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Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

timeshighereducation.co.uk

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Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#181

Post by Retric »

shkkmo wrote: post #166
Retric wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This get's into some really complex cost benefit analysis. They directly pay more in taxes with that extra earnings. However, something like smoking has negative externalities so a specific tax on smoking is justifiable. But, education has positive externalities so subsidizing it is justified. Consider, a doctor might make more money but the value of the lives they save is greater than their income. So, it's really a…

Actually, calculations on the social cost of smoking are complicated. We pay more for their healthcare initially, but they die younger so we pay their social security for less time. Depending on how you calculate it, smoking can be seen to be cost neutral, or even to save the country money. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/08/how-much-does-smoki...

I have seen that argument but it ignores second hand smoke. As well as adverse health effects reducing productivity in the working population. Not to mention "Smoking cigarettes is probably the No. 1 cause of adverse outcomes for babies"

http://www.babycenter.com/0_how-smoking-during-pregnancy-aff...

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#182

Post by warfangle »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #171
xixixao wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not so much anecdotal as circumstantial. If everyone was taking the loan, you probably would too. It is the same in England, were students took loans for 3,5k pounds a year and now even 9k a year. Now I am not saying that the British system is the ideal (pros and cons) but I can certainly provide some more anecdotal evidence of many people who study for free (in the Czech Republic) and are basically wasting the…

Maybe a free education, but add a screening process to measure the psychology of the student, help choose a profession or trade that will not be a waste of their time.

University should not be trade or professional school.

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#183

Post by smm2000 »

sucramb wrote: post #126
smm2000 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany has not so far produced a single website or app that is hugely popular internationally. It does not mean it could not - it certainly have educated population to do it but the fact is it has not.

Zalando made their IPO just yesterday. $768M collected and $6.8B market cap.

Zalando is European company with very few sales outside of EU.

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#184

Post by giveuptheghost »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #19

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…

Most of the evidence[1] I've seen tends to suggest that whether or not you'll attend university is determined at a very young age. If credit and scholarships are available, then the fees themselves are unlikely to be a deterrent, hence no fees is a subsidy on the rich. This strand of research doesn't really talk about the differences in performance once admitted, though (piling up debt might be extra motivation to do well).

What I'd like to read more about is research on progressive fee systems (e.g. based on family income) and the consequences on admissions and subsequent performance.

[1] e.g. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-0297.00075/a...

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#185

Post by gbrindisi »

digikata wrote: post #177
nhaehnle wrote: post #39

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 may be low, but is the range of social/income disparity as high as in the US?

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=gini+index+germany+usa

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#186

Post by smm2000 »

janmonschke wrote: post #130
smm2000 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany has not so far produced a single website or app that is hugely popular internationally. It does not mean it could not - it certainly have educated population to do it but the fact is it has not.

You obviously haven't heard of SoundCloud then ;) (founders are Swedes but company is based in Berlin)

Good point, I did not know about SoundCloud.

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#187

Post by shkkmo »

shkkmo wrote: post #166
Retric wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This get's into some really complex cost benefit analysis. They directly pay more in taxes with that extra earnings. However, something like smoking has negative externalities so a specific tax on smoking is justifiable. But, education has positive externalities so subsidizing it is justified. Consider, a doctor might make more money but the value of the lives they save is greater than their income. So, it's really a…

Actually, calculations on the social cost of smoking are complicated. We pay more for their healthcare initially, but they die younger so we pay their social security for less time. Depending on how you calculate it, smoking can be seen to be cost neutral, or even to save the country money. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/08/how-much-does-smoki...

Downvote? I merely pointed out that the costs of smoking are also complicated.

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#188

Post by thro1237 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #171
xixixao wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not so much anecdotal as circumstantial. If everyone was taking the loan, you probably would too. It is the same in England, were students took loans for 3,5k pounds a year and now even 9k a year. Now I am not saying that the British system is the ideal (pros and cons) but I can certainly provide some more anecdotal evidence of many people who study for free (in the Czech Republic) and are basically wasting the…

Maybe a free education, but add a screening process to measure the psychology of the student, help choose a profession or trade that will not be a waste of their time.

This is true. I had to clear an 'entrance examination' to prove my aptitude in engineering. But the problem is the people who would benefit the most from free education (at the lower social/income strata) will most likely have poor aptitude for high-income potential professions as well, because of poor primary and secondary schools they would have had access to. I know that some institutes take such students and provide one year of remedial education before providing an engineering education. They will take one more year to graduate, but overall a win-win situation.

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#189

Post by gress »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #171
xixixao wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not so much anecdotal as circumstantial. If everyone was taking the loan, you probably would too. It is the same in England, were students took loans for 3,5k pounds a year and now even 9k a year. Now I am not saying that the British system is the ideal (pros and cons) but I can certainly provide some more anecdotal evidence of many people who study for free (in the Czech Republic) and are basically wasting the…

Maybe a free education, but add a screening process to measure the psychology of the student, help choose a profession or trade that will not be a waste of their time.

You mean like in the movie, Divergent?

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#190

Post by PythonicAlpha »

shamney wrote: post #174
PythonicAlpha wrote: post #160

It should be noted here, that in the past (10-20 years ago), Germany did not have any tuition fees ... and fared very well with this model for many decades. Only lately, because the German govnmt wanted to save the costs for the universities, they invented the fees with the argument, that with more funding, the quality of education could be better. But many universities just used the money to cover costs, that where…

student loans in the UK are provided by the government at relatively low interest rates. There is a minimum earning threshold before repayment can begin and a hard limit on the total proportion of income that can be taken for repayment. So no one is "at the mercy of the banks" and only a small number of people have been discouraged from attending university.

> and only a small number of people have been discouraged from attending university.

How do you know that. Have you asked the people?

I doubt what you say (not about the loans, I guess you know better than I, but in the US people are really at the mercy of the banks).

Even, when only few are discouraged, you have a loss.

The UK gvnmt should know: You can't have both: Save money and have good education for all without losses. When many use the loans, the savings for the UK are limited, since not all will be able to repay the money in full. Also the UK looses the money from the people that did not attend university. And it looses innovation -- all things that can not be calculated, but might finally well excell the pennies, the UK saves now. It even might loose the future (UK already has nearly only banking left as most important industry, so innovation would be really needed to revive the former proud "empire").

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