American students head to Germany for free college • Hacker News Board

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#141

Post by FanaHOVA » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 2:24 PM UTC

yodsanklai wrote: post #40

I wonder if American students fleeing their country to save on education tax is more than anecdotical. BTW, the article mentions Germany, but isn't education cheap in most European countries?

Here in Italy (Rome exactly) we pay around 1000-2000€ a year of tuition, but that's really what it's worth it. The education is good, but the structures are awful, from labs to classes and lecture halls. I've visited Caltech, Stanford, NYU and Columbia while travelling and they're light years ahead.

If I was born in the US I'd never move to Europe to study anything tech related, being in a major university like Stanford or MiT just gives you so many connections and makes you able to experiment beyond your regular coursework. Just like someone said on a post here a while ago, the difference between you and your friend who studied at Duke is that Tim Cook is just a phone call away because they walked to class together every morning.

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#142

Post by doyoulikeworms » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 2:25 PM UTC

creshal wrote: post #90

doyoulikeworms wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? OECD put it at 27% in 2011[1]. If that number is 38% today, then over 2 million Germans earned post-secondary degrees in the last 4 years. 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_25%E2%80%9...

The Meisterbrief wasn't considered a tertiary degree until 2013, I assume this distorts the statistics.

Ah, that makes sense.

It's funny, because some Americans grumble about the lack of focus on vocational training and trades, while OP was grumbling about the lack of breadth and liberal education in Germany.

The grass is always greener.

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#143

Post by mkaziz » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 2:28 PM UTC

maxlybbert wrote: post #134

khabaal wrote: post #111

As a german who works for a german university, i would like to point out that studying is actually not totally free. Here at the University of applied sciences in Münster, you would have to pay a total 235€ every six month, consisting of a social contribution of 85.44€ and a student body contribution of 145.75€, for which you will get a ticket for free travel by bus or by train inside North Rhine-Westphalia for the w…

> As the website stated, we need skilled immigrants, because with a birth rate of just 1.3 childs per woman, the germans are slowly dying out I had wondered why the German taxpayers would be so generous to American students. Perhaps this will last longer than I expected, especially if some of the students hang around after graduation. I can't imagine it being official policy, but the obvious way to hook people into s…

There's a greater chance of that happening if you live there for 4 years!

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#144

Post by arethuza » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 2:33 PM UTC

kriro wrote: post #100

doczoidberg wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The state pays for your education. Germany has a very good engineering education. Where do you think comes the brand "made in germany" from? We germans still build the best cars and machines.

Slight correction: the brand "made in Germany" was initially invented to warn against low quality products from Germany (19th century used to be a lot of copycat). Quality got better and the meaning changed. [pretty sure it was also used as a "business propaganda" instrument after WW2 and only tipped to "good stuff" after that]

"Vorsprung durch Technik"

My favourite advertising slogan and I'm in the UK!

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/sep/18/vorsprung-durch...

[NB Also a big fan of all VW group products!]

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#145

Post by creshal » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 2:35 PM UTC

doyoulikeworms wrote: post #142

creshal wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Meisterbrief wasn't considered a tertiary degree until 2013, I assume this distorts the statistics.

Ah, that makes sense. It's funny, because some Americans grumble about the lack of focus on vocational training and trades, while OP was grumbling about the lack of breadth and liberal education in Germany. The grass is always greener.

> while OP was grumbling about the lack of breadth and liberal education in Germany.

Yeah, I've no idea where that's supposed to come from. The only area where I'd consider the education to be narrow is at universities – and there it's by design, because after 13 years of breadth-first education in the Gymnasium (mandatory three languages, music, sports, arts, chemistry, philosophy/theology, physics, maths, political education, history, computer science, …) you should be able to pick a specialization without turning into a drooling retard.

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#146

Post by grkvlt » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 2:42 PM UTC

> [The] German admissions process [...] is vastly different than it is in the United States [...] It's much more transparent, and it is entirely academic based [...] There are no recommendations or extensive resumes.

This is exactly the way University admission should be handled. It's much the same throughout Europe and the UK. I would hate to have had to go through the hoop jumping exercise of the US college admission process with all of the emphasis on extracurricular activities and proving that I'm the 'right kind of person' for them.

To apply in the UK, I sent a form with my exam results, and that was it. I could have added a 'personal essay' but didn't even bother. Not sure if this has changed much, but I hope it hasn't...

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#147

Post by Lawtonfogle » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 2:45 PM UTC

grkvlt wrote: post #146

> [The] German admissions process [...] is vastly different than it is in the United States [...] It's much more transparent, and it is entirely academic based [...] There are no recommendations or extensive resumes. This is exactly the way University admission should be handled. It's much the same throughout Europe and the UK. I would hate to have had to go through the hoop jumping exercise of the US college admissi…

How does it handle things like schools that can afford dedicated SAT (or German equivalent) prep classes compared to those that can't?

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#148

Post by Happydayz » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 2:51 PM UTC

iamjdg wrote: post #92

tormeh wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the ideal export to import ratio is 1, BTW. Anything else is an imbalance and a ticking bomb. The internal trade imbalances in the EU have already blown up once.

1? really? i guess you mean reinvesting your net positive export income into efficiency improvements and innovation and maintaining infrastructure? ok, i can agree with that. but one still needs save for a rainy day (emergencies, downturns) so maybe the ideal is slightly greater than 1.

Flip the import/export and mercantilist attitude around and see what happens. Imports simply mean that you are getting what you want from external producers. There is nothing inherently bad or good about this. You could also just as easily say that the US has now offshored a lot of our (dirty/unpleasant/etc) manufacturing requirements to other countries and gets to reap the fruits of their labor.

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#149

Post by htns » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 2:51 PM UTC

Maakuth wrote: post #55

Pirate-of-SV wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Education in Europe is not free. You pay with your qualifications. If your university grades are not good enough, you go out fast. Could you be a little more specific? The size of Europe, America and Asia is too huge for statements like that. There are definitely universities in Europe that are more similar to some in the US than other universities in Europe. I'm a student in Sweden and I have not experienced anyth…

It's the same in Finland, at least in universities. If you don't pass your courses, the state stops paying the student benefits[1], but you can stay at the university. There is another, very low number of courses you need to pass every year in order to stay in, but that is very low indeed, it's only meant to keep registers clean of people not studying at all. 1: That's right, Finns are paid to study. I think students…

Actually, it is also sort of the opposite in Finland. The student grants are smaller than unemployment benefits etc. If you just stay at home doing nothing you are eligible for more money than if you enroll as a student.

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#150

Post by grkvlt » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 2:53 PM UTC

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #147

grkvlt wrote: post #146

> [The] German admissions process [...] is vastly different than it is in the United States [...] It's much more transparent, and it is entirely academic based [...] There are no recommendations or extensive resumes. This is exactly the way University admission should be handled. It's much the same throughout Europe and the UK. I would hate to have had to go through the hoop jumping exercise of the US college admissi…

How does it handle things like schools that can afford dedicated SAT (or German equivalent) prep classes compared to those that can't?

The entry criteria aren't based on something like the SAT, although International Baccelaureate perhaps comes close in Europe? Not sure, maybe someone else can explain?

So there are no prep classes or anything like that in the UK. Everyone sits the same set of exams (modulo being Scottish or English/Welsh/NI, which have different types of qualification) and those results dictate whether you can go to University or not. I suppose you could study more if you wanted?