All of these stories suggest United States students who simply haven't done enough shopping among United States colleges, of which there are thousands. Most of the situations described could fit the same student getting a complete tuition waiver (variously deemed "financial aid" or a "merit scholarship") at plenty of United States universities. List price is not the price that many college and university students pay to gain their higher education degrees, and full list price is plenty low at many United States colleges and universities.
On the other hand, as an American who studied abroad (after gaining my undergraduate degree here), I have to say I'm happy that American students are considering studying overseas, as that has educational value (being in another country) even if the college is a poor value:cost trade-off. Especially studying in a non-English-speaking country (as I did) is very educational, and I highly recommend that to any American.
Full need-based aid (not merit scholarships), is extremely rare outside the very top universities.
At other schools, including those ranked in the top 30 or so, "need-based aid" is a euphemism for loans, often in extremely high amounts.
Anecdotal, but I've even seen bait-and-switch tactics at some places: my brother was accepted at Tufts with a decent aid package, and then after freshman year, with no change in family financials, saw it drastically reduced. He dropped out and transferred immediately.
As mentioned in other comments, American education has a lot of pricing similarities to American healthcare, and the lack of any sort of true market mechanisms is a big reason why. Good to see some price pressure getting applied.
Now, whether or not this is a good idea for Germany is a whole different question...
The point of this article is that as a B+ student, you can get into a globally competitive university for free. Financial aid at a competitive college in the US is available to students at A- or above.
A different view is countries compete for knowledge-based workers that may go on and start startups. The key criterion in starting a startup isn't academic performance. In a startup heading towards a foreign environment and navigating it may be just as valuable.
The article may also be pointing to the beginning of a trend. That globally competitive universities exploit a major flaw in the US education system.
"I feel like my child is getting an absolute wonderful education over there for free. Betrayal is too strong of a word, but why can't we do that here?""
There is some truth to this. For my Master's degree, I got a fellowship where I did some work that the university had a grant for (maybe 10-20 hrs/wk) and they fully covered my tuition and housing, with a bit left for food (but I would have had to eat very cheaply to make it cover all of my food).
Studying in Germany isn't a bad idea at all. My brother did and it seems, unsurprisingly, that German degrees are well respected in the automotive engineering industry here in the states.
On the other hand, there's 10,160 German students studying full time in the US at a higher nominal price from a 4x smaller population. Perhaps sometimes the cost premium is worth it? Especially if you can get others to pay it via scholarships.
If you land in the Ivy league, then yes the price tag might be worth it. Who wouldn't hire an MIT engineer, or an Harvard Lawyer if they can afford it? But if you are not at the top schools why rack up the same type of student debt while you can get the same level anywhere else in the world?
If your field is cultural then yes studying in the country in which it is more pertinent makes sense (Why study Japanese literature in Italy just to illustrate). But if your field is technical, or removed enough from local culture then looking around makes all the sense in the world.
But frankly there is plenty of schools that I regard as highly as MIT, CMU and such that are Europe (Polytech Paris, Poly Lausanne, Normal School of Pisa, Poly Milan, ... I am forgetting a lot) or Asia (Tokyo Tech) and while you might need to get a loan for some costs it will never get to US levels (I studied in Unis in Italy, France and Japan to get my BS and MS and all my loans were exactly EUR15000 by the time I found a
job ... I had part-times and Scholarships but those were not hard to get, and I had declared bankruptcy I could have gotten rid of those since I took those loans in Europe).
Of course if you can land in the Ivy League, or at least in the top half of it, you won't have any tradeoffs to make: the financial aid for families making less than $100K has gotten really good at Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Stanford (I think MIT as well, not sure on the other Ivies).
I made a slight profit in my final year at Harvard, combining financial aid with 5-10 hours a week of part-time work.
Obviously it was nice for me, but it's sort of gross, in that the kids who need aid least (based on future earning potential) get copious amounts of it, while others are (in my opinion) scammed into onerous, non-dischargeable loans, with lower earning potential to boot.
