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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

#191

Post by wmt »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #45
watwut wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"university students especially those at the best universities disproportionately come from better economic backgrounds and this seems to be true everywhere. In this case it doesn't seem fair to tax people who are poor to pay for something that is mainly of benefit to the rich." That is the argument used to introduce the fees. Once they are introduced, poor person chance to get into university gets even lower. Expens…

This is the core of my question. Is there evidence that lowering fees does increase participation in university from poorer people and does this still hold true if the fee paying can be deferred? More to the point, does it increase participation of poor people in the best universities and the best (as reflected in higher salaries) degree programmes?

Rising tuition fees have gone hand in hand with a declining number of lower income students, so can be said as a fact that lower tuition fees increase the number of students from poorer families. A quick googling found this Education Dept publication noticing the trend http://www.studyinfinland.fi/tuition_and_scholarships/tuitio..., but I imagine more data can be found by looking at countries where tuition fees have risen faster than the income levels, like in Canada or USA.

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#192

Post by pkill17 »

bovermyer wrote: post #172
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…

That seems like a really low amount to pay for tuition. In the US, many universities charge upwards of $20,000 per year, some as high as $100,000 a year.

Are you going to cite facts to back up your claims of a $100,000 university? You roughly doubled the tuition, room and board, and required fees of NYU, commonly cited as the most expensive private U.S. university.

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#193

Post by thro1237 »

xixixao wrote: post #168
thro1237 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only provide anecdotal evidence. I come from a poor family and studied in India in a government university by paying $20/year. The cost of providing that education was estimated at $1000/year and private universities used to charge as much. If the government had not provided that subsidy, I would not have taken a loan to the tune of $1000/year because that would have been too risky. I would have opted for the l…

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…

This is my exactly my point. In the US, many students take an educational loan -- but, I would argue that most students in the lower social strata (e.g. African Americans whose parents have not had the benefit of college education) still think consider it a risky option and that 'it is not for them'. And those who graduate after a student loan are forced to take suboptimal choices (because now they have to pay back that loan). Also, I don't understand why a university education has to be so expensive -- you can get great content through MOOCs. If you can somehow combine that with mentoring (from senior students), you can easily provide low cost, high quality education to those who need it.

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#194

Post by k-mcgrady »

thro1237 wrote: post #193
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…

This is my exactly my point. In the US, many students take an educational loan -- but, I would argue that most students in the lower social strata (e.g. African Americans whose parents have not had the benefit of college education) still think consider it a risky option and that 'it is not for them'. And those who graduate after a student loan are forced to take suboptimal choices (because now they have to pay back t…

>> "consider it a risky option"

In the UK system there is no risk. You only have to pay back the loan (form the government) when you are earning over a certain amount per year. It is taken directly from your salary like other taxes. If you never earn enough money you never have to pay it back. If you choose to live and work abroad you don't have to pay either.

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#195

Post by JoeAltmaier »

warfangle wrote: post #182
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Right; to be clear, Instead of University students could be directed to a trade or profession that would suit them better (than wasting everyone's time in a four-year institution)

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#196

Post by lucio »

toyg wrote: post #148
cmdkeen wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of those things act like any other tax. That's all it is, a tax you may one day stop paying. A mortgage is dependent on your ability to repay, i.e. your net income, if the income tax rate went up then mortgage companies would also reduce the amount they would lend you. The alternatives are either a graduate tax - which has all of the issues you mention, except you never stop paying it, so potentially pay far more…

> general taxation in which case the people who didn't go to university (generally less well off) are paying for your degree. That's a nice story, but it doesn't tally with the other story about UK tax revenues being overwhelmingly provided by well-off people. So which is which? General taxation is not a bogeyman, if done fairly. If a poor person had to pay 1p per year to send a poor kid to university, with the other…

Counter example: There are 8000 poor persons paying 1p and 10 well-of paying 100 for his kids to go to university. None of the 8000 poor people has kids in univ.

