Just a heads up: The numbers for Germany on that page include all social security contributions, including health insurance (4.7k€) and pension contributions (6k€). (Not sure if you accounted for these in your number for Maryland.)
Still, I agree with the general idea you're reaching for. The ostensible premium of elite private schools isn't worth going into crippling debt for in most cases I can envisage.
I went to a small state college with a horrible computer science department. Four years out of college I was making just as much as people who had way more debt than I had (I.e. none)
I didn't go to a community college but I did go to a cheap state school with the intention of transferring to GA Tech under a 3 + 2 program - I was accepted straight out of high school but I got a scholarship to go to the no name school.
When it was time to make a decision, I felt GT was a waste of time for me. I didn't want to be a "computer engineer" I wanted to develop software. I don't see my career trajectory being any different. No one cared what school I graduated from three years after I started working.
However, you can't just extrapolate from these experiences to everyone going to college across the entire work force. Our field is a bit uniquely ... democratic.
I can tell you that UGA requires freshmen to live on campus, though in my case I was able to get a waiver because my parents were local. And I get the impression that their housing costs are actually fairly competitive compared to local commercial rent.
I got into $200k worth of undergrad student loans. I am still paying them back and probably could have done things to reduce that burden early on. Regardless, I don’t regret it for a second because I’ll be done paying for them in about three years, and I’ll keep the high income job and great network I’ve accumulated in the process.
GA Tech is $12,500 if you don't stay on campus for a GA resident. If you meet the HOPE scholarship requirements (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HOPE_Scholarship), it will pay 90% of the tuition costs - not including books and fees - reducing that cost by about $9000 a year.
If you don't have the qualifications for Hope, more than likely you wouldn't be admitted into GT anyway.
Yes the ethics of using the lottery to fund education is unclear and no it doesn't apply to every state, but is the University of Illionois worth it unless you are qualified for a high paying job to make the expense worth it (serious question - I don't know)? If not, are their cheaper state schools?
This option should most certainly be made clearer to students. I don't want to play a blame game, but I think its somewhat related to the culture of parents wanting "the best" for their kids and considering all money spent on education as an "investment". Its not. Its a huge financial commitment and should be thought through carefully.
Now, its not like college is completely useless. The connections you form there last for life. Many founders initially met in college and so on. But someone considering taking on ginormous student loan debt probably should consider whether that is worth paying off loans for decades.
This applies not just to German citizens but to anyone who studies in Germany. The stipend sources may be slightly different where you come from though.
The problem is that most people in the US that "know" Germany gives everyone a college edu, thinks it is literally everyone and it certainly is not the case. Could people from Germany please stop spreading partial truths?
* $18,000/year 401k contribution (similar to pension, but I take on the market risk)
* $5,500/year IRA contribution (similar to pension, but I take on the market risk)
* $200,000 total in tuition per child at my alma mater.
* Health insurance costs. This can easily be $12,000/year or more for a family.
None of these are included in the tax amounts that we pay.
This is also not considering that German cities are much cheaper than equivalently walkable American cities.
If we taxed our middle class what Germany taxes its middle class, we could afford cheap tuition too (for the 1/4 of our kids we chose to send to college).
While I'm in favor of free/cheap education, this made me think of a convincing argument for the student loan / US system. Those who benefit from the education are "taxed" for it in the form of loan payments for a few years, those who don't benefit (directly) from the education are not.
I guess ideally you could balance the benefit to society vs the benefit to the individual getting the education and subsidize it proportionally. But that's obviously not practical so we should probably push closer to the society end of the margin of error.
> Those who benefit from the education are "taxed" for it in the form of loan payments for a few years, those who don't benefit (directly) from the education are not.
Not only that, but the benefits of free/cheap education largely accrue to the middle and upper classes whereas the lower class also has significantly higher taxes under the European system.
I'm most familiar with the UK where universities like Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Imperial, etc. are all overwhelmingly middle class. I'm sure the pattern is repeated in Europe as well.
This could be fixed by increasing the taxes on the middle class and up, leaving the lower class taxes the same.
>are all overwhelmingly middle class.
There are likely factors other than cost for people from lower classes to going to university at a lower rate, but it's the opportunity to do so that's important and cost is often the biggest impediment to it.
How exactly would you sell that? It requires a certain amount of commitment to furthering society to ask people to pay more in taxes. And there is all this right-wing media and people who will constantly shout "Big Government is taking all your hard earned money!" argument.
Its rather amazing that Europeans have accepted high taxes on middle and upper classes as a fact of life. But then, If you look at history, it was the poor who got taxed the most in pre-revolutionary France, while the rich got away with massive tax cuts. I fear this might lead to something similar in the US in the future: push too many people into poverty and they will rise in revolution.