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

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#151

Post by Happydayz » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 2:54 PM UTC

TheBeardKing wrote: post #113

Amezarak wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> something to strive for no? No. If everyone strives to be a net exporter, you quickly end up with a race to the bottom. > i think of countries export to import ratios like personal finance income vs expenditures. if you spend more than you make, where we you get the money to reinvest in yourself. you'll borrow it until you can't make the minimum payments and then default. This is the wrong way to think about it. Th…

There may still be too much emphasis on 4-year college requirements for most vocations in the US. Mediocre students are being pushed towards college, where they may or may not graduate, and end up with debt even with federal and state subsidies. Worst case is not finishing and having tons of debt with nothing to show for it. These same people would be much better off with a 2-year vocational degree, and a job market…

US educators are well aware of the German model. Like you said, we've opted not to go with serious tracking for students. The minimal tracking we already do is controversial as is. It would be a huge ruckus for us to do what the Germans do and start segregating students by ability soon after elementary school. We just value different things differently, and in this particular case we accept less optimal social outcomes in the name of greater quality.

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#152

Post by AndrewKemendo » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 3:00 PM UTC

Quite frankly, Germany is eating the US' lunch when it comes to advanced Computer Vision research and applications. My guess is that it's because of things like this.

So, that is a tough thing for us when recruiting because they have so many easier options over there instead of working, even remote, for people in the US.

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#153

Post by steveridout » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 3:02 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…

Unless things have changed recently, before getting accepted to one of the top universities in the UK you'll be expected to do an in-person interview.

(I remember having to choose one lecture to study beforehand and I chose Feynman's introduction to Special Relativity. I didn't even know who Feynman was at the time but really enjoyed his book of lectures, and a couple of years later he became one of my heroes after reading "Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman")

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#154

Post by pwenzel » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 3:07 PM UTC

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…

That's pretty fair, considering many schools in the US now cost $25,000 USD a year. How much is health insurance?

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#155

Post by clarry » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 3:12 PM UTC

htns wrote: post #149

Maakuth wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And I'm thinking of dropping out because of this. I'm just accumulating debt because the student's benefits are not enough for me to live on. The quality of teaching in my uni is really quite shit and they've seriously "compacted" important courses (e.g. in math) and it looks like most students in my group are not leaning anything at all, nor are they expected to. It's quite demotivating, even depressing.

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#156

Post by nazgob » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 3:13 PM UTC

galfarragem wrote: post #139

gambiting wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know how engineering courses look like in Poland. Universities are 100% free, but they have absolutely no qualms about kicking out weaker students. Electrical engineering course at any of the largest universities in Poland will enroll 300-400 people,but 200 of them will fail the first year. The last year is usually finished by In contrast, I studied in UK and getting through university at an Engineering course was…

As an anecdote, some years ago, I heard about people in Poland that enroll in college (where education is nearly free) just to have access to student discounts! Student discounts used to be massive in public transportation, accommodation and almost everywhere, even in some restaurants and bars in academic cities. Nowadays these discounts are not as they used to be, so I don't think it is still a common practice.

Some discounts are still significant (33% for railway and mass transit). But I don't think that it would be enough to go through trouble of applying to university. You would be kicked out for not passing first semester anyway. What destroyed recruitment strategies for less popular faculties was army. When army abandoned mandatory conscription many less popular faculties where quite surprised by dramatic drop in number of candidates. People used to apply to escape military service and some of them actually finished degrees despite silly motivation to apply in the beginning.

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#157

Post by tempodox » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 3:14 PM UTC

adaml_623 wrote: post #109

tempodox wrote: post #91

If the Germans have any sense, they will lift a fee from U.S. students. Taxpayers won't appreciate having their money thrown away just so that aliens can have a free ride.

Just ask yourself if there are any other benefits to having U.S. students studying in your country. Think outside the box. Your comment comes across as quite xenophobic with it's 'aliens can have a free ride'.

Calling someone xenophobic because they would be unwilling to give away for free what is worth money everywhere else to people who didn't contribute to what they're taking, comes across as quite self-serving.

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#158

Post by doyoulikeworms » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 3:19 PM UTC

creshal wrote: post #145

doyoulikeworms wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Well, I don't know anything about Gymnasium, but it doesn't sound very different from K-12 compulsory education in California. Except the many languages and computer science-- children learn to program in Germany? That's amazing.

I don't think the average high school-educated American is a drooling retard (contrary to popular belief...), but the onerous General Education requirements of bachelor's degrees provide additional breadth of knowledge.

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#159

Post by paddyzab » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 3:26 PM UTC

galfarragem wrote: post #139

gambiting wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know how engineering courses look like in Poland. Universities are 100% free, but they have absolutely no qualms about kicking out weaker students. Electrical engineering course at any of the largest universities in Poland will enroll 300-400 people,but 200 of them will fail the first year. The last year is usually finished by In contrast, I studied in UK and getting through university at an Engineering course was…

As an anecdote, some years ago, I heard about people in Poland that enroll in college (where education is nearly free) just to have access to student discounts! Student discounts used to be massive in public transportation, accommodation and almost everywhere, even in some restaurants and bars in academic cities. Nowadays these discounts are not as they used to be, so I don't think it is still a common practice.

My girlfriend and her friends, did it in Germany too.

You got for free card for public transport, which for Berlin only cost me 80 Euro/month. Also health insurance is somehow cheaper.

I think there is still an age gap, to prohibit people from overusing it.

Re: American students head to Germany for free college

#160

Post by josephmx » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 3:27 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?

Better or richer schools will always have an advantage over schools with worse teachers or less funding, particularly with the way we currently do exams.