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Comment by MarkMc | Hacker News Reader

If you are a young person living in a poor country, the two best investments you can make to improve your standard of living are (a) get a university education; and (b) immigrate to a rich country.

Germany offers both:

1. A free undergraduate university degree

2. For every graduate: 18 month work visa after graduation

3. For every STEM graduate who earns more than EUR 40,000 per year: approval to work in Germany forever (ie. a 'blue card')

Yes, you must first learn German, have good high school grades and be able to borrow EUR 9,000 to apply for the student visa. But for millions of people living in third-world countries that is achievable and a great investment given the enormous returns on offer.

So why isn't Germany flooded with foreign university students?

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> Yes, you must first learn German,

Maybe because of this?

> be able to borrow EUR 9,000 to apply for the student visa

Also, this. 9,000 euros does not seem like too much for people from first-world countries, but for people coming from relatively speaking much poorer countries that sum is quite high.

Even if the requirements make it impossible for 95% of people, that still leaves millions for whom it is possible.

Yes, exactly. Learning a foreign language not widely spoken outside of Europe, while also taking college-level math and science courses is a high barrier to entry. This is the primary reason Germany is able to pull this off. If a high-quality college education were free in an English-speaking country, say Australia, there would be a lot more international students willing and able to enroll there. After graduating, you could take the degree and move anywhere in the English-speaking world (work visa permitting). In Germany at least, they assume because you achieved a high proficiency in German there's high likelihood you'll stay and work there for at least a few years after graduation. In a way, this is also true of the job market -- if you're able to get a job in Germany, or Italy, Sweden etc, anywhere where the language is not used widely outside of that country, then you have proved your qualifications and dedication to the country enough to warrant a work visa.

Also many Ivy Plus schools offer free tuition to international students who qualify for need-based aid. US taxpayers subsidize these schools indirectly through the tax-exempt endowments, corporate income and federal grant money.

>Yes, exactly. Learning a foreign language not widely spoken outside of Europe, while also taking college-level math and science courses is a high barrier to entry

Obligatory "anecdote isn't data" but as someone in a third world country who seriously considered studying in Germany, the language learning aspect was the least of my worries. I got to a B2 proficiency level in around a year and to C1/C2 within a year of that (for context: you need B1 to apply for citizenship and C1 to apply to higher education programs in German).

Getting the 9k, plus flight expenses, all the paperwork expenses was what proved to be impossible; in reality you need around 12k. It was all too much. I had no way of getting that amount of money.

In the end I decided to stay and get my degree here. Learning German was a great experience so it wasn't all a waste. Met some great people along the way and discovered my love for linguistics.

I also personally agree that this policy isn't necessarily helping Germany overall. I think the Blue Card program is a lot more valuable and should probably be more heavily "advertised".

Just curious: Where is 'here'?

And did you consider trying to get a German Blue Card after graduating in your home country?

> I got to a B2 proficiency level in around a year and to C1/C2 within a year of that

Congrats! This is no small achievement for a language not widely spoken outside of Europe. I went on a summer language immersion to Germany (living with a host family) and began picking up the language that way, in addition to listening to DW, radio, sports matches, etc. to get to that level. While I've only lived a small time in German-speaking countries, it's served me well with the some great conversations and connections at cultural and engineering-related events around the world, making life that much richer.

Anyways, sounds like linguistics might be your thing -- I'm sure you'll be successful at whatever route you go down.

9000 euros is a large sum for countries where an average monthly salary can be around 500 euro or less. Only wealthy families (whose kids don't really need German education) would afford that.

The ability to study in Germany is not a welfare program.

I can buy a house in my country with 9000 EUR.

Out of personal interest: Which country is that?

Detroit

According to his keybase.io profile, the country is Colombia.

Why learning German is a big issue? These are young people who can learn a language easily and in the beginning nobody expects you so high proficiency and people will always help and encourage you to learn the language. In Europe many educated folks know min 2 languages more and very open to learn more, you just need to leave your comfort zone. Learning languages also develops intellectually.

There was a guy from Brasil in my first year CS studies (in Poland). His Polish was passable I guess, but it was just no match during say intense Linear Algebra lecture, where Polish native speakers were barely keeping up (because the subject itself was enough and required tons of concentration). Sure enough, he dropped out after the first semester.

> In Europe many educated folks know min 2 languages more and very open to learn more

Am Eastern-European, my mother tongue is a Romance language, I speak and read English, read and understand Italian, French and Spanish. German has proved too much of a hurdle for me.

> Am Eastern-European, my mother tongue is a Romance language, I speak and read English, read and understand Italian, French and Spanish. German has proved too much of a hurdle for me.

Of course if you speak some Romance language natively, other Romance languages will be a lot easier than a Germanic language as German. Here you should rather compare German with a language from a different language family, such as some Slavic language.

I (native German speaker) think that at least for English speakers French and German are about equally hard. The main difference is that French has a "smoother" learning curve, while German's grammar is really grueling at the beginning (but this is also said of the Russian grammar).

What in my opinion many people don't get is learning German means learning the unpleasant grammar (IMHO best by rote drill) inside out. Concentrating on the vocabulary and getting the grammar later might work for other languages that are less grammar-centric than German, but I can imagine German is very confusing for non-native speakers, if they are not rather certain in the grammar.

