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Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

insidehighered.com

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Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#51

Post by Boothroid »

aphextron wrote: post #23

Should I study engineering in Germany? I'm looking at undergrad programs in California right now and the numbers don't add up for me. Not just tuition, but cost of living as a full time student as well. I also feel like it would be much easier for me (a non-traditional student) to get into a better university over there, as they pretty much just look at your test scores. Not all this GPA/extra-curricular "well rounde…

Netherlands might be worth looking at. TU Delft has a very good reputation and links with Shell. Also Dutch is easier to learn than German, so they say, and everyone speaks English in NL anyway! Also I seem to recall hearing that they were considering switching over to teaching completely in English for some courses.

Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#52

Post by yorwba »

Boothroid wrote: post #35
cylinder wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't really think the instruction at these institutions is inferior. US are masters of hype and marketing and UK are masters of prestige.

I'm just going by the rankings. There are several of these lists, and the overall picture is pretty similar - the best universities are judged to be US/UK, with the odd sprinkling of European/Asian in the top ranks.

Most of these rankings do not directly measure quality of instruction (because that would be difficult), and rely on proxies instead.

E.g. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankin... shows that 33% of the ranking are determined by reputation, which gives universities in English speaking countries an advantage by way of availability.

Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#53

Post by detaro »

berndsf wrote: post #46
aphextron wrote: post #23

Should I study engineering in Germany? I'm looking at undergrad programs in California right now and the numbers don't add up for me. Not just tuition, but cost of living as a full time student as well. I also feel like it would be much easier for me (a non-traditional student) to get into a better university over there, as they pretty much just look at your test scores. Not all this GPA/extra-curricular "well rounde…

There definitely also are programs exclusively in English. Many however are rather partly in English with more option for a Masters degree. I'd check the programs at TU Munich in particular. Karlsruhe, Aachen, Darmstadt are also worth considering albeit less attractive places to live in. All degrees are accredited. My major/minor B.Sc. degree was recognized as a dual major in the US.

At least Aachen (haven't been to the others recently) I wouldn't count as "less attractive to live in", unless your idea of attractive requires "is a large city" (and some are not that far away, and students get "free" train tickets there)

Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#54

Post by erikb »

microtonal wrote: post #19
erikb wrote: post #10

Funny. I took care of foreign students in my German university and they get exploited the hell out. At first they pay more than German students for the same semester, despite having worse chances to succeed (language barrier, culture barrier, fewer friends/family etc). Then they have to join preparation courses one way or another, because, you know, German isn't easy. Then they hardly get access to the public student…

I work as a researcher in a German university and also have 4h per week teaching obligation. Our program is international and in English, all students are treated equally. A significant part of the teaching staff is also not from Germany. I have never encountered the practices that you mention. If one of my students would describe the problems you mentioned (especially exploitation by university staff) I would encour…

Agreed. Not all universities will be like this bad. But I think to some degree it will happen everywhere. Complaining is something I also always suggested, but now that I've experienced real life outside school/university for some time I'm not sure about that any more. For instance, you have a lot of rights here, but I found in my own experience that you only have the rights you know you have and you know how to enforce. In another country I know less about my rights and how to enforce them.

Also you often don't know how much different people profit from the current situation as it is. For instance, if the president would directly profit from the ridiculously high rents of the foreign students all he would care about is keeping the situation quiet. A complaint may yield absolutely nothing or worse.

Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#55

Post by erikb »

germanier wrote: post #12
erikb wrote: post #10

Funny. I took care of foreign students in my German university and they get exploited the hell out. At first they pay more than German students for the same semester, despite having worse chances to succeed (language barrier, culture barrier, fewer friends/family etc). Then they have to join preparation courses one way or another, because, you know, German isn't easy. Then they hardly get access to the public student…

Which university was this? Because in mine (HU) foreigners weren't treated any different.

Edit: After responding to some other comments I have to rewrite this. True, if you never heard anything about corruption in your university it may percentagewise be much better than mine. My reaction towards HU (assuming Berlin, no idea if there are other HUs out there) however is stiff, since I also know about some corruption there. It's not the same level though and a totally different department.

