WHAT ?? Not. at. all.
I'm french and university is almost FREE (never more than 1000 euros a year and mostly around 300) for anyone with the A-level, at any age. Yeah of course there are exams like for any diploma in the entire world but there are not "super rigorous" especially at uni. There's only a "hard" exam in medecine, and normal "exams" every year (like in every program in the world) that are basically a joke for anyone qualified in these disciplines. If you want you can enroll in elite tracks, which are very hard, but they are almost free too (i paid 0 for the education, 200 a year for housing + around 60 euro per month of food).
Granted you have amphitheater with hundreds of people, but if you are motivated you'll get the education.
The most expensive school in frances are the high end economic school and some engineering school (not the best ones actually) and it's under 10k a year.
You have no idea of how much you get screwed in the US
However, I liked more the atmosphere in University.
Also, most private eng schools are crap though they're quite expensive.
So it doesn't seem that tuition have an incidence on quality, at least in France.
Seriously - if you want to be a vet in the EU it is CRAZY competitive. You simply have no chance to get in unless you have top Abitur scores.
Everyone saying you just need a high school degree to get into a vet school or anything else is dreaming. Many of the high schools themselves are tiered schools.
Indeed, so people don’t spend a ton of time teaching that which won’t stick no matter what.
It’s absolutely possible to tier-up if you are so inclined, but generally that involves a lot of work on your part.
Not enough to still live there, apparently. Sounds like Canada is good in some respects but worse in others, like making good money in your chosen career. Every country has trade-offs, and the US’s is that a lot of safety nets aren’t there but the sky’s the limit for high achievers. Some people like it that way.
Current-year tuition fees at Carleton range from $3500CAD/semester to $5800CAD/semester [1] for domestic students. The province foots the bill for over half, probably closer to three quarters based on the international student fees. It's gone up a little but it's hardly un-manageable. Both my brother and I graduated without debt by working during the summers, and both scholarships and bursaries are available to help cover the costs -- and loans via OSAP [2].
FWIW I did mean to type $3500 in my original post, which is probably now closer to $5000.
[1] https://admissions.carleton.ca/scholarships/domestic-costs/
[2] https://www.ontario.ca/page/osap-ontario-student-assistance-...
This is true of many issues the US faces that Europe has solved. Healthcare, education, income inequality, housing, transportation, gun violence...
Just go down down the list and it's easy to find "unsolvable American problems" that have solutions, and that we Americans are totally ignorant about or refuse to acknowledge, saying it "won't work for us".
As another user pointed out, US universities are also restricted in the same manner. Perhaps you're attempting to describe a difference in how they would be perceived and thus perhaps politically digestable, but college admissions is extremely competitive in the United States as well.
The bar for entry has certainly lowered/widened, likely related to financial incentives being discussed in this post.
Obviously, nothing is perfect.
Source: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiturientenquote_und_Studiena...
All programs have requirements, to take a STEM program you need to have calculus, physics and similar from high school. If you don't have it there's generally a system to study for a year to pass those courses, allowing you to change track.
The entrance is then essentially. (Checked my program)
1. 66% based on high school grades
2. 34% on a SAT/ACT like test.
The test is different though, no essays or other subjective stuff. It essentially has two parts both multiple choice, one testing language and one testing logic. Score is assigned by bell curve of all takers. Generally not as good predictor of student suitability as grades but allows people who just barely passed high school due to lack of motivation, issues at home and similar to still have a chance getting into their dream career if they are smart enough.
You can generally with really high motivation study for the test and raise your score a bit, not hugely though, and having that motivation is another predictor for success studying so works itself out.
There are STRICT entrance requirement - basically tied to your Abitur or similar. This means big waitlists if you are not a top scoring (on Abitur). European systems DO have exams and they can be pretty high stakes for classes. There are lots of quotas - as should be obvious given the education is free.
"The remaining places not reserved for the aforementioned advanced quota groups are filled following the Abiturbestenquote, i.e. applicants with the best higher education entrance qualification grades, and Wartezeitquote, applicants with the highest amount of accumulated wait semesters. The admission criteria within the selection process of institutions of higher education (Auswahlverfahren der Hochschulen, AdH) are set by the universities and institutions themselves according to the respective state law and their own requirements. Therefore, the AdH is not an additional application and admission procedure, but only one of several quotas."
There used to be public graduation rankings, but they are no more.
standardized testing is mostly a scam.
That a given university is a non-profit tells you almost nothing about whether it functions like a state-funded school in a social democracy. Many are actually quite predatory in terms of saddling students with tuition, fees, unnecessary courses, etc.
Economic inequality is an important problem but it’s not the only problem. It’s okay to sometimes accumulate and deploy funds to other ends.
Universities don’t act like specific cost centers of governments, they act like governments.
I don't think there is a European standardisation on hard entrance exams and limited numbers.
I don't know which nations you're talking about, but I'm not certain that I'd call entrance exams in France "rigorous". But the entire system is different than in the US, so I guess maybe it's not comparable?
In any case, trying to get a perfect score on an SAT is way harder. Probably the whole reason an industry has popped up around increasing your score on the SAT/ACT/GRE/GMAT/MCAT etc etc etc.
This can be very selective or not at all depending on where you're going, there are totally different tracks so it really can't be discussed in general (Law, Medicine, Engineering, Business, Art, trades, etc...). All are basically free, except business schools that are always private and super expensive.
I think that's the main difference between the US, US always have gigantic college of 30000 students that cover everything, whereas France is rather fragmented.
that's just not quite true in all major European countries I have a direct experience with.
Can you name a SINGLE well known major university that does not have this and allows anyone a free education? I will post the requirements here. It is not open to all by any means - their are STRICT quotas.
That seems fairly common everywhere. It seems pointless to me to give a university education to someone that’s illiterate.
Your acceptance depends very very significantly on your performance in high school - there are strict cutoffs based on how you did on your abitur, which in turn relates to a series of high stakes exams and earlier tracking in high school (europe has tracking already in high school where entire high schools are different track).
It's not get a high school diploma and go to university for free. To be a vet, a doctor, a lawyer etc - you basically need to track into these positions VERY early. The good news, they limit the number of graduates through these screenings so the jobs on the other end tend to pay pretty well.
A lot of the posters are claiming you get to go to top universities for free to study subjects that lead to good paying jobs without even taking standardized exams etc. This is totally false.
It's actually much easier for joe blow to become a lawyer in the US then in Europe - including going to law school - including the non ABA schools EVEN if they didn't do well in high school. It does cost money though and for many the jobs don't pay what they would expect or hope for.
Seriously, I wish people would name the top universities without cutoffs - they don't exist.
Once you get used to picking out German morphemes, it’s not hard to make things out.
In some countries there is no exam at all.
With all the progress in civil rights, charging hefty intuition is the only way to go