
American students head to Germany for free college - carlosgg
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/education/learning-curve/american-students-head-germany-free-college
======
iamjdg
I am on a temporary work assignment in Germany (2 years). I would come back in
a minute if I wanted to further my education. Its a great country, safe,
modern, and residents (permanent or not) get a lot of support from the
government. Free university is for the German people, but they extend it to
foreigners because Germany needs people and they hope they stay. I've learned
a lot in Germany I will take back with me an apply to my work and everyday
life (focus, directness, efficiency, attention to detail, basing decisions on
first principles). I imagine getting an education here would reflect these
principles and be of very high quality. Most German engineers I interact with
our exceptional. Germany has an export to import ratio of ~1.2 meaning for
every euro they spend, they earn 1.20 euros. They can afford this. The US is
less than 1 (perhaps 0.8 or something) and Canada (my home) is about 1 mostly
because we have so many natural resources. The benefits one gets in the US and
Canada pale in comparison to Germany, it is embarrassing. The US and Canada
need to push their export to import ratios higher through innovation and
efficiency improvements (real economic growth, not like artificial economic
growth based on low interests, real estate speculation, and the
financial/banking worlds investment/money magic tricks) in order to be able to
afford the benefits a German resident gets.

~~~
Amezarak
It's impossible for everyone to be a net exporter.

At the same time, being a net importer is not in itself a bad thing. The
reason the US doesn't have free college for everyone is not because it is a
net importer. The US _could_ afford Germany-style benefits; that's not the
problem. Canada probably could too.

~~~
iamjdg
something to strive for no?

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.

There are many reasons why the US does not have free college (taxes too low,
universities are run like business now, etc.) but running huge deficits and
not having any savings to invest in society is one of the reasons.

~~~
Amezarak
> 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. The trade deficit is _nothing_ like
personal finances/expenditures; this is a common meme in Germany, though, so I
understand where you might have gotten the idea from. (Germany is presently
dragging down the entire Eurozone with these beliefs.) You are not "borrowing"
by having a trade deficit (nor do you have to borrow to have one.) It's just
an outflow of currency, which is not particularly harmful to countries
printing their own currency.

> There are many reasons why the US does not have free college (taxes too low,
> universities are run like business now, etc.) but running huge deficits and
> not having any savings to invest in society is one of the reasons.

This is not a reason at all. The _trade_ deficit has nothing to do with US
_budget_ deficits, and the US still has _plenty_ of money to invest back into
society. It's a matter of political will and the way the government and
education is organized. A lot has changed over the past decade for the worse
and the better. Before the recession, there were actually enormous state
subsidies to public universities that reduced their cost. During the
recession, states began cutting back, which has been a contributor to rising
college costs. At the same time, the government has modified the student loan
program to be _much_ better: indeed under the program as it now exists it's
not really so much a loan as it is a tax on your post-college earnings. At the
same time, universities are plagued with large, overpaid bureaucratic
administrations, an increasing focus on new amenities, and perhaps even worse,
a sense that the more money it costs to attend, the better the college must
be. Students are in part rewarding colleges for raising prices - conservatives
blame this on the ease of finding loans to pay for school, but I think the
situation is more complex. If you had a dramatic restructuring of the US
system, say, for example, you slashed public university administration budgets
and froze spending on anything non-academic, instituted price controls, and
consolidated all the various local, state, and federal programs to fund
schools or scholarships, you could probably make college a lot cheaper or even
free right now with minimal tax increases. The wealth and resources are
already there. There was actually an Obama proposal to make community college
free (a small step toward this), which the media estimated would cost 15
billion - chump change in the US budget.

As an aside, college costs are more complicated than people think. In many
(most?) states, sufficient academic performance (as measured by an ACT or SAT
score) automatically guarantees a full scholarship (or less, depending on your
score.)

You also have community colleges, which are much cheaper and allow you to
obtain a two year degree and transfer to a four-year university.

Once you get outside of private colleges and the big-name schools (usually on
the coasts), public university costs are much reduced. And you can get in even
if you're academically terrible, a situation you don't necessarily have in the
European systems.

For example: I attended community college for free because of my ACT score. I
could have gone directly to university for free, but I chose not to because of
my age. I transferred to a four year school, paid for 3 (2.5 undergrad, .5
grad) years with money I earned at a minimum wage job, and then finished out
grad school with an assistantship that paid my tuition plus a stipend. I
graduated four years ago. This is still easily doable in most of the country.
In fact it's still exactly doable if you just go directly to university and
don't have to pay anything.

