
What American universities can learn from Germany (2016) - Tomte
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/07/27/heres-what-american-universities-can-learn-from-germany/
======
igk
I 'm not sure if they are talking about "dualstudium", but I think this is a
thing which needs to be advanced. There should be a separation between "skill
education"(learning things for a job) and "human education" (learning things
to become a better human/just for understanding). The latter we already
enforce with 9 year Schulpflicht (which one could debate about prolonging) and
then leave to the individual.

University education should not be or promise jobs, it should be about
understanding certain fields on the deep level and being confronted with the
bleeding edge of knowledge. Right now we are conflating the two, meaning we
have a large number of students wasting their time in classrooms when for
their _goal_ they should either be getting deeper, tougher confrontation with
the subject (if they want to do research/understand deeply) or practical "on
the job" education (if they want to get a job). BWL is the worst culprit of
this as far as my friends who studied it describe it.

~~~
weinzierl
> I 'm not sure if they are talking about "dualstudium",

I agree with what you wrote but the OP is not about _Dualstudium_. The "dual
educational" the article refers to, is about non-univerity tertiary education
(Duale Ausbildung). The _dual_ part is the fact that this happens in a company
and a (usually state run) school. [1]

As an example: If you want to work as a plumber in Germany you _have_ to get a
certificate. The only way to get the certificate is to participate in the dual
educational system.

For a plumber that means to find an employer that is willing to give them a
three and half year apprenticeship contract. The apprentice will work only
three or four days, the other days they have to attend school. The exact
details depend on the trade, some have a three work week, one school week
schedule, but the general idea is that work and school education happen at the
same time.

Not all trades follow this model but if they do it's mandatory. Also the newly
certified plumber is only allowed to do plumbing jobs. To be allowed to
install a heating system for example they have to make a run trough the dual
system again, now with the HVAC guild. Just to install a new heating system
you need at least a HVAC company, a plumber, an electrician and a mason. The
HVAC guy won't touch any pipes, cables or bricks because he is not allowed to
by law and discouraged by his guild. Same for the plumber, electrician and
mason.

What the article misses to mention is that the system makes every task that
falls in a regulated area very expensive. As a consequence of this it also
leads to a lot of illicit work.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_education_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_education_system)

~~~
JepZ
You are right and I think half of the people here did not understand the
difference between 'Duales Studium' and 'Duale Ausbildung'.

But on the other hand, I don't quite get what the Universities have to do with
the dual education System?!? I mean, as far as I know, Universities are
specialized in higher education.

~~~
weinzierl
The headline is misleading and I believe the article is not clear about the
role of the universities.

------
medymed
Apart from stratification of students into tracks, America could also learn
not to crush its students with debt.

A mandatory cap of tuition for universities receiving federal-debt funded
students would be a reasonable way to harness the beast of tuition price
inflation created by zealous federal financing of debt and questionable
promises of benefits of "college", which seem to have very little to do with
training and everything to do with signaling.

Colleges could then decide whether to accept students with federal debt by
lowering tuition (and removing bloat) or not. Interested to hear ideas of
pitfalls with this approach, and if they are worse than the situation of non-
bankruptcy eligible mountains debt now.

~~~
matt4077
I think stratification, or 'tracking; as it's called in the US I believe is
one of the biggest failures of the German system.

From my experience in the US, high schools are about 4-5x the size of German
schools. That allows for flexible curricular within one school, where you can
get into the advanced Calculus class but take it easier with foreign
languages, and, most important do sports etc, with everyone.

It really doesn't seem useful to sort people along a linear scale at 10 years
of age, especially considering that empirically, the single most important
factor for that decision is the parents' ambition.

The US' biggest flaw is quality differences between schools. I can't get my
head around the idea that school finances heavily depend on the immediate
neighbourhood they're serving. That's both morally bankrupt and severely
shortsighted. The larger schools also double or triple the average commute,
costing US students an hour per day, strengthening reliance on cars and making
social life harder than it needs to be.

~~~
phreeza
I totally agree that stratification at age 10 is pretty terrible, but
stratification in universities seems like a very different story.

At college age, people are much more capable of making their own decisions,
and their actual capabilities and weaknesses have also become clearer and more
stable. And it's not like going to a Fachhochschule is going to set someone up
for a hard life as being assigned to a Hauptschule pretty much does.

