71–80 of 101 posts
Perhaps we should send more kids to Europe for schooling to see how a civil society lives, then bring them back after graduating to fix the problems with America. win/win :)
Perhaps we should send more kids to Europe for schooling to see how a civil society lives, then bring them back after graduating to fix the problems with America. win/win :)
Except we Europeans would pay for your kids education, and get nothing in return. Win/lose.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Notice how both his, your initial and your second comment don't say anything else besides that the title is linkbait and that it says free where in fact you pay a very very small amount? You might have been complaining about something else besides free, but information about what would that be is totally absent from your comments.
Possibly by "his" you mean me, so I perhaps owe an explanation. I thought the point Mithaldu was making was sufficiently obvious. Instead of a title signaling the contents of the article in a straightforward manner, a more sensational sounding title was chosen. A step along the path to "Click here to learn the one amazing simple free education trick expensive US universities don't want you to know about". But the res…
"There don't seem to be many universities elsewhere that compare with the best in America, at least in technology.
In some countries this is the result of a deliberate policy. The German and Dutch governments, perhaps from fear of elitism, try to ensure that all universities are roughly equal in quality. The downside is that none are especially good." [1]
He goes on. Is this still accurate?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In science and engineering, PhD students are typically paid a salary and have their tuition waived. This is mostly funded by the federal government though the NSF, DOE, DOD, etc.
It's the same in Germany. Getting a PhD is basically a job.
How is the quality of engineering education in Germany these days? I quote Paul Graham: "There don't seem to be many universities elsewhere that compare with the best in America, at least in technology. In some countries this is the result of a deliberate policy. The German and Dutch governments, perhaps from fear of elitism, try to ensure that all universities are roughly equal in quality. The downside is that none…
And I don't think his statement is true. He may be right that there is no single(!) university that can compete with MIT for example. But there are excellent groups in various fields at various universities.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article ended with the students saying that they planned to stay in Germany - they didn't want to go back to a country like the US where their children might be bankrupted paying for their education.
FWIW, I dated a German exchange student in highschool (in the US). When asked why she came to the US, she said her dad sent all of her siblings to the US to take driver's ed and get their US license as it was valid in Germany. Apparently it is many thousands of dollars^Weuros to get all of the necessary requirements completed to get a German drivers license. I didn't mean to come off quite like I originally phrased t…
French here, the tuitions are close to 0 in Finland and France too (granted that you learn French). Our parents pay up to 50% (I don't have the exact percentage) of various taxes based on their salaries and daily life goods, and we as children will do the same. It makes sense that our government rewards us in some way: health care for free, school for free, retirement... In Europe, the government avoids you to shoot…
That really depends on your lifestyle. I spend a lot of time in both North Western Europe and the states. I find that the cost of housing, car ownership and driving, power, clothing, basic luxuries are far lower in the US. The higher cost is in things like education, health insurance etc. Over a lifetime it might balance out to the same, but as long as you're healthy and working, a $7k income in most of the US will buy you a life style a European with a $3.5k income could barely imagine.
How is the quality of engineering education in Germany these days? I quote Paul Graham: "There don't seem to be many universities elsewhere that compare with the best in America, at least in technology. In some countries this is the result of a deliberate policy. The German and Dutch governments, perhaps from fear of elitism, try to ensure that all universities are roughly equal in quality. The downside is that none…
Yes, Graham goes on. With a bunch of what I consider to be odd statements: "There are few Jews left in Germany and most Jews I know would not want to move there. And if you took any great American university and removed the Jews, you'd have some pretty big gaps. So maybe it would be a lost cause trying to create a silicon valley in Germany, because you couldn't establish the level of university you'd need as a seed."
So, basically you need a bunch of Jews in order to create a decent academic landscape? That sounds pretty far-fetched. In turn, I am going to offer some anecdotal evidence as well: the faculty I am working / doing research for is providing an international CS degree (MSc.), taught solely in English. We get a lot of international students, the majority from Asia, with only around 15%-20% of German students each term, but given that we partner with some universities in Canada and the U.S., we also have a share of students from those countries. I have been working here for about 5 years, which equals 10 semesters, i.e. I have witnessed at least 10 different batches of students coming here, and so far, US/Canadian students didn't stand out particularly. There is of course some selection bias at work, in that students studying abroad need a certain financial background, language and social skills etc., but I'd counter Graham's "argument" and say that what the German government tries to do is not to ensure that all universities are of (roughly) equal quality, but that there is a common, minimum baseline as to what to expect from a certain level of education.
Our university is part of an organization that spans several universities, research institutes and for a lack of a better word, "think tanks" that offer both education and research facilities for industry / government partners. Each university has student teams that participate in international competitions in our sub-field of CS and constantly come out among the first three places in those competitions. Again, this is a biased result of course, maybe education is simply quite good w.r.t. that specific field, but I highly doubt it, given personal experience. And yes, I consider my personal experience to be as valuable as Graham's assertions above, who is not personally involved in German academia and is providing some very odd reasons for the perceived success of U.S. universities...