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Chile is introducing free higher education

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Re: Chile is introducing free higher education

#31

Post by iamcurious »

nazgul wrote: post #5

People don't get that when you make college free, you also take away a lot of the choice that goes into college. German colleges are free but the kids who are chosen to go to them are often selected by the third grade. Lowering the cost of public universities while increasing the quality will pressure private universities to do the same, and thus make college more affordable and accessible for everyone -- it's a much…

Not in Uruguay. Anyone can go into college without any entry exam nor grades taken into account. Also, there are private universities for those who prefer them.

Re: Chile is introducing free higher education

#32

Post by jkot »

hk__2 wrote: post #19
msvalkon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very generalizing argument. Universities are free (paid by taxes obviously) in Finland, but there is no such thing like what you describe. In here the only prerequisite is that you have finished high school, then you can take the entry exams.. It's also not uncommon for someone to go into a university later in their life. My cs courses had a good bunch of people in their fifties re-educating themselves.

In France you don’t even have any entry exams for universities.

And what is drop out rate in first semester?

Re: Chile is introducing free higher education

#33

Post by rpalmaotero »

I'd like to add that right now an even more important discussion in Chile is about the quality of higher education. After the educational laws were modified in the 1980s in order to allow the existence of private universities and technical institutes, many for-profit institutions appeared, even though educational profit is forbidden (institutes found obscure ways to achieve this). A direct consequence of those for-profit institutions was a constant decrease in the quality of higher education, at expenses of overcrowding classrooms or hiring bad professors. People against this new reform argues that government's money should be expended first by fixing the bad-quality the educational system has, and after that is solved, to fund higher education students.

Re: Chile is introducing free higher education

#35

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #28
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #8

I don't think free college works without some sort of strings attached work. It exists in Austria and the quality of students and colleges is terrible. Everybody and their dog go to colleges now dropping the quality to abysmal levels. There is no proper selection happening.

>There is no proper selection. Unless you're trying to filter out poor people, removing tuition makes selection MORE fair. Intelligence and capability should be the only criteria for selection, not money. Free higher education is not some imaginary ideal that doesn't exist yet. Take a look at universities in Sweden. If you're a citizen can attend great universities for free, No Strings Attached.

> Unless you're trying to filter out poor people, removing tuition makes selection MORE fair.

You can have tuitions and financing options for poor people. As far as I understand Harvard and other universities operate schemes like that.

> Intelligence and capability should be the only criteria for selection, not money.

More than intelligence and capability it should be motivation. Make the access to university too easy and you have idiots like me taking up valuable resources because they were not forced to make a proper decision about what's good for them.

Re: Chile is introducing free higher education

#36

Post by nico »

Many problems with the article:

1) There's no way Chilean education is the most expensive in the world. Tuition for an engineering degree at the best universities in Chile is around USD 5k/year, which is way cheaper than pretty much any university in the US. (edit: in fact here's a ranking, and Chile is not even mentioned on it http://www.businessinsider.com/hsbc-australia-is-the-most-ex...)

2) The tax hike was a bust and it generated only around USD 2B, a fourth of what it was expected to bring in. Now they are saying they'll tax people for having a degree!!

3) There is no clear plan to actually implement free higher education. They increased taxes hoping to collect additional money from taxpayers (which didn't work), without knowing how they are going to use the funds.

4) Those students leaders that are now part of congress, deceived the people that supported them and are now supporting completely different things than what they said they would when they were leading the people that got them elected. They basically sold out.

5) The article is from February. Only 2 days ago, the president of Chile announced she was asking for the resignation of all of her ministers. No one knows what will happen next.

6) Even though education in Chile is not the most expensive in the world, it has the highest paid congress people in the world, and they just approved an increase of seats!! Talk about inequality (they make around USD 300k/year, when the average salary in Chile is less than USD 5k/year)!

I'm all up for free education for everyone, but the way the Chilean government is doing it is definitely not the way to go.

PS: all discussions about educational reform in Chile are so short sighted that no one has even touched on the subject of online/virtual education and making education cheaper and more efficient.

Re: Chile is introducing free higher education

#37

Post by mvaliente2001 »

nazgul wrote: post #5

People don't get that when you make college free, you also take away a lot of the choice that goes into college. German colleges are free but the kids who are chosen to go to them are often selected by the third grade. Lowering the cost of public universities while increasing the quality will pressure private universities to do the same, and thus make college more affordable and accessible for everyone -- it's a much…

In Venezuela, there are free colleges run by the government and private for-profit colleges. In the last year of high-school you present a test equivalent of US's SAT, and the result is averaged with your high school notes. You fill a form with three options of profession-college, and according to your score, you're selected.

But the curious thing is that most public colleges are good, and most private colleges are bad. There are few private colleges that worry for academic excellence, but most are for profit. They sell degrees to people who can't get it on the public system. Students unable to get good scores has no other chance. Lazy rich kids who are not interested in studying, go to private colleges, basically, to buy a "title". Professor in private institutions are under constant pressure to pass students, while in public colleges they are free to evaluate according to their criteria (and I know a few professors that work both in public and private colleges).

A friend from India told me that the situation there is similar. I think that here there are profound differences with US and Central Europe colleges, where private institutions have a reputation to keep.

So, I can only say: good for you, Chile! That was the result of years of students' protests. I'm happy they have what we have and what England once had.

Re: Chile is introducing free higher education

#39

Post by agumonkey »

jkot wrote: post #32
hk__2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In France you don’t even have any entry exams for universities.

And what is drop out rate in first semester?

It's incredibly bad. ~40% after first semester. 60%+ will fail the first year. That first year is basically a post high-school buffer. Netherlands have a one year gap for kids to cool off and find what motivates them. France should really adopt that.

Re: Chile is introducing free higher education

#40

Post by S4M »

jkot wrote: post #32
hk__2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In France you don’t even have any entry exams for universities.

And what is drop out rate in first semester?

Don't know about the drop out rate in first semester, but the percentage of students passing the first year can be pretty low. In medicine, I think it's aroung 10%, in maths maybe 30%.
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