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#197

Post by sillysaurus3 »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #194
thro1237 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my exactly my point. In the US, many students take an educational loan -- but, I would argue that most students in the lower social strata (e.g. African Americans whose parents have not had the benefit of college education) still think consider it a risky option and that 'it is not for them'. And those who graduate after a student loan are forced to take suboptimal choices (because now they have to pay back t…

>> "consider it a risky option" In the UK system there is no risk. You only have to pay back the loan (form the government) when you are earning over a certain amount per year. It is taken directly from your salary like other taxes. If you never earn enough money you never have to pay it back. If you choose to live and work abroad you don't have to pay either.

In the US, it's very risky. If you default on your loan, your credit will be terrible, and your credit determines the quality of your life. It determines what house you can get and whether you can get internet service.

You have to pay your loan regardless of whether you have a job or not, or whatever your financial condition is. Exceptions can be made (you go through a loan handler, so it's whatever they say) but overall it's a risk. It's just a risk that pays off for most people.

That UK system sounds pretty wonderful.

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#198

Post by luch »

DasIch wrote: post #180
luch wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a French I'm always find those rankings entertaining : for exemple the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) is ranked 65 with a research score 37.1 . The ENS has outputted 11 Fields winning mathematicians (20% of the world's laureates) and 10 Nobel prizes. In comparison, Cornell Uni. (19th) count 13 alumni which has won the Nobel.

Research as well as number of graduates with noteworthy awards is a rather questionable metric, for someone chosing a university right now. The number of awards is particularly problematic due to the timeframes involved not to mention the fact, that you are probably going to study something different and thereby at a different faculty than those successful graduates.

I'm not saying my metric is better, the problem lies in the fact that we are comparing oranges and apples here.

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#199

Post by PythonicAlpha »

raverbashing wrote: post #73

I find the "American model" and the "European model" dichotomy very interesting. American model: individually centered, "pay for what you want", development is driven by small companies and individual decisions (most of the time). "Works for me" European model: centered on the community, social support, development by committee/government/consensus. Slow but directed improvements Germany could not have produced Faceb…

I don't see the connection here.

  In the US you have millionaires came out of "nothing" (of course, from nice universities, nice contacts, etc), people jumping at opportunities, while in Europe this would take 2 meetings, 3 viability studies and 4 months.
That is a really narrow view and a myth that is just not applicable to the majority of people.

Besides extreme things like Facebook, most people of the US are stick to their destiny. If you can't afford to attend an university, you have not much more chance to rise out of the dust in the US than in Europe. Those that succeed are very few. Of course those are presented everywhere, to prove the US dream.

People like Bill Gates never came from poor destiny. Gates parents already where rich. The rich in the US also provide, that people from lower classes don't enter theirs. You have to have visited the right university (costly!) or you have to have the right parents to get the well paid jobs -- or both of course.

Of course, the possibilities in some sectors like IT are better and when you have ideas, you can easier get some money. Also when you loose, you get easier a second chance ... but all that has nothing to do with the education system and even less with university fees.

Re: Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

#200

Post by josu »

wmt wrote: post #191
jiggy2011 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the core of my question. Is there evidence that lowering fees does increase participation in university from poorer people and does this still hold true if the fee paying can be deferred? More to the point, does it increase participation of poor people in the best universities and the best (as reflected in higher salaries) degree programmes?

Rising tuition fees have gone hand in hand with a declining number of lower income students, so can be said as a fact that lower tuition fees increase the number of students from poorer families. A quick googling found this Education Dept publication noticing the trend http://www.studyinfinland.fi/tuition_and_scholarships/tuitio... , but I imagine more data can be found by looking at countries where tuition fees have…

>so can be said as a fact that lower tuition fees increase the number of students from poorer families.

Correlation does not imply causation. In Spain, jobs that did not require a university degree were paying really well before the crisis, so many people were joining the labor force at a young age instead of going to university. From my observations, this was specially prevalent among people that came from less educated families. Suppose that at the same time university fees were going up (I'm not sure about this). In that scenario, if you looked at the data, you could wrongly conclude that rising tuition fees were discouraging people with less educated backgrounds from attending university.

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