~~~
TheBeardKing
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 in greater need of those skills than your
community college IT or business degree will find.

I've heard the German educational system steers students in these directions
early in high school. When I was in high school, we used to have vocational
and college prep paths, but they've since ditched that in an effort to "leave
no child behind." Now we have a glut of students graduating from community
college in a market with low demand for their degrees.

Let's admit that except for being able to transfer those credits to a college
of higher prestige, and being granted the same degree from there, community
college is of little value. In my area, I can tell you for a fact that the
same science and math courses vary greatly in difficulty between the private
engineering school I attended, and the local state school. Full-time students
knew of this loophole, and took some of these harder classes down the road at
the state school.

~~~
Happydayz
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.

~~~
kaitai
Thought experiment: I wonder if one reason the US doesn't do formalized
tracking of this sort is that it would be distasteful to formalize the
inequalities in our system, but yet we don't have the stomach to actually
provide equal opportunities.

We have de facto tracking by parental income and social capital. Look at the
other thread about high school kids taking AP computer science: AP CS is
basically a class that is only offered if the parents agitate for it and the
district has the money. Somehow in Mississippi this just doesn't happen, and
we are fine with that as a nation. Keeps us wringing our hands about who says
what words in the workplace instead of having to make a substantive change in
what we offer students.

There are swaths of the US (with power) that benefit from this
socioeconomic/cultural capital tracking of students. Keep the poor relatively
poor with shitty schools for all, keep the rich rich with private tutoring so
their SAT scores get 'em into a decent college, get the immigrant parents to
put out good workers by running their kids through prescribed hoops so they
can rise a little and be good middle managers and developers. Then we don't
have to deal with poor kids with ability or rich kids who are dumb as dirt --
we can say everyone has equal opportunity with clean hands and conscience!

~~~
dragonwriter
> Look at the other thread about high school kids taking AP computer science:
> AP CS is basically a class that is only offered if the parents agitate for
> it and the district has the money. Somehow in Mississippi this just doesn't
> happen, and we are fine with that as a nation. Keeps us wringing our hands
> about who says what words in the workplace instead of having to make a
> substantive change in what we offer students.

I think you'll find that the people "wringing hands about who says what words
in the workplace" (at least, if by that, you are referring to public concern
with things like race, gender, and sexual orientation-based harassment) are,
in no small part, the _same group of people_ actively concerned about and
things like math and science education. They just aren't particularly
influential in Mississippi.

~~~
kaitai
Overall, I agree, but as someone who's been in the fight for good treatment
for all for a long time, I've started to worry that we're being misdirected to
the wrong fights -- distracted by the obvious rather than looking deeper.
Among other things, I teach at a university. I just don't get a lot of
students from certain backgrounds, and it's not because of the problems at
tech companies. It's because of the economic concerns of parents and the
culture that we've passed to children. By college or the master's level half
the community I grew up with are just not even on the same track. Maybe part
of it is that we drag kids who would be great electricians through some
inferior faux-college-prep charade instead of giving them an actual good
education. Having taught precalc at the college level those students would
have been better prepared _for college_ by taking a shop class that involved
using fractions and trig than by taking all four years of what math they
actually took.

