<p>As of October 1st, all students in Germany will pay no tuition to attend their universities. This includes International Students. Will the US ever adopt a tuition-free policy for public universities, or for both publics and privates? </p>
<p>Yup, when taxes in the US go to 75% of gross income.</p>
<p><a href=“Tax rates in Europe - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_European_countries</a></p>
<p>With all the social services they get, at a 42% marginal tax rate from 53k to 250k Euro income, it’s a better deal than what I pay for my above 30% rate here.</p>
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<p>You expect the taxpayers to fund FREE private colleges? Uh no. </p>
<p>German universities don’t have dorms, rock climbing walls, counseling/tutoring services, and sports teams. Classes are very unstructured and students have minimal support. There is no handholding whatsoever; professors do not need to be accountable to students. Students are responsible for securing their own housing and food (no res life stuff). As the American idea of the university experience is very different and many of our students need much more structure and attention in order to succeed in tertiary education, I don’t see us adopting the German model any time soon. Furthermore, admission to German universities is exam based, and many pre-professional programs that are offered by US colleges as academic subjects are not considered university subjects in Germany. There are many American college kids who would not be going to university in Germany if they lived there.</p>
<p>But those German kids who are not qualified for university will get very good vocational training and apprenticeship opportunities to allow them to be productive members of society.</p>
<p>That’s true, but I don’t think it’s related to making university free. I hear the “college should be free, like Europe” argument a lot from people in the USA who do not realize that in a “free” university system, their own academically mediocre or late-bloomer children would be excluded. There is a tradeoff to “free” higher ed.</p>
<p>The US system would have to change dramatically for this to happen, and I don’t believe most would like those changes, given the role of college in the US popular mind as a means of upward mobility and social distinction (as opposed to a site of intellectual inquiry).</p>
<p>I think I see high schools starting to offer German as a foreign language again.</p>
<p>True. In the German/Swiss system (where programmers and bankers learn their trade by apprenticing), many vocational tracks are a path to upwards mobility and social distinction.</p>
<p>If an American student can learn German well enough to perform in the German university system, and has the maturity and focus to operate successfully in a laissez-faire academic environment and a different culture, it would be a good deal.</p>
<p>The German government is worried about the global ranking of its universities and is trying to attract global intellectual talent without resorting to wide scale English-language instruction, esp. in graduate programs (in contrast to the Netherlands and Italy). Germany gave the world the idea of the modern research university, and I hope that they succeed.</p>
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<p>Agreed. What manyAmerican folks IME miss is that there’s a tradeoff and in the German system, most kids end up being placed off the college-prep track due to assessments done toward the end of middle school. </p>
<p>And for those on the college-prep track, where they end up going to study and what they major in is determined by their school leaving exam assessments at the end of their Gymnasium* career. </p>
<p>Incidentally, most East Asian educational systems/college admissions systems are some varied mix of German/Continental and Anglo-American models with some references to the imperial civil service examination system. </p>
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<li>College prep HS which some have compared to a topflight US college prep HS combined with the first two years at a rigorous elite/respectable college. Last I checked, most US high school diplomas even from the most rigorous HSs wouldn’t be considered acceptable for German university admissions unless the possessor spent a year or two attending some sort of college-prep institution geared towards students who were placed on the vocational track who still want to try for university admissions.<br></li>
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<p>I know nothing about the “imperial civil service examination system,” but I know that Americans love the idea of second chances and reinvention. But the price of such wandering is currently borne by the individual and the family, not the state. Germany has a rigid, hierarchical educational system. If you are not deemed university material by the time you are 13, you are not going to university. Most Americans are simply not willing to accept this kind of draconian predestination. Politically, Americans will not support the massive subsidies universities receive unless their own children get a shot at a piece of the action.</p>
<p>Don’t give Obama any new ideas…</p>
<p>We used to value education as much as the Germans do. I got my education at a world-class public university for less than $600 per year. That was back in the days when we recognized that an educated population was a good thing, and that education is an investment, not an expense. Our preeminence in the world in the 50s, 60s, and 70s was a direct result of the GI Bill and the public support of higher education in that era. BTW, my alma mater now charges $27,000 per year. </p>
<p>There’s no reason we couldn’t have free community colleges here. We used to. They don’t have dorms or rock-climbing walls, either. It’s a choice we make.</p>
<p>some states are offering it</p>
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A student could certainly do much worse than to learn German!</p>
<p>I’ve long recommended European schools to students looking for cheaper alternatives. Schools like the Free University of Berlin and Munich are superb, rigorous universities and a great bargain financially. (It’s not just Germany. Aside from Ireland, the UK, the Netherlands, and a couple other places, many of the countries in Europe have virtually negligible tuition rates.) I spent much of last year in Germany and was pretty surprised by the level of work and competence required of the undergrads at my host university – certainly a fair bit tougher than I’m used to seeing at top American universities. I do agree with NJSue that the advising and support system is less in-your-face than at some colleges in the US, particularly small privates, where students are often advised to death. I’m not convinced it’s more sink-or-swim than some of the large (public) universities here, though. </p>
<p>Surprisingly few students on CC seem keen on applying abroad, despite the popularity of studying abroad for a term or two. Canada, the UK, and (most recently) US campuses in the Middle East seem to be exceptions to this US-centric trend. Certain universities in the UK work quite hard to recruit wealthy prep school students (a popular alternative for the A/B students who can’t or didn’t get into Ivies), but I think these countries are popular primarily because most high schoolers either can’t function in a non-English speaking country or don’t believe they can. </p>
<p>Germany has been attracting foreign students for a while:</p>
<p><a href=“Why British students are heading to Germany”>Why British students are heading to Germany;
<p>I thought Germany was tuition-free before? France also is, by the way (unless you call $200 paperwork fees per year “tuition”).
Both wouldn’t accept a HS diploma alone, and would typically require 4-5 APs. If your language skills aren’t up to par, you can spend up to a year learning the language for a negligible amount.
However, it’s bare-bones; you go to class, listen, take notes, have one presentation and one exam at the end of the semester, and that’s it. If you don’t pass (ie., 40% students at least) you have to repeat the course. You don’t get to choose the courses and you apply to a specific major. If you change, you start again from scratch. Professors don’t have office hours and there are no advisers (since anyway classes are chosen for you). There may be more students than seats in the lecture hall, especially at the beginning of the year.
There are some alternatives that are still cheaper for full-pay students, such as Jacobs-Bremen or Sciences Po Reims, that provide a better learning environment.</p>
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If you take the AOC into account, some CCs would be free. </p>
<p>Well, as we all know that money do not grow on trees (or maybe it is a huge surpize to some), and the econ101 is stating clearly that “there is no such thing as a free lunch” (another surprize!!!), the is ONLY one way to fund anything - SUPPOSEDLY free health care and supposedly free College education – TAXPAYER (another surprize!!!). As our congress will not cut any expenses under no circumstances, the simple math dictates to raise taxes to collect additional funds for college tuition coverage, but (surprise!!!) the additional money are coming from exactly the same pockets that paying for college currently and more, from those who are NOT paying currently, who are done with this expance. Do you think that Germany taxpayer is better off, why don’t you check by living there? </p>