~~~
igk
Fachhochschule gets a bad rep from snobs, but having worked with graduates,
they often beat university grads in application fields. It's just a different
focus

~~~
Semaphor
Having started out at a University and switched to a Fachhochschule (Bachelor
CS for both) I can say that there weren't more practical things at the FH, but
everything was simply way easier. Math was simpler (mostly because it was
usually applied as opposed to proofs, so I guess math was indeed more
practical) and the CS courses were way below what the university offered. So
I'd say it's certainly understandable when people look down on FH (because it
can easily be the case that it's subpar)

------
onli
Should be noted that this is only one segment of german job education. There
are of course also classical university courses without much or any contact to
real job experience.

Also, what they describe is less the University route than the non-university
route, being educated by and in the business. Germany has also universities
that cooperate with business, but that's not the norm. The classical division
is between universities (Studium) and education at the job (Ausbildung). Not
sure how universities could learn from the latter, as it is an alternative to
them.

------
biztos
Probably o/t for the article:

My own experience is very dated, but in the late 80's and early 90's I
attended public university in both countries.

Back then it really struck me how infantilized the student experience in the
US was; but also how much more we actually worked, because a little arbitrary
structure is pretty helpful for manic 19-year-olds.

For the self-motivated, academically serious student it was a kind of paradise
with slightly shabby institutions, some of them very very old. Most
professors, even the famous ones, were accessible, but in lieue of "homework"
you were expected to keep up on the reading, for which at best you got a list
of books (at worst: go figure it out). Nobody seemed to care at all about
grades.

Even then, when public universities in the US were cheap, it was remarkable
how much cheaper studying in Germany was, from the minimal fees to the
ubiquitous subsidies. Student housing in California was a racket - the dorm
cost way more than a shared apartment - but in Germany it was so laughably
cheap you never really minded the bad parts. We even had a semi-official
student bar with 1DM (50c) beers.

I think partly because of the freedom, partly because of the low cost, and
partly because working-class kids mostly didn't go to university, there was
basically no attention paid to the need to one day make a living. I didn't
stay long enough to find out if that was a good or a bad thing; I did my best
to avoid that question in the US anyway, and paid the usual price for it.

------
merb
please don't. I live in germany and our academic system is flawed to the
extreme. Even the dual systeme.

I mean common our universities and schools has a worse system than america
(and a lot of other countries). The dual system should've bridged school and
labor skills, however it does not work that good. Especially not in IT. The
problem a lot of kids come from different schools, some have higher educations
some not. so the school tries to learn a lot of things which they should've
teached in schools already, while they train you not a lot of practical things
in school. Also a lot of practical things you learn in the school are mostly
already learned since the school progresses way too slow.

As already said I think the problem starts already in the kindergarten/early
school. And then progresses in middle schools.

in germany you basically get thrown to life either after your school years or
after your university/higher schools. You always start with nearly no
experience, even after you did apprenticeship in dual system you are not
prepared for your life.

worse is even if you did something in west germany it could be slightly
different in other parts of germany, so switching schools can be really really
hard.

our system basically enforces "lax-iness" until a certain point in life and
than you either get it or you get lost in the system. and it get's worse due
to our polictics that loosens more and more rules

~~~
jfaucett
> our academic system is flawed to the extreme. Even the dual systeme.

Yes its flawed but not to the extreme like you suggest. One of the biggest
problems we have, and this I think is common to almost all countries, is that
there is very little emphasis on applied knowledge and much more on
theoretical knowledge. The duale Studium is a better way to attack the problem
than anything else currently out there IMHO.

Another problem we have is that motivations are flawed for our Professors.
Many Professors want to conduct research and don't care about teaching the
material, on the other hand you have some Professors that don't want to
research and would just enjoy teaching the material, yet everyone is
incentivized to conduct research because its the only way to progress. I think
this is fundamentally wrong. Its bad for the students and bad for the
professors. If a professor just wants to teach he/she should be allowed to
focus on that area and be judged by how well his students can actually apply
the learning they acquired in the course. If a professor wants to research he
should be judged by his research.