The parent comment to my previous one implied that we in the US have equality
of opportunity, unlike Germany with its tracking. I am experimenting with the
argument that we in the US say all the right things and yet insidiously _do_
worse. Our rhetoric and our reality in the United States don't really line up.
My high school had International Baccalaureate classes open to all, but only
some kids signed up. How have we built this self-perpetuating organism of
inequality that plods along even though we say all sorts of "correct" things?
Even in Mississippi people are publicly concerned with race, gender, and
sexual-orientation-based harassment. And yet.

------
khabaal
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 whole six
month. Some people in here just register because of that ticket. :D

To study in germany, you normally just need to prove that you have a specific
amount of money to survive, pay for a flat, food and health insurance. And
thats it.

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, not to mention
that our society is getting older and older like the one in japan. Attracting
foreign students with a nearly free college is a great and very cheap way of
getting highly skilled workers, its makes perfect sense.

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

~~~
nebody
For most students it's free (included in their parent's insurance who pay ~8%
of their income). The other's pay 80€ (or 160€ for students over 30 or
studying longer than seven years).

------
grkvlt
> [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...

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

~~~
grkvlt
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?

~~~
ryandrake
Surely anywhere there are exams, there are rich parents paying for exam prep
in order to gain an advantage.

~~~
chronial
In Germany, university admission is based on your final grades in school,
which are an accumulation of your grades of the last two years.

Rich parents can of course help their kids be better in school, but there is
no efficient exam prepping.

~~~
eru
Grades only really matter for medicine, psychology, and perhaps law. If you
want to be an engineer or physicist or mathematician etc, they take everyone.

------
Htsthbjig
Education in Europe is not free. You pay with your qualifications. If your
university grades are not good enough, you go out fast.

I studied engineering in Europe. When I went to Boston or London to work it
was like I was the boss or something because I was much better prepared than
Americans or British.

But Americans have much better job opportunities that make them better than
Europeans after working some time in any field.

The world is controlled by the petrodollar and Americans enjoy lots of
benefits as a result.

Europe is old and taking risks is so hard here. In Asia it is even harder.

~~~
galfarragem
_I was much better prepared than Americans or British. But Americans have much
better job opportunities that make them better than Europeans after working
some time in any field._

Great comment. Anyway I will never leave Europe for US/Canada/Australia[1].
I've visited some family in the latter and I feel that the advantages of these
countries are not enough to make me live there. Exchanging peace of mind and a
huge decrease of life quality for some extra probabilities of being rich and
extra consumption doen't worth IMO.

Also have in mind that Germany != Europe

Edit: [1] I'm sure these 3 countries are very different between themselves (I
don't want to hurt anyone's feelings), but they are still "new world"
countries, where the main goal of voluntary "colonizers" was/is getting rich
and be able to consume more than in their native countries. This common goal
leads to a lot of similarities between them as, for example, the urbanism:
suburbs is a "new world" invention and this will always imply a common
lifestyle (car dependency, malls, ..).

~~~
tedunangst
I think you have been misinformed about the main goal of many early American
colonizers.

Also, that's a rather tenuous connection to suburbs. US suburbs mostly
developed 200 years after colonization. And 100 years after London (that's
"old world", right?) invented suburbs.

~~~
galfarragem
I agree with you, suburbs were not invented in the "new world" but these
countries made them popular, probably with the individual dream of a better
life and particular conditions as land availability or cheap oil that leaded
to the development of single housing to almost everybody.

I'm sure you agree also that suburbs in "old world" (Europe) don't have such a
massive presence that they completely imply a certain lifestyle.

~~~
kyllo
Suburbs in America are a byproduct of racism. They were invented when
sharecroppers (freed African-American slaves and their children who then
became indentured servants/laborers) from the south migrated en masse to the
cities of the north and started moving into urban neighborhoods, and the white
people fled to the outskirts rather than let black people live among them.