I'd assume the real reason is that German is a very hard language rarely taught/learned in the US, and conversely, every German student with university access qualification has had at least 7 years of English lessons...
It is one of the easier ones to learn if your starting point is English. There are also plenty of study materials available -- for free. Plus the Goethe institutes.
You can watch German TV here:
mediathek.daserste.de/sendungVerpasst
Start with "Die Sendung mit der Maus" on Sundays :)
sure, but the Anglo Saxon words sharing common roots with German have diverged at lot once you get beyond phrases as simple as "mein Name ist". It's not just a reflection on the English education system that after 5 years of high school German (and an A grade!) I could often grok more from a text written in a Romance language I hadn't learned than written German.
On the plus side, German has no sounds English speakers should find difficult to pronounce, nicely regular word order and a fondness for compound words which are as simple to remember as they are long, but by the standards of European language groups the vocabulary really isn't that similar.
Indeed (in der Tat), it's a remarkably easy language to learn for Anglo-saxons. Many words are even spelt the same way.
Lamp lamp
Light licht
Arm arm
Hand hand
Finger finger
Often words that are spelt weirdly in english (compared to how they're pronounced) make sense when you know the way they're pronounced in German e.g. eight (acht).
The only real complications are to do with declensions (nominative, accusative, genitive, etc.), subject-verb-object syntax, and composed words. But any programmer who can work in different programming languages will find those rather easy to learn.
Are Italian universities cheap even for non-EU citizens? That's the part that is somewhat unusual about Germany's scheme, that it's near-free for anyone. Most EU countries with low tuition extend that only to EU citizens, and charge higher (sometimes UK-level) fees to non-EU foreigners. For example in Denmark there is zero tuition for EU citizens, but €10,000/yr tuition for non-EU citizens. This is because under the EU's equal-treatment provisions, EU countries have to treat other EU students equally with their own nationals. So those with no/low tuition for domestic students have to offer the no/low tuition also to other EU students. But they can chage non-EU nationals what they want, and many are lately treating foreign students (often from Asia) as a source of income.
> By the way only 280€ in Munich seems a little off to me...
Yes, it's more to the tune of 500€ at average for a room in a shared appartment (Source: https://www.wg-suche.de/magazin/wg-zimmer-preise-an-hochschu...). It's probably possible to find something a bit cheaper, but 280€ would be very optimistic. Maybe this is the price of some University accommodation, which is very limited in capacity, i.e. impossible to get.
I'm not sure that's the case in Munich. There are special arrangements for exchange students, but it seems that everyone else is treated in the same way. For university accommodation there are waiting lists for various buildings, with waiting times of up to two years. In order to give new students a chance to get accommodation at all, they hold a lottery every semester exclusively for new students. If you don't win, then you're put on the waiting list with your original date of application. Oh, and all this is possible only for students of low income (who are eligible for BaföG).
It's about perspective. Besides education, one might plan to land a job nearby. Italy is very expensive while salaries are ridiculously low compared to northern Europe.
"It's not unattractive for us when knowledge and know-how come to us from other countries and result in jobs when these students have a business idea and stay in Berlin to create their start-up," -- Steffen Krach, Berlin's Secretary of Science.
> She did not need German, however, in her Master's programme, which was filled with students from 50 different countries but taught entirely in English. In fact, German universities have drastically increased all-English classes to more than 1,150 programmes across many fields.
I just recently read that foreign students in Germany are failing extraordinarily often. Mostly because of the language.
For someone who wants to go down that route in the US I would heavily recommend learning German intensively for at least two years before even going to Germany, and make sure you can read German almost as fast as their native (English/Spanish) language.
Is it? That is the opposite of my experience! I spent a few months in Berlin and I had to struggle to get people to speak German -- nine out of ten times someone would hear my American accent and immediately switch over to English... I wonder if it varies region to region (I admittedly didn't get out of Berlin too often)?
Berlin is pretty much an exception. My wife has family all over Germany and outside of Berlin and possibly Hamburg I find that very few people speak decent over even any English. And it gets worse the further east you go.
