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Comment by mountainofdeath | Hacker News Reader

I need to dig up the article but an article I read a few years ago confirmed what I already thought about schools in Europe. While it is true that higher education in Europe is mostly free, it's extraordinarily competitive. There are far fewer universities and the admissions standards are much higher. Students are sorted going into high school based on their ability and those that are not on the university track on placed into normal or trade high schools.

I have no problem paying taxes toward humanity or other "useless" degrees if the person is truly profoundly talented. Student loans provide all of the wrong incentives.

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I can only speak with my experience with the German system. There is some early sorting in the school system, and if you don't get the highest school degree, you're not immediately eligible for university. The point at which those school branches diverge is arguably too early, and a point that is discusses in politics, but very hard to change.

I would disagree that this system is extraordinarily competitive. I'd agree that it sorts too early and sometimes misjudges due to that. But overall, getting the "Abitur", which is the degree necessary to go to university did seem quite a bit easier than university itself.

Also don't forget the "second route" where even if you do your grades 5-11 in the second highest tier of school and then notice you still want to go to university, you can add 2-3 years of school, which is not that uncommon for people who seemed to be not up to the "higher education lane" at age 10-12, but are absolutely capable at age 16-18.

To me it's a much better system. I have friends at uni here in the UK doing pretty useless degrees and racking up 9 grand a year. The German education model for example is very attractive for me, and much fairer than our previous 11+.

Russia adds its own twist. Education is free, but all young men except who fail admission exams or drop out at any point in their education are conscripted into the military service.

It used to be two years of service, now it's one. Russian army is not a nice place to be, to put it mildly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedovshchina

I think this was not so uncommon, although often phrased differently -- in many places conscription was obligatory, but could be deferred while in university... and after graduating you'd be useful enough not to spend 2 years digging ditches. And perhaps by the time you had a PhD would be exempt.

I'm not sure what the Italian model is now but I know it used to be something like this:

- University is basically free but does not include room and board

- First year of university is essentially open to anyone

- To get to the 2nd year, you must pass difficult exams with a very low pass rate

That means that the number of people with "some college" is very high but the number of people with a degree is much, much lower. This way they get to say "college is free for everyone" while also getting to limit who "everyone" is.

I guess Europe hasn't figured out how that you can make guaranteed money off a subset of the population whose risk vs rewards centres have literally not totally developed in their brain, or it has enough ethics not to.

I think it's more accurate to say that they are missing information, rather than being mentally underdeveloped.

You're right, I was basing the assumption on old knowledge.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/impulsive-teen...

That doesn't explain why Jen or Karyn in the article took out large loans for vanity degrees.

People make bad decisions at every age. The way to fix this problem is to make colleges suffer penalties for loan defaults. Then maybe they would think twice about selling onw year vanity grad degrees for $50K to people who can't afford it.

Jen went into her masters for public policy. How is that a vanity degree? That sounds like a "not sexy but it should get me a job" degree. Who is Karyn, I don't see her in the article at all - there's a Kathryn, but she was a teacher, clearly a non-vanity degree.

Sorry I meant Kathryn.

"[]Kathryn, a 35-year-old with $118,000 in debt from a degree in museum studies[]."

A 1-year masters degree in public policy from an Ivy is a vanity degree. (as indicated by Jen's current situation)

Ok, yeah, Kathryn's seems a bit spurious.

>Jen enrolled in a one-year master’s program in public policy at an Ivy League university, where, despite having small scholarships and participating in work-study programs, she accumulated an additional $50,000 in federal loans. But by the time she graduated, the economy still hadn’t recovered, and she struggled to find work. She deferred her loans (meaning she did not have to make payments, and no interest accrued) and when the deferment period ran out, she put them in forbearance (during which payments are suspended, but interest does accrue). In 2010, she found a job — only to be laid off, again, two years later. She managed to find a contract gig that put her to work three days a week, and consolidated her loans into a single loan that would be easier to manage.

I don't know how not being able to find a job in 2008 and then finding a job but being laid off and then having a stroke qualifies as her earning a vanity degree.

The stroke came after the poor choice. Jen's case is also a bit spurious -- hers sounds like more of a healthcare/safety net issue than a student debt issue.

If the crisis is so dire, why do articles like this highlight victims that few will sympathize with. Maybe the author doesn't know any normal people.

Maybe they should highlight people like my daughter who intentionally chose a local state school rather than an expensive out-of-state or private school and selected a pragmatic STEM degree.

> Maybe they should highlight people like my daughter who intentionally chose a local state school rather than an expensive out-of-state or private school and selected a pragmatic STEM degree.

Did your daughter pay for her schooling all by herself? And which letter in the acronym? I'd argue that the S and M might not be guaranteed to get you a job either. It's really just "TE" jobs at best.

Honors college CS major. I am paying but she did not know that I would until after she committed. I told her I expect to be paid back in full -- we will see how that works out.

I think with room and board it is costing us around $22K per year.

Majority of students go for various business degrees. People love to focus on those with impactically sounding degrees, but that is not the bulk of students.

Germany is also quite homogeneous. When Thomas is not accepted for free higher education but Paul and Herman are, it's all right and nobody is angry.

It may not work for more diverse countries, such as US.

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