There are so many other problem areas as well, for instance, I think we should
allow much more mobility between disciplines than is currently the case. I've
studied computer science and although I'm quite familiar with computational
finance I would probably not be allowed to get a Phd in Finance since I've
never taken business/economics courses. Although if you tested me on any
number of financial subjects I wouldn't have a problem describing how to
model/analyze/forecast the data. So there are a lot of arbitrary hoops that
keep people down and force you to not to change you field of study. Its also
very difficult for older people mid career to get a degree and increase their
personal capital that way. These again are just some problems that we need to
address but "flawed in the extreme" \- I tend to disagree on that one.

~~~
igk
>Yes its flawed but not to the extreme like you suggest. One of the biggest
problems we have, and this I think is common to almost all countries, is that
there is very little emphasis on applied knowledge and much more on
theoretical knowledge. The duale Studium is a better way to attack the problem
than anything else currently out there IMHO.

As I've argued in a differnet post, the problem isn't too little theoretical
knowledge, it's that uni is just seen as "the highest" and people who just
want practical knowledge go to a place which is supposed to give you deep
insight into the _theories_ and _research_ in your field because it gives the
status qualification.

>Another problem we have is that motivations are flawed for our Professors.
Many Professors want to conduct research and don't care about teaching the
material, on the other hand you have some Professors that don't want to
research and would just enjoy teaching the material, yet everyone is
incentivized to conduct research because its the only way to progress. I think
this is fundamentally wrong. Its bad for the students and bad for the
professors. If a professor just wants to teach he/she should be allowed to
focus on that area and be judged by how well his students can actually apply
the learning they acquired in the course. If a professor wants to research he
should be judged by his research.

This follows from my point above. We mix "I just want a job students" with
"give me _moar_ theory" students and the profs who (anecdotally) _love_
dealing with the second type (explaining things to interested newbs is
stimulating for insight) have to dumb down things enough so the job hunters
can get their employer mandated checkmark

>There are so many other problem areas as well, for instance, I think we
should allow much more mobility between disciplines than is currently the
case. I've studied computer science and although I'm quite familiar with
computational finance I would probably not be allowed to get a Phd in Finance
since I've never taken business/economics courses. Although if you tested me
on any number of financial subjects I wouldn't have a problem describing how
to model/analyze/forecast the data. So there are a lot of arbitrary hoops that
keep people down and force you to not to change you field of study.

That I actually have to disagree with...I know loads of CS and EE majors in
economics, the reverse less but also. Especially at the PhD level, as long as
you _did_ something relevant, you can get in.

> Its also very difficult for older people mid career to get a degree and
> increase their personal capital that way. These again are just some problems
> that we need to address but "flawed in the extreme" \- I tend to disagree on
> that one.

This is indeed a problem, but for example my alma mater has started offering
part time degrees, with 25% of the workload required per semester and twice
the allowed maxmimum study time. So there is change

~~~
usrusr
> As I've argued in a differnet post, the problem isn't too little theoretical
> knowledge, it's that uni is just seen as "the highest" and people who just
> want practical knowledge go to a place which is supposed to give you deep
> insight into the theories and research in your field because it gives the
> status qualification.

People who went to a school not matching their needs and desires have no right
to blame their bad choice on the school or on "the system", when better
matching schools where perfectly available. If someone takes a course they
hate for "status" the problem is entirely in their head, because that's where
perceptions of status reside. And besides, switching is possible and does
happen (even on the pre-academic age level, but it is much more difficult and
rare there)

> but for example my alma mater has started offering part time degrees, with
> 25% of the workload required per semester and twice the allowed maxmimum
> study time.

This is a great idea (even if the "25%,twice" ratio puzzles me a bit), it
basically formalizes what "perpetual students" had been doing for decades, if
not for generations, before the "rush the kids to a degree" reforms. People
who only take a small number of courses and even less exams each year won't
have consumed more university resources when they get their degree at some
unforeseeable time in the future than people who rush through.

~~~
igk
The 25 % is the minimum required per semester, but you have double as long to
finish. I.e., if during one semester you need to wind it down from the normal
50% due to life, it's still ok, and you can make it up next semester

~~~
usrusr
Actually, the whole concept of a per semester minimum is foreign to me. Back
in the old days, a few mandatory checkpoints were expected to be reached
within reasonable time, but how you got there was entirely up to you.