That being said it also seems to be generational. People under 30 tend to know English at a much higher rate than those over 50.
Bullshit. I live in Germany and am learning German but everyone here speaks English. If you even sound the slightest bit non-German they respond in English. It does vary from city to city but I have experienced this universally and have colleagues who have lived elsewhere in Germany that this is indeed the case.
There are also English BA programs, like our program in computational linguistics. We have a lot of international students, including students from the US.
Even most masters programmes are still in German (I would say at least 90%). English programmes are getting more, but there you have the problem that still most people will be native German speakers. Even if most people there would speak excellent English it would still slow down the pace and lead to a reduced quality of teaching.
Background: Germany has tons of foreign students, many from countries with poor school systems. I don't think that their performance is informative about how someone from the US would fare. But yes, speaking German is certainly a plus, even if your program is in English.
While the education in Germany is no doubt great. But the benefits of studying in Harvard or Stanford outweigh free education by miles, IMO. I got my MS degree in Finland, my wife got her MS and PhD from Finland. But we both want to send our kids to Harvard or Stanford.
I can't speak for digitalsurgeon, but I can think of a few (without having ever studied at either of those universities):
1) The professors. Imagine taking classes and interacting with Nobel prize winners, or other famous people in your field (let's say, taking a class with Knuth at Stanford).
2) The networking/social aspects. Imagine being college roommates with "the next Mark Zuckerberg", whoever that may be.
3) More cynically, the pedigree. This one isn't strictly required, but it helps enormously if you want to get into academia, and it can also help you with an industry career or start a startup (it can make things easier).
1) This happens at other universities, including ones in Europe. Imagine walking the same corridors as Newton walked, or being taught by professors who currently work at CERN.
2) Most top tier universities would have this, imagine being college roommates with the next Stephen Hawking or Prime Minister.
3) The pedigree depends on what you are studying, and other nations have their own prestigious universities
The problem is, if your kids can't cut it to Harvard or Stanford, or they don't qualify for aid, what are you going to do? Sink $250K+ in education for your kids?
That might be true, but not everybody can get into Harvard or Stanford, and for most people, those universities are prohibitively expensive.
If you're part of the tiny elite for whom Harvard and Stanford are an option, by all means go for it. But for a lot of people, studying abroad might be a better idea.
There's a nice: do your undergraduate in Europe for free (and do well there), then do a Masters at your target US elite institution. Much cheaper, same brand recognition and Masters programs are a lot less selective, i.e. easier to get in.
This is not unique to Germany. Finland also offers free degrees for everybody, although there are rumbles about changing this from 2017-ish. Get in while you can ;)
It's also worth mentioning that in smaller countries like Finland, the level of English is correspondingly higher, since everybody has been exposed to it since they were young children and, by the time you get to the university level, most textbooks are in English only. In larger EU countries like Germany and France this is not the case.
As someone who visited Finland and Sweden for a long period of time in my youth (and attended school in Finland), the spoken English was vastly better in Sweden than in Finland (at the gr.7 level).
Yup, Swedes find English easier because the languages are related, while Finnish is not. But broadly speaking, more or less anybody under 50 (60?) or so in Finland will speak and understand English enough to communicate, and in a university environment staff and students will be effectively bilingual.
When you see an english tv program in Sweden or Finnish is often in english with subtitles in the country language. South European countries instead normally translate the program to the language of the country. Is as simple as this. Each system have its own advantages and handicaps.
Germany is also discussing how to better the situation here because many foreigners don't finish their degree here/don't stay here afterwards (which is quite hard, because of our tuff immigration laws to non-EU citizens)
Do foreign student allowed to work part time in Germany/Finland/Sweden etc? That will definitely attract more student who want to be self sufficient instead of depending on allowance from parent back home.
I know about Germany: Yes, they can. There are some limits in how many hours/year you are allowed to work. I think it is the equivalent of 2-3 months fulltime/year).
Another place that is completely free is Argentina. There are quite a few American students in Buenos Aires, not as many as in Germany, of course. It is seen as a cool destination to get a degree, with a very affordable cost of living, while learning Spanish.