~~~
throwaway30492
Source?

~~~
kyllo
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight)

------
DrinkWater
I would have killed to get the chance to study in the US.

American students are far more complex and broad in their knowledge. And
that's a very good thing you shouldn't underestimate. It helps a lot in your
career.

Germany loves hierarchy and "conservative" thinking. And that is reflected in
every aspect of society, even academic education. The main focus is to produce
people that Germany needs. We have a shitload of "Fachidioten" here. That's a
good thing, and also a bad thing.

tl;dr If you want to reach for the stars in your career, study somewhere else.

~~~
rsp1984
Having grown up and studied in Germany and having lived and worked in the US
too I know the differences quite a bit.

Yes, thinking is more narrow here in Germany and the "Fachidioten" that you
are referring to are real. However, the depth and thoroughness of domain
specific knowledge that you acquire with a German university degree are hard
to beat, specifically in Engineering / STEM.

I would even go as far as to say that the top German Engineering Universities
(Munich, Darmstadt, Aachen) are comparable to the top US universities in that
area (Stanford, MIT, ...).

Now with regards to broadness of thinking and knowledge, it's true that the US
values this much higher than Germany and the situation hasn't especially
improved with the Bologna process in Germany. However the big argument is that
German universities are free and cost of living is low. Then why not study in
Germany and get some of the US mentality later in your professional life by
working in the US?

I'd argue that valuing choice of college/university too high is a mistake that
many people make. Instead figure out first what you want, focus on getting
your skills and how to discover new opportunities in life. No college
university can really help you with this.

~~~
_stephan
Can you maybe explain a little more how the "US values broadness of thinking
and knowledge ... much higher than Germany"? Do you have some concrete
examples in mind?

~~~
_delirium
Based on experience in both the U.S. and Danish university systems (not the
German one, but I believe it shares some similarities), the U.S. university
education has a bigger focus on interdisciplinarity, where you focus on a
major but also are required to take courses in other disciplines. The Danish
system focuses specifically on the major.

If you major in CS in Denmark, you will take CS courses and only CS courses,
to a fairy close approximation (due to staffing this might include 1 or 2
courses taught in the math department, but that's about as far outside the CS
department as you're likely to get). Whereas if you major in CS in the U.S.,
it's frequently the case that there is a "common core" everyone has to take
that includes other courses. For example, I did my CS degree in the U.S., and
I had to take about 4 semesters of natural sciences (w/labs), 1 of
engineering, 6 of mathematics, several humanities courses, etc., in addition
to my CS courses. In Denmark a CS student is very unlikely to ever find
themselves in the natural-sciences, humanities, or engineering departments (in
Copenhagen they aren't even in physical proximity).

~~~
dignati
Not the same, CS majors in Germany have to choose one "Anwendungsfach" that
consist of a subset of classes of natural-sciences, humanities or engineering
majors. You have to choose one and stick with it. Also there is the
"Nichttechisches Wahlpflichtfach" (probably the most german words I know)
which can be a language class or mentoring first-semesters or something
similar. So I feel like we get a lot of interdisciplinarity.

~~~
_stephan
This is the schedule for a three year CS bachelor program at the TUM in
Munich: [https://www.in.tum.de/en/current-students/bachelors-
programs...](https://www.in.tum.de/en/current-students/bachelors-
programs/informatics/curriculum-and-courses/start-of-study-as-from-winter-
semester-20122013.html)

As you can see, about a fifth of the of the credits have to come from "support
electives (soft skills)" and applied subject courses. I suppose this is quite
representative for a German bachelor program.

You also have to keep in mind that the curricula at a US high school and a
German Gymnasium are not equivalent. German students at the beginning of their
university career on average have the equivalent of at least one year more of
school education compared to the US students -- at least that used to be case.

------
mcbetz
Yes, there is a massive flow of incoming students, especially here in Berlin
and in other large cities (Hamburg, Munich, Cologne). But after graduation,
exactly those cities do not offer great job opportunities. What makes our
economic system strong are the many small to medium entreprises, often family
businesses. And those are seldomly in the nice urban areas but mostly in the
southern countryside.

So you will see many highly qualified graduates working as waiters or in
startups who pay little to nothing - so they can stay in posh Berlin.

