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Comment by yardie | Hacker News Reader

Most of the top universities in the US are effectively free. The pool of students they get to choose from would enter with a basket of scholarship money to the point they wouldn't have to pay. The other group is so wealthy the price of tuition is the cost of a new luxury car, every year. Effectively a single percentage expense.

Germany doesn't have to make their schools to compete free because the schools they compete against are basically free to the type of students they are pursuing.

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I see you contradict the very point you are trying to convey there, or I am misunderstanding you

I seriously doubt the average Ivy League/Oxbridge aspirant would ever consider a Germany university as an alternative. Below these few elite universities you have another upper tier which in the UK would be Imperial/UCL/Durham etc. (although some departments in this supposedly lower tier are superior to the top tier). Below that you have another tier, and looking at this tier in the global rankings you are starting to see some German universities crop up. Basically, and I'm not looking to be offensive, but with these universities your market is by definition the more mediocre students, and it is in this group that I think you would start to find students for whom price is more of a priority than quality. Students at the better than average universities expect their degree to deliver a premium that will easily wipe out the cost.

I think there is a fault in your argument. Not all students, use global rankings to make up their minds. It's a matter of perspective. I am fairly confident that most top 5% European students have not considered applying to an Ivy League school or any American university for that matter. Your claim that German universities mainly attract mediocre students is completely unfounded.

Just because some students don't aspire to go to a German university doesn't mean the quality of education would be any worse. Many of my close friends (and me personally as well) did their undergrad in Germany and then a semester abroad and/or their Master's in top-10 universities in the US. I have yet to hear from anyone that they felt in any way more challenged in the US (typically the opposite). Yes studying in the US is great fun compared to Germany (sports, extracurriculars, nice spirit of community, ...) but in terms of learning I doubt there is much of a difference

Same experience. I think despite the ranking, European universities are actually higher quality. American universities use too much student assistants. Too much of the teaching is hand holding and high school like. When I compare my dutch university experience with my American, it was more research oriented in the Netherlands. You learned to think more scientifically. In the US it felt like it was just about learning lots of stuff. Also the grading system in the US is a weak spot. It is usually far too easy to get an A in the US.

I've also have friends who have gone to top US universities, but who mainly can speak of the advantage being that, because they are big, they can offer more variation of course, but with respect to quality there was little difference.

It's a double edged sword. I didn't attend a European university but I have many friends who have. Their complaints were the subjects were book heavy with very little practical overlap. Professors were unreachable, office hours did not exist.

This was for the normal universities. The technical schools are a different animal. Extrememly competitive to the point of mental breakdown. And if that happened? Tough luck, they don't care.

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