Hold on, what incentive does the EU have to allow US citizens to just go to the EU, get a 4-year education, with full room & board, and then possibly head back to the US? Color me skeptical.
My university (in Denmark) had a large number of eastern European students it created a very different environment, a better one in my opinion. Students are exposed to different ideas, different approaches to solving programs and learn to work together with people with a different background and culture. Of cause my university focused heavily on group assignment and working in groups in general.
I honestly don't mind that my tax money is spend on education people from around the world, although I think it's currently only free for EU citizens. And perhaps there's the added bonus of a few opting to stay and work in the country.
I am also in Denmark, and my university has a number of students from eastern Europe, Russia, South America, Iran, China, as well as those on scholarships from developing nations, and exchange students from the US and Canada.
(I suspect we may have attended the same university, as mine also focused heavily on semester projects (50% of the ECTS) and group work)
Didn't the article say it costs the country only about $13,000 per student per year? If only a few of those students stay in Germany and pay taxes there, it's already worth it. And even if they return home, they'll be more comfortable doing business with Germany, which may still be worth it in the long run. And you get to export some of your culture and values.
It's not a bad investment at all. But ultimately, it's about making sure the next generation has access to good education, and how can you really put a price on that?
A word of caution: before you decide to study in Europe, make sure that the degree they are offering is accepted in the place where you hope to find a job.
A masters at the TU of Munich from the article is probably not a problem, but some types of European degrees don't have an American (or any foreign) equivalent, and may have to be 'legalized'. American universities are not required to accept a foreign under graduate degree, and may require you to take a number of under graduate classes, even if you've already passed exams in those subjects abroad.
Accepted? By who? I don't know any industry that 'accepts' a degree other than maybe law and medical. If you want to transfer to an American university later on, then sure you might have to do some work just like transferring from any other school.
I always wonder why there wasn t more american student here in switzerland.
Both ETH and EPFL rank in the top 15 best technology university wordwide [1] and both are 500 USD / year for international students.
Swiss visa is also easier to get and is more flexible than other shengen country ones, you will not have to loose a day in police station for renewing every 6 months (as it is the case in france / germany). And if you ever want to staybhere you get a 5 year resident permit automaticly if you found a job and a salary comparable to american one for engineering job. [2]
A woman that worked as scientist for a year in a swiss university tells me that the country is very beautiful, but people is hard to reach and you suffer a lot of micro-agressions out of the workplace. Is really hard to find decent houses for rent, and a lot of things seem to be more much expensive or harder to obtain if you are not swiss. It takes a lot of time and money to become a swiss resident also.
There are some major political parties also that actively spread xenophobia and fear against foreigners, specially before the elections.
Finally she realized that was not just earning enough money to be worthwhile.
Just an opinion, your experience can be different (specially if you 'sprechen deutsch'), but maybe american students think that is easier to work in other countries. You earn less but enjoy a better quality of life instead. And of course an english native is much more valued and find a job much easier in european countries that normally don't speak english.
Something else I'd like to add: Many european universities, including TUM which is highlighted in the article, also have exchange arrangements with U.S universities. These are mostly top-tier engineering state schools like UC Berkeley and Georgia Tech.
Because of the exchange agreement, tuition for the semester or year you are there is waived. You can have your cake and eat it too.
Maybe not really mentioned- but having a free edu and then returning to the us- you basically get more money for the same job, as you dont have to repay the loans and interests, but get the same plus the others get to reduce that debt.
89 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 153 ms ] threadOn the other hand, as an American who studied abroad (after gaining my undergraduate degree here), I have to say I'm happy that American students are considering studying overseas, as that has educational value (being in another country) even if the college is a poor value:cost trade-off. Especially studying in a non-English-speaking country (as I did) is very educational, and I highly recommend that to any American.
"list price is not the same as what people actually pay"
Are we in the bargaining meat markets of India ??
There are a non-trivial number of students who are paying out of their nose. The current student loan of the country is 1.3 TRILLION dollars.
Your anecdotal experience doesn't change the fact of the entire country.