At the same time companies in the countryside have a very, very hard time to
get employees.

Apart from that spatial problem, there is one huge drawback: the language.
Most of the study programs are still solely taught in German. And the
requirements are tough!

I had some classes in English and it was totally weird, as there were never
more than 2 students who were not German natives. Quality dropped as well,
when you're discussing German philosophy in English, obviously.

~~~
eru
Posh Berlin? Exciting perhaps, but not posh.

I hope that the startups and competition between them will drive up salaries
eventually.

------
chrisBob
This is an interesting contrast to the US. Germany educates foreigners for
free because they want them to stay. In the US it is very hard for someone to
stay after going through a publicly funded PhD program. Other than exporting
our culture I am not sure what the goal could be.

~~~
eru
It's more than one goal. The visa regime is a complex (and foul) compromise
between different political pressure groups.

------
darkhorn
You can study at METU / Turkey. It is one of the best 100 universities in the
world. Very cheap compared to the USA. And it is a state university, founded
with the help of the USA during the cold war.
[http://www.metu.edu.tr/announcement/odtu-among-
top-100-unive...](http://www.metu.edu.tr/announcement/odtu-among-
top-100-universities-world)

Less than €550 per semester for foreign students (if you are Turkic it is
cheaper (might be free), or if you are Turkic country citizen, or if you have
graduated from a Turkish high-school in a foreign country etc).
[http://oidb.metu.edu.tr/en/tuition-fee-
amounts](http://oidb.metu.edu.tr/en/tuition-fee-amounts)

Also there is another campus in Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is
private (acts like a private). [http://international.ncc.metu.edu.tr/tuition-
scholarships/](http://international.ncc.metu.edu.tr/tuition-scholarships/)

~~~
eru
I've been at METU for Erasmus. It was fun and I recommend it!

But do not go for the academic quality. The best courses were just on par with
the average course I had at a no-name German university. I don't know how they
came up with the top 100 ranking---perhaps it's based on research?

~~~
darkhorn
Methodology -> Criteria and Weighting ->
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Higher_Education_World_Un...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Higher_Education_World_University_Rankings#Methodology)

For the academic quality, I don't know foreign universities thus I cannot
compare them. But at least I can say that almost all teachers are professors
and most of them are idealist. And in order to be an academic member at METU
you must get at least one degree (B.S or masters etc) abroad. My teachers were
not best teachers but at least they were very knowledgeable at their fields.
It is not the best of course, however other Turkish universities are worse
than METU. For the teaching quality, I have wished it to be better. May be
METU is good for forcing you to study very much in detail, but it is not
providing easy to study material and easy to understand teachers.

~~~
eru
The best teacher I had at METU was an older professor teaching (mathematical)
combinatorics. Contrary to regulations at the university, he lectured in
Turkish---but appointed a translator for me.

------
cabinpark
I am doing a PhD here in Germany and I absolutely love it. It's completely
free (except for the 300 euro fee per semester, but that includes the UBahn
ticket which is like 200 of the 300 fee and is worth it) and I actually get
paid really, really well. Plus PhDs are only 3 years and I don't have to deal
with TAing and can just research. And because I am a student, I don't have pay
taxes because my salary is considered a "stipendium" or whatever. It's quite
nice. And where I am living, Frankfurt, which is apparently very expensive, is
still cheap to me.

But, as others have said in this thread, there are drawbacks, which have been
addressed. But that's true of anything anywhere.

So overall I highly recommend Germany for studies. Plus German is just a cool
language to know as well.

------
stfu
As far as I know this has been mostly about boosting "diversity" quotas at
German Universities in order to perform better in international rankings.
Previously this had been done by rising the amount of students coming from
low-income regions (e.g. ex-Russian territory, Asia), so it is certainly a
welcome change to see US students making use of that system.

~~~
r3m6
How about: "...to improve academic overall performance" instead of "... in
order to perform better in international rankings."