As soon as one is sufficiently certain in German's grammar (i.e. you don't have to think about conjugation and declination anymore), the learning experience will become much more pleasant, since in my opinion how words are "built up from parts" (in German in particular prominently by juxtaposition) is "in some sense much more logical and memorable" than how words are built in English or Romance language. A rather funny take on this for German animal names can be found under https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/funny-animal-names-in-ger...

It is not the same to have level C1 (completely fluent) in German and having the vocabulary and level to study at a German university. Exams in Germany are never multiple-choice and require you to write with a scientific vocabulary and idioms. This means an additional year of intensive German alone to have the vocabulary to pass exams at university.

I think it's because for 9000 euros the students can study medicine in their home countries at a good university and not have to learn German, then move many places in the world with a skilled employment visa.

That's a good point, but the German approach still seems more attractive to me:

- To learn German and pass the preparatory program for foreign students (Studienkolleg) would take 18 months. With skilled immigration you generally need 3 or 4 years work experience in addition to a degree.

- When applying for a job in a rich country, a degree from a local university counts much more than a degree from a third-world country so graduate salaries would likely be more.

- A foreign student at a German university can work and earn enough to pay living costs. Therefore the initial EUR 9000 is more like a loan than an expense.

Because 40k€ a year is not a lot of money after the high taxes. For example, for a non-married 25 year old 40k€ p.a. results in about ~2k€ net per month after taxes. When you further deduct the costs of a apartment rent, utility bills, car, food, insurances, phone bills, various little "fees" that are actually taxes (e.g. Rundfunkbeitrag), you are very lucky if you have 1k€ left left. That is not a lot of money to send home.

> and be able to borrow EUR 9,000 to apply for the student visa As far as I know there is not need of EUR 9,000 to apply for a student Visa, I studied in a german university as an international student, hence I know you do not need such amount of money to apply for Visa. In the other hand in many cases you can get scholarships which compensate for these expenses.

I was going off this page [0] which says, "At least the living expenses for your first year in Germany must be fully financed. In general, about 8,640 euros of income or assets are required for the first year, or 720 euros per month".

[0] https://www.daad.de/deutschland/nach-deutschland/bewerbung/e...

Other than 9000 EUR an amazing high amount how can you afford to live there?

You can't work can you?

As an international student in Germany, you get an automatic work visa for so called student jobs, up to 19,5 hours a week, no limits on wage earned, no extra social security costs. Income tax starts at 8000 a year. As a student, you can get around with 500/mo in Germany, 750 may be the comfortable lower bound

To be clear: 500 € may be sufficient in smaller cities but not in Munich and other cities with high rents.

As the diplomas in Germany count more or less as the same, you are free to choose a university at a place with lower renting costs like Leipzip, Koblenz or Greifswald. Your relatives may have to look on the map, but in everyday professional life (especially IT) it does not matter much. There are some preferred places for every field (KIT for IT in Karlsruhe, Business, Management in Mannheim, Engineering in Darmstadt...), but if you don't have or earn a lot of money, you have tons of good possibilities.

A student visa allows the student to work 120 days per year. At minimum wage this is about EUR 720 per month. If the student allocates 40% to rent, that means 6 students could afford to pay EUR 1,228. Let's say 2 students per bedroom.

Isn't it possible to rent a 3-bedroom home in Munich for EUR 1,228 per month?

> Isn't it possible to rent a 3-bedroom home in Munich for EUR 1,228 per month?

Good luck getting a flatshare these days. Landlords don't like it very much, because they associate flatshares ("Wohngemeinschaften"/"WGs") with noise complaints due to partying and trouble when one of the renters can't make rent.

Also, 3-bedroom homes are already in scarce supply these days in Munich - any type of home is in scarce supply, and landlords will abuse this situation to pick only the most profitable (i.e. they pay their rent on time and don't generate complaints) kinds of renters: either DINKs (Double income, no kids - kids cause noise and thus complaints of neighors), or welfare clients where the Arbeitsamt pays the rent. Everyone else - low-income persons, families with kids, persons with their own company, persons on time-limited employment, persons with dogs (again, noise complaints), refugees, persons of non-German origin - is left to fight for the scraps. That there has been no build of "welfare housing" the last decades and many of the "welfare housing" projects exited the programmes only amplifies the need doesn't help much either.

Oh, and if you got a family name that doesn't sound German... well, good luck. Many landlords and brokers won't even bother to return calls.

Source: live in Munich, only got my apartment due to a friendly relationship with a broker.

It is not so easy. It takes a lot of time to get a good level of German: At least 1 year of intensive courses, eventually 2. After this, you have to take Studienkolleg, if you want to have a chance at graduating. German universities are really challenging. In addition, as a foreign student, you will take longer than your German peers to graduate. In total to get a bachelor, you need to invest somewhere between 6-7 years. It is a lot of time (and money) for most people.

The worst part is that you do not have a guarantee that you will graduate. I knew many cases of foreign students, who invested 3-4 years of their life and were expelled from the university for failing their final exams. They returned home with nothing on their hands.

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