I am glad that Germany is poaching many american students. This is the surest way to hurt the american educational industrial complex.
At other schools, including those ranked in the top 30 or so, "need-based aid" is a euphemism for loans, often in extremely high amounts.
Anecdotal, but I've even seen bait-and-switch tactics at some places: my brother was accepted at Tufts with a decent aid package, and then after freshman year, with no change in family financials, saw it drastically reduced. He dropped out and transferred immediately.
As mentioned in other comments, American education has a lot of pricing similarities to American healthcare, and the lack of any sort of true market mechanisms is a big reason why. Good to see some price pressure getting applied.
Now, whether or not this is a good idea for Germany is a whole different question...
The article may also be pointing to the beginning of a trend. That globally competitive universities exploit a major flaw in the US education system.
"I feel like my child is getting an absolute wonderful education over there for free. Betrayal is too strong of a word, but why can't we do that here?""
On the other hand, there's 10,160 German students studying full time in the US at a higher nominal price from a 4x smaller population. Perhaps sometimes the cost premium is worth it? Especially if you can get others to pay it via scholarships.
A lot of Germans just want to experience life the US. Others want to improve their English.
That said, I understand that if the top school for your sub-field is in the US why you would want to come to the US for graduate school.
If your field is cultural then yes studying in the country in which it is more pertinent makes sense (Why study Japanese literature in Italy just to illustrate). But if your field is technical, or removed enough from local culture then looking around makes all the sense in the world.
But frankly there is plenty of schools that I regard as highly as MIT, CMU and such that are Europe (Polytech Paris, Poly Lausanne, Normal School of Pisa, Poly Milan, ... I am forgetting a lot) or Asia (Tokyo Tech) and while you might need to get a loan for some costs it will never get to US levels (I studied in Unis in Italy, France and Japan to get my BS and MS and all my loans were exactly EUR15000 by the time I found a job ... I had part-times and Scholarships but those were not hard to get, and I had declared bankruptcy I could have gotten rid of those since I took those loans in Europe).
I got my undergraduate degree at UW, needed no loans at all (that was a different time though).
I made a slight profit in my final year at Harvard, combining financial aid with 5-10 hours a week of part-time work.
Obviously it was nice for me, but it's sort of gross, in that the kids who need aid least (based on future earning potential) get copious amounts of it, while others are (in my opinion) scammed into onerous, non-dischargeable loans, with lower earning potential to boot.
You can watch German TV here:
mediathek.daserste.de/sendungVerpasst
Start with "Die Sendung mit der Maus" on Sundays :)
Usually German is classified in the second most easy category for native English speakers to learn.
http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/lang...
I Ich
real real
is ist
that das
hard hart -> schwer
learned -> gelernt
in in
the den
and und
student Student
university Universität
has hat
had hatte
years jahre
lessions lektion
On the plus side, German has no sounds English speakers should find difficult to pronounce, nicely regular word order and a fondness for compound words which are as simple to remember as they are long, but by the standards of European language groups the vocabulary really isn't that similar.
Lamp lamp Light licht Arm arm Hand hand Finger finger
Often words that are spelt weirdly in english (compared to how they're pronounced) make sense when you know the way they're pronounced in German e.g. eight (acht).
The only real complications are to do with declensions (nominative, accusative, genitive, etc.), subject-verb-object syntax, and composed words. But any programmer who can work in different programming languages will find those rather easy to learn.
I I
learn learn
English Englisch
The fees is a little higher than in Germany, but no much, and I really believe that our quality of teaching is at least comparable.
Italy school is very theoretical while German one is more practical.
By the way only 280€ in Munich seems a little off to me...
The total cost for one year is ~3000€ however, depending on your financial situation you end up paying less, ~2000€ but even less honestly...
However the bachelor course are in Italian.