Diversity has proven benefits in many cases, I see it in my daily work. It is
much more than just a number in a ranking.

> low-income regions (e.g. ex-Russian territory, Asia)

Asia? Low-income? These times are gone in many places. You need to update your
knowledge. Diversity in your workplace could help :-)

~~~
stfu
You don't find it a "bit" surprising that U.S. students don't even make it in
the Top10 countries of origin? [http://www.iie.org/Services/Project-
Atlas/Germany/Internatio...](http://www.iie.org/Services/Project-
Atlas/Germany/International-Students-In-Germany)

In regards to the ranking - one of the most important rankings for
international Universities is the Times Higher Education World University
Rankings. Methodology section: [http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-
university-ranki...](http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-
rankings/2014-15/world-ranking/methodology) _this factor is measured by the
ratio of international to domestic students and is worth 2.5 per cent of the
overall score._

German Universities have a big issue about ranking performances, case and
point giving certain Universities a Government issued "elite" title.

------
chrido
Other European countries are similiar, e.g., Austria € 726,72 per semester for
students outside the EU, for EU citizen its free, as long as they are in
minimum time

[http://www.studyinaustria.at/study_in_austria/tuition_fees/](http://www.studyinaustria.at/study_in_austria/tuition_fees/)

------
Paul_S
...and Germany gets the better side of this deal. Unless you overinflate fees
and run your education system like a business educating people is a net
benefit.

------
k__
Funny story:

The four years I took for my bachelor were the only four years with study-fees
in Germany. So I paid more for my degree than the Americans who study here
now.

------
yodsanklai
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?

~~~
FanaHOVA
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.

~~~
Kephael
The issue with this analogy is that schools like Stanford and MIT aren't very
large at the undergraduate level and have admissions rates lower than any
school in Europe let alone Italy when looking at undergraduate admissions
rates. The undergraduate admission process at these schools is much less
academic focused than a European university as well.

~~~
FanaHOVA
Here in Italy there's not even an admission process. You just sign up
basically. This leads to a definite decrease in the quality level of teaching,
around 80% of my class failed discrete mathematics and calculus and that's
with a very short curriculum and fairly easy exams. Professors then have to
slow down because no one is following and it just gets worse.

------
tempodox
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.

~~~
adaml_623
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'.

~~~
tempodox
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.

~~~
eru
But they ARE willing to do just that. Go figure!

~~~
tempodox
I can't speak for “them”, only for myself. And I for one disagree.

------
tsotha
How could this possibly make sense to German taxpayers?

~~~
drvd
Germans are not so obsessed about not paying taxes like e.g. Americans or
Swiss. Nobody likes to pay taxes and everybody complains about the high taxes.
But I think (actually hope!) that Germans understand (if only unconsciously)
that happiness is much more depending on getting old without fear of poverty,
knowing to be treated if ill, being able to go safely outside anytime
anywhere, not dropping out of society if bad luck happens and getting proper
education than on the single only monetary principle "I don't pay taxes!".

~~~
higherpurpose
If Germany is like other European countries, it also helps that your taxes are
"automatically paid" to the government, usually by having the employer take
them out of your salary and paying them. It's not like in US where Americans
_feel_ every dollar going to the government when they do their taxes. Since
they are paid automatically, the income taxes aren't even on people's minds,
usually.

However, if Europeans had to do their own taxes for their salaries, I'm sure
many more would be upset about high taxes.

~~~
pmr_
Even if your tax is paid automatically you can still recover taxes but it is
hard and the laws are confusing. In Germany a special profession with a state
exam (Steuerberater) as well as special associations (Lohnsteuerhilfeverein)
exist or have been created to help individuals. For self-employed or people
interested in recovering part of their taxes using those services is almost
unavoidable.

------
personlurking
Here's a Reddit /Bestof on the German university application process. It's not
exactly free.

[http://reddit.com/r/UpliftingNews/comments/2itsz2/germany_of...](http://reddit.com/r/UpliftingNews/comments/2itsz2/germany_offers_tuitionfree_college_to_all/cl5hwra)

