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Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

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Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#121

Post by geff82 »

codedokode wrote: post #90
paganel wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, you must first learn German, Maybe because of this? > be able to borrow EUR 9,000 to apply for the student visa Also, this. 9,000 euros does not seem like too much for people from first-world countries, but for people coming from relatively speaking much poorer countries that sum is quite high.

9000 euros is a large sum for countries where an average monthly salary can be around 500 euro or less. Only wealthy families (whose kids don't really need German education) would afford that.

The ability to study in Germany is not a welfare program.

Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#122

Post by pg314 »

Boothroid wrote: post #57
revelation wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

> I suspect they won't even be able to name a single German university, let alone consider studying at one.

You are wrong. In 2015, 30.000 Chinese students were studying at German higher education institutions [1]. That would obviously not be the case if they would never consider studying at a German university. It is true that the US (about 300.000 students [2]) and the UK (about 90.000 students [3]) are more popular.

[1] https://thepienews.com/news/germany-intl-students-up-7-chine...

[2] http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/11/16/china-us-colleges-educat...

[3] https://institutions.ukcisa.org.uk/Info-for-universities-col...

Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#123

Post by geff82 »

raphman wrote: post #115
beberlei wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an international student in Germany, you get an automatic work visa for so called student jobs, up to 19,5 hours a week, no limits on wage earned, no extra social security costs. Income tax starts at 8000 a year. As a student, you can get around with 500/mo in Germany, 750 may be the comfortable lower bound

To be clear: 500 € may be sufficient in smaller cities but not in Munich and other cities with high rents.

As the diplomas in Germany count more or less as the same, you are free to choose a university at a place with lower renting costs like Leipzip, Koblenz or Greifswald. Your relatives may have to look on the map, but in everyday professional life (especially IT) it does not matter much. There are some preferred places for every field (KIT for IT in Karlsruhe, Business, Management in Mannheim, Engineering in Darmstadt...), but if you don't have or earn a lot of money, you have tons of good possibilities.

Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#124

Post by geezerjay »

kough wrote: post #100
ilamont wrote: post #84

For a point of comparison, the annual tuition prices for colleges in Massachusetts: http://www.collegecalc.org/lists/massachusetts/most-affordab... Tufts, BC, BU, Olin, MIT, Northeastern, Brandeis all between 45k and 50k. Harvard 41k. When room, board, and books are factored in it's a quarter million dollars over four years. Public colleges (Umass) are a lot cheaper but I've heard "fees" can run up to 10K a semester.…

Some of those schools are unlike the others. It makes absolute sense to go $250k in debt for an MIT or Harvard degree, makes less but still some sense for Tufts and Olin, and makes no sense at all for the rest. And the average college that Americans experience is a 2 year community college; very, very few attend schools of the caliber you're mentioning. It makes no sense to lump all these different schools together w…

> It makes absolute sense to go $250k in debt for an MIT or Harvard degree

Can you explain why?

Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#125

Post by geff82 »

kriro wrote: post #114
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…

AFAIK only the GPA matters as you have said (it's called Numerus Clausus or NC in Germany). If you look it up in a list, keep in mind that the German scale and the US 4 point GPA scale are reversed. 4.0 is the worst passing grade here and a 4.0 was an A+ at my US high school (I think there are different scales in different states?). For many degrees there's no GPA requirement at all. Engineering might very well be on…

Engineers often get a job offer before they even graduate...

Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#126

Post by ekr »

stable-point wrote: post #24
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #15

> in Germany, students -- on the whole -- famously pay no tuition fees, regardless of where they come from. Seen from the U.S. or Britain, this policy may appear either supremely principled or incredibly naïve “Britain”? Do they perhaps mean England? The other three nations of the United Kingdom have either free (Scotland) or vastly cheaper (Wales, Northern Ireland) university tuition fees.

I think the key part is "regardless of where they come from". For instance, Scotland has free tuition for the Scottish and other EU citizens, but not for citizens of England/Wales/NI or international students. (The fees for an English person are typically cheaper than other English universities, but still not to be sniffed at). I am not sure about NI or Wales, but I imagine there's a similar situation.

Scotland and free tuition? I was thinking about a MSc in computer science at the University of Edinburgh, and it's definitely not free, even for EU citizens: http://www.ed.ac.uk/studying/postgraduate/fees?programme_cod....

Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#127

Post by neukoelln »

qznc wrote: post #56
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…

Greetings from a fellow KIT CS alumnus.

Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#128

Post by markdown »

lispm wrote: post #42

> Why Germany Educates International Students for Free One thing to remember: That university education may not be that expensive does not mean everybody is allowed to study. Universities often set high barriers. In Germany 27% of young adults get an university degree. OECD average is 40%. It's not because Germans are more stupid, but because there are less students allowed to enter University education. Also there a…

That's interesting. Are there options for the 73% that don't go to Uni? Trade schools?

What about at lower levels (ages 5-12)... do kids get to progress to the next level regardless of performance in an annual exam (like the US "no child left behind" policy), or do they have to have to repeat a year/level if they fail?

Re: Why Germany Educates International Students for Free

#129

Post by yoandy »

MarkMc wrote: post #71

If you are a young person living in a poor country, the two best investments you can make to improve your standard of living are (a) get a university education; and (b) immigrate to a rich country. Germany offers both: 1. A free undergraduate university degree 2. For every graduate: 18 month work visa after graduation 3. For every STEM graduate who earns more than EUR 40,000 per year: approval to work in Germany fore…

> and be able to borrow EUR 9,000 to apply for the student visa As far as I know there is not need of EUR 9,000 to apply for a student Visa, I studied in a german university as an international student, hence I know you do not need such amount of money to apply for Visa. In the other hand in many cases you can get scholarships which compensate for these expenses.
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