Yes, it's more to the tune of 500€ at average for a room in a shared appartment (Source: https://www.wg-suche.de/magazin/wg-zimmer-preise-an-hochschu...). It's probably possible to find something a bit cheaper, but 280€ would be very optimistic. Maybe this is the price of some University accommodation, which is very limited in capacity, i.e. impossible to get.
matches somewhat to, "Can you buy a Silicon Valley" ~ http://paulgraham.com/maybe.html
That requires some planning ahead.
Edit: Wow, I missed that. Very cool!
> She did not need German, however, in her Master's programme, which was filled with students from 50 different countries but taught entirely in English. In fact, German universities have drastically increased all-English classes to more than 1,150 programmes across many fields.
The English equivalent is STEM, Science, technology, Engineering, Mathematics
For someone who wants to go down that route in the US I would heavily recommend learning German intensively for at least two years before even going to Germany, and make sure you can read German almost as fast as their native (English/Spanish) language.
A good starting point is Duolingo.com!
Just like Austin != Texas
That being said it also seems to be generational. People under 30 tend to know English at a much higher rate than those over 50.
It's also somewhat like being disabled, e.g. you have to get everything explained to you personally.
1) The professors. Imagine taking classes and interacting with Nobel prize winners, or other famous people in your field (let's say, taking a class with Knuth at Stanford).
2) The networking/social aspects. Imagine being college roommates with "the next Mark Zuckerberg", whoever that may be.
3) More cynically, the pedigree. This one isn't strictly required, but it helps enormously if you want to get into academia, and it can also help you with an industry career or start a startup (it can make things easier).
If you're part of the tiny elite for whom Harvard and Stanford are an option, by all means go for it. But for a lot of people, studying abroad might be a better idea.
http://www.studyinfinland.fi/tuition_and_scholarships/tuitio...
It's also worth mentioning that in smaller countries like Finland, the level of English is correspondingly higher, since everybody has been exposed to it since they were young children and, by the time you get to the university level, most textbooks are in English only. In larger EU countries like Germany and France this is not the case.
My university (in Denmark) had a large number of eastern European students it created a very different environment, a better one in my opinion. Students are exposed to different ideas, different approaches to solving programs and learn to work together with people with a different background and culture. Of cause my university focused heavily on group assignment and working in groups in general.
I honestly don't mind that my tax money is spend on education people from around the world, although I think it's currently only free for EU citizens. And perhaps there's the added bonus of a few opting to stay and work in the country.
I am also in Denmark, and my university has a number of students from eastern Europe, Russia, South America, Iran, China, as well as those on scholarships from developing nations, and exchange students from the US and Canada.
(I suspect we may have attended the same university, as mine also focused heavily on semester projects (50% of the ECTS) and group work)
It's not a bad investment at all. But ultimately, it's about making sure the next generation has access to good education, and how can you really put a price on that?
A masters at the TU of Munich from the article is probably not a problem, but some types of European degrees don't have an American (or any foreign) equivalent, and may have to be 'legalized'. American universities are not required to accept a foreign under graduate degree, and may require you to take a number of under graduate classes, even if you've already passed exams in those subjects abroad.
Both ETH and EPFL rank in the top 15 best technology university wordwide [1] and both are 500 USD / year for international students.
Swiss visa is also easier to get and is more flexible than other shengen country ones, you will not have to loose a day in police station for renewing every 6 months (as it is the case in france / germany). And if you ever want to staybhere you get a 5 year resident permit automaticly if you found a job and a salary comparable to american one for engineering job. [2]
[1] https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rank...
[2] Swiss junior developer pay for engineer is between 70 to 120k USD whereas french junior engeneer pay is 30 to 50k USD
There are some major political parties also that actively spread xenophobia and fear against foreigners, specially before the elections.
Finally she realized that was not just earning enough money to be worthwhile.
Just an opinion, your experience can be different (specially if you 'sprechen deutsch'), but maybe american students think that is easier to work in other countries. You earn less but enjoy a better quality of life instead. And of course an english native is much more valued and find a job much easier in european countries that normally don't speak english.
Because of the exchange agreement, tuition for the semester or year you are there is waived. You can have your cake and eat it too.
But Finland would work! http://www.studyinfinland.fi/how_to_apply/eligibility_criter...