Universities are Free again in Germany

[D.P.]

Has she got some funding/scholarship from them or are their fees rather modest compared to other US institutions?

Most of the top US schools would seem to have higher fees than the 9k per year charged by the UK universities but also seem to have plenty of funds and will seemingly subsidise people for a variety of reasons from academic achievement to race and parent's income. I remember reading about a girl in the UK, straight A* student, rejected from Oxford but on the bright side given a free ride by Harvard with a fully funded place.

People tend to pick up on the headline figures and think that applies to every university and every student.

In-state tuition at state schools is usually cheaper than England, and that includes many top university like UC Berkley etc. As you point out many of the private school have relatively high list price, but the average student will pay no where near this as the actual costs will depend on their family income. If your family can afford to pay $50K pa tuition then you may well end up doing that at some select private schools but that isn't universal.

Then there is the fact that the headline figure typically includes full accommodation, food, transport, utilities etc.

Overall it is very easy to get better and cheaper university education in the US compared to England, especially if you move states to somewhere with excellent state schools.

Even at full cost private school, e.g. where my wife teaches it is around $55k pa, most of the students upon graduation will walk in to a job paying $100K

 

[Xordium]

She may work at Harvard Law for all we know. In which case it's likely more.

 

[Xordium]

Is Harvard law separate, then? I thought the different departments would all be within the Harvard University entity... with the 'school' he referred to being the whole uni, rather than cherry-picking a university's best department.

Law might skew things a bit given the JD is a post-grad thing, also.

Well he said his wife worked for a "school" I presumed he meant a specific area in university and for Harvard and say Columbia or Chicago such a statement would be correct. So it depends where she works for and in what context he uses the word "school". I am assuming he doesn't mean media studies or the history of art!

 

[Xordium]

I assumed he meant a uni, given people refer to university as 'school' (NB. based on pop culture, almost exclusively ).

I wouldn't have a clue about "pop culture" these days so I am not going to argue with that one!

 

[oulton]

AND GUESS WHAT?

GAY MARRAIGE IS ILLEGAL IN GERMANY.

BRILLIANT COUNTRY.

STICK THAT UP YOUR PIPES AND SMOKE IT!

 

[No1newts]

100%. Education is just remembering for the imminent test.

Why we have so many modular based examinations. Couple months teaching. Test. Couple months teaching. Test. Makes everyone look brighter; and gives you more opportunities to re-take if you failed an exam. Compared to when you had just one exam at the end of the year.

In my job I sometimes take interviews. I interview various people with various levels of education. On paper most of these people blow me out the water. A and A*s all across the board, some have degrees.

(I left school with 12 GCSE's A-C and went college; maths C, P.E A, Economics B, Physics D... no degree... I am 26.)

But some of these candidates can't even string a sentence together, and the IQ test scores are horrific... does make you wonder.

It's shocking, I have a degree myself but you see some graduates come through with Micky mouse degrees and they have no real prospects. They have been sold a line just to hit a target.

Teaching itself in the UK (I'm not sure which other countries are the same) is fundamentally flawed. Teaching to test does no good, test situations bar a little bet of the coping with pressure skill it helps develop does nothing for a career. In my job if I need to know something I didn't memorise it 4 years when I started with the business's I pick up a service manual/read a policy or procedure/research the risk assessments exam "skills" are completely redundant.

An overhaul to move all teaching to a combination of coursework/essay/dissertation and then open book exams with a focus on examining the pupils reasoning/arguement construction/debating/logic would be much more beneficial not just to the pupil to take them further in life but to the economy and businesses who would have well taught and intelligent people as opposed to parrots.

/rant

 

[Strife212]

And, guess what, all the top ranked Universities are British and American

 

[StriderX]

And, guess what, all the top ranked Universities are British and American

Ranked by individuals with a bias, no less.

Who the hell cares what Uni you go to, all that matters is the degree is worthwhile and taught well enough, one can earn equal amounts to someone who might think they deserve top-pay fresh of Oxford/Harvard.

 

[Xordium]

And, guess what, all the top ranked Universities are British and American

You need to look at the specific area you are interested in tbh and see how individual universities perform in that area.

 

[Hades]

Ranked by individuals with a bias, no less.

Who the hell cares what Uni you go to, all that matters is the degree is worthwhile and taught well enough, one can earn equal amounts to someone who might think they deserve top-pay fresh of Oxford/Harvard.

Some blue chip companies target grads from top tier unis. I have been in meetings where people have been rejected from a role and the potential hiring manager commented that the candidate hadn't been to a sufficiently good uni.

Luckily for the candidate I don't view it that way and offered him a role myself because he was good.

 

[Mr Jack]

The reality is that in the UK we invest a greater proportion of our national income in education than Germany

I'm not sure whether this is true of education overall but it is certainly not true of university eduction. Only four countries in Europe (Hungary, Portugal, Italy and Greece) spend less of their GDP on university education than we do.

...and we have the top universities that Germany envies.

These are legacy of a time long before tuition fees were introduced. If we continue our policies of gross underfunding and anti-academic marketisation, our universities will not remain at the top of the list. The increasing quality of English spoken in Europe is going to help a lot too; we've enjoyed a considerable advantage from being native speakers of (more or less) the same language as the Americans.

 

[do_ron_ron]

There was a time when it was free in the UK so it bloody worked but the greedy war mongers would rather waste billions on unjustified wars that just creates more terrorism whilst raping ME natural resources to line their pockets than support our education system.

Only partly true. At the time you mentioned only a small percentage of people went to university and it was affordable. It also suited the British economy as it was and always has been a low wage, low skill economy. Only when it was rapidly expanded in Bliars time did it become unaffordable and for our economy totally unnecessary.

 

[Diddums]

I came in to this thread thinking that universities in Germany had somehow been captured and have now been released again.

I am leaving disappointed.