---- old comment

"I haven't seen foreigners getting treated any different." HU is not the smallest university. Mine was much smaller, but still I didn't know until I worked directly in that area.

I don't want to mention the name of the university.

Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#56

Post by qznc »

aphextron wrote: post #23

Should I study engineering in Germany? I'm looking at undergrad programs in California right now and the numbers don't add up for me. Not just tuition, but cost of living as a full time student as well. I also feel like it would be much easier for me (a non-traditional student) to get into a better university over there, as they pretty much just look at your test scores. Not all this GPA/extra-curricular "well rounde…

In general, getting into a german university is easy with good grades and still possible otherwise. It varies a lot between universities and subjects though.

Bachelor level is usually in german. Master level can be done in english but much is in german, too. Without knowing the german language you will have a hard time. If you know the basics in advance and take a language course here, you should be fine.

Accredited in the US? I don't really know. We have a student exchange program with the CMU and that works well. For job hunting it is probably MIT/Stanford/Harvard XOR the rest.

(I am working in the computer science department at the german university KIT, which is one of the best for computer science along with TUM, Saarland and RWTH)

Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#57

Post by Boothroid »

revelation wrote: post #43
Boothroid wrote: post #28

Another possible reason - they may well have little choice! Lists of top ranked universities are generally dominated by the US/UK. In this list the highest ranked German institution is at number 30: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankin... It's always going to be hard to charge the same as a competitor when your product is inferior.

Test your hypothesis then, look up tuition for the top 100 on that list and check if there is a clear gradient. Hint: there isn't.

Here's a test - ask a Chinese person thats in the market for a foreign degree to name a UK or US university they would like to attend, then ask them to name a German university that's on their list. I suspect they won't even be able to name a single German university, let alone consider studying at one.

I went to a UK university that's in the global top 10. Asians I met after uni would often ask where I studied and had always heard of it.

Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#58

Post by erikb »

Semaphor wrote: post #11
erikb wrote: post #10

Funny. I took care of foreign students in my German university and they get exploited the hell out. At first they pay more than German students for the same semester, despite having worse chances to succeed (language barrier, culture barrier, fewer friends/family etc). Then they have to join preparation courses one way or another, because, you know, German isn't easy. Then they hardly get access to the public student…

None of those things happen at my University. It sounds like yours was simply extremely rotten.

Yeah, even though this part of my university wasn't clear to me until I directly worked there, you would've certainly heard some strange stories of corruption if your university would be on the same level. Mine even has reports on youtube about the chancellor giving money to foreign professors without them doing something for it, people in high offices sleeping with each other and keeping each others positions save, etc.

Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#59

Post by lmns »

aphextron wrote: post #23

Should I study engineering in Germany? I'm looking at undergrad programs in California right now and the numbers don't add up for me. Not just tuition, but cost of living as a full time student as well. I also feel like it would be much easier for me (a non-traditional student) to get into a better university over there, as they pretty much just look at your test scores. Not all this GPA/extra-curricular "well rounde…

>I also feel like it would be much easier for me (a non-traditional student) to get into a better university over there, as they pretty much just look at your test scores.

Some don't even do that, but I think most (not sure) have some kind of language requirement for both German and English: https://www.daad.de/deutschland/studienangebote/internationa...

This is for Computer Engineering, which is a blend between Computer Science and Engineering at the university of Duisburg-Essen.

B1 shouldn't be that hard, but as a native speaker I can't really comment on the difficulty.

>Do they provide many undergrad programs in English?

At least the program I linked to has 50% of its courses in English and exams are always available in English. I have no idea about other programs.

Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#60

Post by qznc »

detaro wrote: post #53
berndsf wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There definitely also are programs exclusively in English. Many however are rather partly in English with more option for a Masters degree. I'd check the programs at TU Munich in particular. Karlsruhe, Aachen, Darmstadt are also worth considering albeit less attractive places to live in. All degrees are accredited. My major/minor B.Sc. degree was recognized as a dual major in the US.

At least Aachen (haven't been to the others recently) I wouldn't count as "less attractive to live in", unless your idea of attractive requires "is a large city" (and some are not that far away, and students get "free" train tickets there)

I prefer Karlsruhe to Munich. Karlsruhe is one of the warmest cities in Germany.
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