~~~
bpires
I thought it was obvious that there are still going to be fees, but that in
comparison to the tens of thousands americans pay in tuition, it's basically
free.

~~~
pluma
To be fair, to a German the tens of thousands Americans pay sound
preposterous. The only way we (Germans) rationalize the higher costs in the US
is that the quality of education is better -- which doesn't seem to be the
case for the majority of universities.

------
AndrewKemendo
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.

------
fred_is_fred
You can go to college for free and have a great chance to improve your life,
then you major in North American studies. WTF is that.

------
kleiba
The CS department at the German university I work for started offering their
lectures in English a number of years back. While a very good command of
English is not uncommon in other parts of Europe, such as e.g. Scandinavia,
this move is remarkable in my opinion because English is (more or less)
ubiquitous only in the younger generation in Germany. A lot of middle-aged
people do not speak English, or only at a very rudimentary level. Of course
you won't have any problems getting around just on English in places like
Berlin or Heidelberg, but this effect does not generalize across the board.

So the biggest problem I see with moving to English within the German higher
education system is that it creates the illusion that you don't really need to
speak German to live in that country. But at the university, you live inside a
bubble: some of my coworkers have come here from other countries five or more
years ago, and still speak hardly any German. And that's fine because the
working language in our department is de facto English. There are even German
classes that the university offers and that some of my coworkers took, but
since they never really needed it inside the bubble, their success at learning
German has remained rather humble.

Now, one of my coworker wants to move on from academia and has been looking
for jobs -- IT-related, that is. He's (over?)-specialized (with his PhD almost
finished) in a specific area (speech signal analysis), but basically speaks no
German. He's having a _really_ hard time getting any reactions at all to his
job applications. Most of the time, the companies do not even send rejection
notes. I've been helping him a little bit with this, and given his
credentials, I really find it difficult to understand why he cannot even get
to the interview stage -- except for his lack of German.

The big problem is: if he cannot find something very soon, his visa will
expire and he will be forced to leave the country. He's got a wife and two
young daughters, the younger one of which was 2 years old when the family came
to Germany. She's now 7 -- Germany is the country she grew up in, and she
might be forced to leave it soon and move to the country of her father.
Ironically, _she_ doesn't even speak her parents' language perfectly.

So, there is a caveat when studying in Germany if your goal is to start a life
here afterwards. Language matters.

What I cannot understand at all in this matter, though, is that by offering
university courses in English and not requiring students to acquire very good
German skills as well, Germany is basically investing a lot of (tax) money in
the education of people who are more or less guaranteed to leave again when
they're done with their studies.

The return of investment is thus pretty low... you could say, almost non-
existent.

~~~
schrijver
In the Netherlands I see something similar, in that Dutch people are actually
too enthousiastic to speak English—many of my expat friends tell me that when
they try to speak Dutch, people will respond in English.

Not speaking Dutch is all fine while you’re on your student visum in an
English speaking environment, but it breaks down when you have to pay taxes or
get a letter from the immigration office—all that is in Dutch.

Personally, I think it is great to learn a new language, and you’ll gain a lot
from it as a person, but there is also a real necessity to it once you start
to live somewhere for a longer time—a fact that one might not immediately
recognise because of European enthousiasm to speak and interact in English.

~~~
_delirium
> Not speaking Dutch is all fine while you’re on your student visum in an
> English speaking environment, but it breaks down when you have to pay taxes
> or get a letter from the immigration office—all that is in Dutch.

Denmark has gone to the next level and even this is largely in English now
too, which makes it even harder / less motivating for foreigners to learn
Danish. Most government websites are dual-language, and every civil-service
employee speaks English. Many state agencies (and banks, pension funds,
unions, etc.) now also give recipients an option of Danish or English for
receiving official communications, and some actually default to English if
you're registered as a non-Danish national, so you'd have to specifically
request Danish if you wanted it.

