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Comment by jnardiello | Hacker News Reader

My tuition fee in a top-notch european technical college (automation engineering) was roughly 3000$/year. But yeah, let's keep cargo-culting the US model.

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You probably forgot taxes in that cost (that you will pay for the rest of your life as a high earner) but, that said, that is a great model: the country makes an investment in you, you prove you are serious about it (the $3000 a year), and in return, the country gets a higher wage earner (and more taxes) to pay for the next generation.

No, I didn't. That was the total tuition fee including taxes. Obviously that didn't include any sort of college accommodation or meal plan - as I lived at reasonable distance from the campus. It was just standard "classes & exams".

That said, because tuition and taxes are proportional to family income, I was in the highest and most expensive tuition fee. Most of the students in the campus would roughly pay half of it - unless they would start to repeat classes and not pass exams (for which you automatically jump to the most expensive yearly fee).

The person you're replying to mean't taxes you pay on your income after college.

What I'm talking about is that most European countries have a higher overall income tax rate than the US. Some of this goes to pay for your education, so 3000 is not the total you are paying for it, you will keep paying for it over your lifetime in taxes.

Again, I think this is a great idea. But that said, there is no free lunch in this world.

In France the very elite students get paid during their studies (equivalent to Msc, not PhD). In exchange they are supposed to work as civil servants for some time (not sure all are supposed to do that), but some go work abroad right after their studies so that investment is mostly lost by the French government.

You're probably referring to the Ecole Polytechnique. Indeed newly graduates are supposed to work as a civil servant or pay the "pantoufle", which according to [1] is roughly 45000€, and as of last May when the article was written, it says only 10% of the graduates were paying it, but the government was starting to go after them.

[1]In French: http://www.lepoint.fr/societe/polytechnique-le-gouvernement-...

I was indeed referring to Ecole Polytechnique, but also Ecole Normale Superieure. I think alumni from Polytechnique can be expected to join the army if needed, since it depends from the Ministry of Defense.

For what it's worth, the majority of public US institutions are similar in cost. The outlandish prices are either private schools or out-of-state tuition rates.

It's been ten years, but my undergraduate tuition at a modestly well respected engineering-focused university was ~$2000-year. I think the rates at tech are now about $4000-year, but it's not too outrageous.

Honestly saying "just look at instate costs" is just as misleading. Restricting access to a quality education / future job options (depending on your field, etc) based on geography is one of the most telling failures of American Federalism. The sooner state schools are re-bundled into a federal program for affordable access to all Americans the better.

I don't see that happening in our lifetime. What's more likely is an increase in the number of interstate agreements and consortia, where two or more states agree to charge each other's residents in state rates.

I'm not aware of major educational problems with in-state schools. I've compared my curriculum at a nobody southern in state school with the CS curriculum at MIT and I don't see any major differences and I don't feel shortchanged.

I'm pretty sure the only your school matters in the real world is at the most elite levels of a few fields and even then its mostly just about hiring people who went to the same school as you and the perception elites must come from the ivy league.

My ancedote here is that it's more about opportunity than educational quality. The "secret sauce" of higher education isn't the course work, or even the individual lecturers (although there is a certain minimum bar there) as evidenced by the growing trend to offer those for free. It is rather a case of brand recognition and access to a given network. The graduate of MIT has pull in pretty much anywhere of her choosing, the Georgia Tech grad faces friction as soon as she leaves the south east, the Clemson grad faces that same friction as soon as she leaves South Carolina (top tier private, top tier public, mid teir public for engineering), all other things being equal. Given the unequal distribution of employment across the nation it seems ridiculous that there are these huge paywalls in connecting qualified students to institutions best suited for them based solely on something as ephemeral as which state their parents are working when they turn 17.

You can't just send EVERYONE to Berkeley/SUNY/UW. "Prestigious" is inherently anti-universal-access. The only solution is to crush the power of these prestigious universities.

I think you're missing the point. The issue isn't that every student can't go to Berkeley, it's that identically qualified students students can be charged 500% more for the opportunity purely because of geography. I suspect this disparity might actually be weakening the "prestigious" nature of many schools given there is now a monetary incentive to accept unqualified students if they are out of state (or even out of country for even more fees).

Given that you can become a resident of a state by not being claimed as a dependent by your parents and having an in state address, makes it possible for most students to get the in-state rate if they choose. Typical path seems to be spend a year at a community college which can transfer credits into your chosen university, attend that college until you have filed a tax return with you as your only dependent, transfer to the state school in the fall (or summer sometimes).

It's a natural outcome of federalism. State A invests revenues heavily in a world renowned university. State B invests little in its postsecondary education. It is each states prerogative to decide how much to spend on education- federalism.

Naturally many State B residents will want to attend the world class university in State A. But they didn't pay a dime of taxes to support it. Hence, higher tuition rates for out of staters.

You see it as restricting access to education, but I see it more as reaping the the seed you sow. Each state chooses how much to spend on education, and lives with the results of their choices.

Except the people effected are not the people making the choices. No child today voted for a reduction in education budgets. Given how much the volatility of job market causes people to move many people don't have much of a choice when choosing which state to live. Disadvantaging people because their parents happen to work in South Carolina and members of their parents generation decided to cut funding is the exact opposite of "reaping what you sow". An out dated view for a system designed before instant access communication.

Children grow up in a world that was not created by them, but by their parents. News at 11.

Running education at the federal level is not going to suddenly lift education funding to a "10" in all states.

I am not doing a good job explaining this eloquently, but the point is federalism allows states to cut education budgets, or be lavish with them, without answering to other states. States that want to be lavish do not have the clout to force the entire country to be lavish. "Every state has top quality schools with extremely generous education spending" is not an option on the table, because the states that don't want to spend money on education have a vote, too.

Saying it's a failure assumes/implies that we know which model is perfect, and that everyone can just agree to adopt it.

Which clearly isn't the case, or we wouldn't have such vastly different systems in different states.

We also have vastly different levels of social mobility in different states. Since access to quality education for the poorest and social mobility should be correlated, we could have some idea of what education model is the best, and my guess is that it will not be the one in the US.

A US state is pretty similar to a EU nation, in terms of population and economy size.

At a large state school. https://admissions.msu.edu/finances/tuition.asp

13k, for tuition alone.

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