Very liberal, but everybody I know who went through that system recognizes as
familiar the occasional nightmares about university administration suddenly
asking for some minor certificate one chose to indefinitely put off years ago.
It's part of who I am, I would totally do it again.

------
rayiner
Pretty rich to use Drexel and Northeastern, two private colleges with a cost
of attendance approaching $70,000 per year, as any sort of model.

------
Zahlmeister
This article is total bullshit and so is the "dual education" model.

"Duale Ausbildung" has nothing to do with universities, if you go that route
you spend up to _four years_ working at (on average) well below 1000€ while
attending a government school that teaches at a rather low level. The
government has to subsidize the income of those people _and_ the employer, in
some cases.

[https://www.azubiyo.de/gehalt/](https://www.azubiyo.de/gehalt/)

Worse, if you don't buy into the "dual education" thing, you can't get most of
these jobs. We're not talking about great jobs either, it's _most_ jobs that
don't require university education. A lot of that is stuff you could be
trained for on-the-job in six months or less.

Don't trust German unemployment statistics, it's basically the government
paying at every end to have people employed at all costs and often at very low
pay.

Also, don't buy into the German educational model, it's one of the most
discriminatory systems in the world, even though it is "free" on paper, it's
all about weeding out people at a young age so they're not allowed to attend
the "free" university. We have parents suing the teachers of ten-year-olds for
the grades they give, because of the impact it can have on their careers.

[http://www.focus.de/familie/rechte/das-kind-aufs-
gymnasium-k...](http://www.focus.de/familie/rechte/das-kind-aufs-gymnasium-
klagen-eltern-zerren-vermehrt-lehrer-vor-gericht_id_3104903.html)

[https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/hard-look-
disc...](https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/hard-look-
discrimination-education-germany)

~~~
jojoo
> We're not talking about great jobs either, it's most jobs that don't require
> university education. A lot of that is stuff you could be trained for on-
> the-job in six months or less.

Have you actually learned a real craft, in germany, or looked at it's
curriculum? Because they learn a lot more than could be thought in 6 weeks.
You could argue that they won't need it for the things their employer needs
them to do when they work, but they learn it anyway. If they switch jobs later
they won't need that much training.

Example: If you learn as an Electrician for Energy and Houses at a big
construction company, the only thing you might do is chopping cable canals and
maybe wiring wall sockets. Both could be learned in 6 Weeks, no question.

But at the Berufsschule you still learn all the other stuff, for an example
how to wire electrical Garage doors. If you later decide to switch Jobs,
you'll be prepared.

> Also, don't buy into the German educational model, it's one of the most
> discriminatory systems in the world, even though it is "free" on paper, it's
> all about weeding out people at a young age so they're not allowed to attend
> the "free" university.

Being a teacher at the very bottom of the german school system, the school
formerly known as Sonderschule I 100% agree.

~~~
Zahlmeister
> Have you actually learned a real craft, in germany, or looked at it's
> curriculum? Because they learn a lot more than could be thought in 6 weeks.
> You could argue that they won't need it for the things their employer needs
> them to do when they work, but they learn it anyway. If they switch jobs
> later they won't need that much training.

Yes, they learn a lot of stuff they won't need for the actual job they will
perform. If they switch jobs, they probably won't need it either, unless it's
a very related job. For instance, if they become a painter, they learn _all
kinds_ of painting techniques that they will never apply. That's all fine and
dandy, except if they just want to work painting houses, why they _have to_
spend three years as an apprentice?

> But at the Berufsschule you still learn all the other stuff, for an example
> how to wire electrical Garage doors. If you later decide to switch Jobs,
> you'll be prepared.

