Abstammung, seiner Rasse, seiner Sprache, seiner Heimat und Herkunft, seines Glaubens, seiner religiÃsen oder politischen Anschauungen benachteiligt oder bevorzugt werden. Niemand darf wegen seiner Behinderung benachteiligt werden.
Relevant is (3) so I translate:
No one may be disadvantaged or favoured because of his gender, ancestry, race, language, motherland, land of origin, faith/religion, religious or political "ideology". [...]
There is simply no way for a university to charge a foreign student for a service a german student is not charged for. The only way would be to introduce some complex legislation e.g. requiring that a student had done a social service or military service and balancing that for foreign students with payments.
That said, ofc it was possible - and likely still is - to charge everyone after the tenth semester a fee for not finishing his studies in time. Here now you could invent "laws" how to get exempt from that obligation and make the way of getting that exempt so complicated that foreigners have difficulties to get approved.
Anyway. We also have private universities, that charge fees. Regardless if you are german or a foreigner.
We had cost free universities till roughly 2000, then they suddenly changed a lot, now they are changing back.
The treatment for foreigners was always the same as for germans. Not surprising: 90% of the foreigners are foreigners from other EU countries.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Drinking beer and wine (unsupervised) is legal in most of Europe for kids aged 16 and above.
Supervised by parents AFAIK it is 14 (in germany). However no one really cares if the kids are younger in the presence of their parents.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
This simply isn't true. People come to the US all of the time, and get their education...then move back to their country of origin and work there.
Sure, not Everyone moves out of the US after studying here...but they're not forced to. And the taxes you're paying for all that FWEE education come from the working residents of Germany, from whom you'll have to continue to pilfer to fund this Utopian solution.
FTA:
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazi...
Research shows that the system is working, says Sebastian Fohrbeck of DAAD, and that 50% of foreign students stay in Germany.
"Even if people don't pay tuition fees, if only 40% stay for five years and pay taxes we recover the cost for the tuition and for the study places so that works out well."
Erh... no.
I know taxes in Germany and I know taxes in the US, I earned money in Germany and I earned money in the US. Taxes are minimally higher in Germany, but considering what you get for your buck, it's money well spent.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Obligatory xkcd.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways