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Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

timeshighereducation.co.uk

61–70 of 536 posts

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#61
post #52
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea what this comparison is supposed to mean. Where does journalism come from? The Department of Journalism?

In London, it largely comes from university students interning for free, or desperate young graduates working free internships "to gain experience".

Yeah, and the editors treat them like shit and put their own propaganda slants on their articles.

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#62

Why has no one brought up how the top German university is "ranked" 55th on this list: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-ranki... I'm not saying this list is definitive or that the US tuition prices are reasonable, but it stands to reason that the best of the best of anything is going to be exponentially more expensive than it's next closest competitors.

Because that list was made by Brits. I bet a German made list would look different ;). Anyone who values lists like this is a fool. Just saying.

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social mobility in Germany is very low, doing consistently worse than e.g. the Scandinavian countries (I remember seeing sources claim that it is even worse than the US, but there seems to be no agreement on that). However, as far as education is concerned, it would be wrong to blame universities. The German school system is very stratified, "locking in" a child's destiny at a young age. Via parents who understand th…

Social mobility is very low in France as well and education is pretty much free.

Social mobility is low everywhere in the world, and education is just one small factor so it's not easy to find a correlation there without looking at the bigger picture.

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#64

Why has no one brought up how the top German university is "ranked" 55th on this list: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-ranki... I'm not saying this list is definitive or that the US tuition prices are reasonable, but it stands to reason that the best of the best of anything is going to be exponentially more expensive than it's next closest competitors.

Without going into the metrics that these rankings use and their flaws, the German university system unfortunately focuses less on "elite" universitities, instead trying to create a good average experience, so most of the universities are actually fairly on-par with each other in terms of funding, and therefore also research output, teaching, etc. That being said, my experience with high-prestige american universities has been that the expense has very little to do, and feeds very little into, the quality of the education. US universities are expensive because they have massive bureaucratic overhead and are funded through a peculiar model (Government gives money to people, which give money to universities).

Also, Germany used to have no tuition until the mid-2000s or so, and only some places introduced it, and it was really, really low.

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#65

Has there been any extensive research done on relationship between university fees and social mobility? On one hand it seems obvious that if you reduce costs of attending university you remove a barrier that would prevent economically disadvantaged people from attending. But on the other hand, university students, especially those at the best universities disproportionately come from better economic backgrounds and t…

IIRC Finland has never had university tuition fees and it is the 3rd most equal country in the world. http://www.goodcountry.org/country/FIN

Finnish students get allowance from the government for the duration of their studies (max ~60 months) and get government backed cheap loans which they start paying back after their studies.

My own experience is that there are people from very varying backgrounds in the Finnish universities.

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#66

Why has no one brought up how the top German university is "ranked" 55th on this list: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-ranki... I'm not saying this list is definitive or that the US tuition prices are reasonable, but it stands to reason that the best of the best of anything is going to be exponentially more expensive than it's next closest competitors.

Without going into the metrics that these rankings use and their flaws, the German university system unfortunately focuses less on "elite" universitities, instead trying to create a good average experience, so most of the universities are actually fairly on-par with each other in terms of funding, and therefore also research output, teaching, etc. That being said, my experience with high-prestige american universities has been that the expense has very little to do, and feeds very little into, the quality of the education. US universities are expensive because they have massive bureaucratic overhead and are funded through a peculiar model (Government gives money to people, which give money to universities).

Also, Germany used to have no tuition until the mid-2000s or so, and only some places introduced it, and it was really, really low.

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#67

Has there been any extensive research done on relationship between university fees and social mobility? On one hand it seems obvious that if you reduce costs of attending university you remove a barrier that would prevent economically disadvantaged people from attending. But on the other hand, university students, especially those at the best universities disproportionately come from better economic backgrounds and t…

I am more concerned with good seats going to students who will never complete their degree, or the degree is not needed in the market and you end up with hobby and not a job.

While the idea of removing costs sounds good there are just so many negatives. Means testing should still be done, raise the bar so that the truly well off are the only ones paying and not the lower income levels. The second "means" testing would be, is their object an effective degree. I see no reason to pay for someone's hobby, paying for a degree to benefit society is another.

which redirects my thinking too, its free if your going to be a teacher, public defender, or similar, provided you complete the course and server for a set number of years, no less than ten.

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#68

Why has no one brought up how the top German university is "ranked" 55th on this list: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-ranki... I'm not saying this list is definitive or that the US tuition prices are reasonable, but it stands to reason that the best of the best of anything is going to be exponentially more expensive than it's next closest competitors.

University rankings are full of manure if you will pardon my French.

The model they use favors big general universities with a strong research department. Also how do you evaluate the learning environment? Number of flat screen tvs per student? Number of millions spent on sports facilities?

Teaching: the learning environment (worth 30 per cent of the overall ranking score) Research: volume, income and reputation (worth 30 per cent) Citations: research influence (worth 30 per cent) Industry income: innovation (worth 2.5 per cent) International outlook: staff, students and research (worth 7.5 per cent).

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#69

Why has no one brought up how the top German university is "ranked" 55th on this list: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-ranki... I'm not saying this list is definitive or that the US tuition prices are reasonable, but it stands to reason that the best of the best of anything is going to be exponentially more expensive than it's next closest competitors.

Per

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-ranki...

60% of the ranking is strictly research related, which is meaningless to undergrads although very important to grad students and above, and 10% is admitted to be subjective fluff. Perhaps important fluff, perhaps not, but definitely subjective fluff. Only 30% of the ranking score relates to teaching.

So 60% to 70% of the score is irrelevant to undergrads, and the difference between 1st place and 55th place is a mere thirty percent or so. My engineering "sig figs" spidey sense is tingling that the "ranking" is meaningless.

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