If you already knew the one thing, chances are you could've quickly learned
the other thing as well. Otherwise:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_aren%27t_gonna_need_it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_aren%27t_gonna_need_it)

~~~
jojoo
> why they have to spend three years as an apprentice?

Have you actually looked at a curricula? A lot of it is repetition from school
stuff. Sure the Electricians in my example learned in 7th class how to
transform Volt to mV or kV. But they often can't reproduce this when they
start their apprenticeship (imo the schools are to blame here).

If apprentices don't have problems with that Kind of Math, can write readable
reports they generally get a Lehrzeitverkürzung up to 1.5 Years.

Source: I actually read curricula of Apprenticeships, talk with colleagues who
work in the Berufsschule if my pupils might have a shot at a apprenticeship
(they never do)

Besides that we have longer apprenticeships 1) so that the "german workforce"
is more skilled in general. 2) so that if they choose to become Meister to be
their own boss they don't need to learn all the extra stuff.

> If you already knew the one thing, chances are you could've quickly learned
> the other thing as well.

That does certainly apply to abstract things but it doesn't apply well to
craftsmanship. To quote RMS: A if-construct does not generate friction against
the for loop. But if you bend the cables in the wrong radius, 20 years later
when the plastic of the wire-insulation starts degenerating, you might run
into problems.

> YAGNI comparing humans to programs? i like to live in a world with skilled
> human beings that can realize at least some of their potential. an extended
> apprenticeship might help some to do that.

~~~
Zahlmeister4
Getting that extra education _may_ make more sense for trades like
electricians, it makes zero sense for salespeople or cooks or house painters
or hair stylists and yet all these people are forced into three years of
underpaid labor and crappy government schooling.

Even if the German system was better (which it isn't), it makes you wonder how
all the other countries in the world are going by without it. German workers
are relatively underpaid even after going through the rites, _that 's_ what
makes us competitive - not the fact that our workers have more skills than
they need.

> so that if they choose to become Meister to be their own boss they don't
> need to learn all the extra stuff

That _makes no sense_. Most never become a "Meister", but even those that do
could learn that stuff when and _if_ they need it.

------
geff82
The article is completely "fake news" as it is not about Universities in
Germany. It is about apprenticeship. Apprenticeship is a widely accepted path
to professional education here and works as described in the article. Your
salary is also not as high as mentioned - normally around 500-800 Euros/month.
Besides universities and apprenticeship, there are "dual studies" where you
are partly working for (usually big) enterprises and partly studying for a
university degree. But only a few students are doing this, most either do
apprenticeship (which includes interesting professions like programmer or
system administrator) or university studies.

~~~
lispm
For software developers and medium sized enterprises, the Duales Studium is an
excellent way to grow new talent.

~~~
geff82
Absolutely. I just say that not the majority is doing this.

~~~
lispm
For a young person or a company it is not important what the majority is
doing. Talent in software development is in high demand and a dual education
(Ausbildung or Studium, or a combination of both) is for many companies an
attractive way to get well trained staff in software development. For software
developers this is a good alternative to a computer science degree, which is
not that much about practical programming.

------
sytelus
TLDR; In Germany, 60% of people get vocational training as their "higher
education" designed for vary specific jobs. Companies sign contract with young
people at the age of 15-16. They get certification for this specific training
by age of 20 and then get on with those jobs. At least half of the education
system is designed as a "factory" that produces specific skilled workers that
industry asks for.

Personally I'm not sure if any country should be adopting this model.

~~~
Zahlmeister
It's not just very specific jobs, it's most jobs. You work in sales? You learn
to be a "Kaufmann/Kauffrau". You work as a house painter? You learn "Maler/in
und Lackierer/in". You work as a cook? You learn "Koch/Köchin". For three
years at much less than 1000€/month! It's no surprise that the drop-out rates
are at 25%.

If you don't do that, you usually can't even get those jobs. It's a _stupid_
system. It's basically what became of the medieval guilds, in modern times.

People like to connect our low youth unemployment rate with this system, but I
believe in reality most of these people are attending some form of education
or job training program, so they don't "count" as unemployed. When they're
done with all that, they're so old they don't count as "youth" anymore. That
trick only works when a country can afford it, though.

~~~
DangerousPie
What's wrong with this? Starting out in sales with a three year (not very well
paid) apprenticeship still sounds a lot better to me than paying for college
for four years, amassing a huge amount of debt and then going to work in sales
afterwards with zero real world experience.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
What's good about it: It produces people who actually know how to do the work,
and does so more efficiently than college. The way we do it in the US is
dependent on a company being able to decide who can and cannot do the work in
a few hours of interviewing, and that doesn't work all that well.

What's wrong with it: It (probably) closes the door to non-traditional entry
into the trades. Also, presuming I understand it correctly, it makes it hard
to change careers. You hit 40, and decide that you don't like the life you
chose as a 16-year-old? Well, _if_ you can re-take it at 40, that means three
years of low-paid internship at some other trade.

