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Comment by mcgillroy | Hacker News Reader

how I love socialist europe: free world class college in germany and france, in holland and danmark, in austria and switzerland. that and world class health care for free too.

yes taxes are high, insanely high by american standards - but in the end it more than evens out. plus life is less stressful.

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From what I understand about the German education system , significant features of US education are missing [I cannot speak to the others] - primarily a pursuit of universal access to higher education and the opportunity for second, third, and fourth chances at a college degree.

To put access in perspective, University of Phoenix has 400,000 students - the entire German higher education system issues about the same number of Abitur each year. In the US more than half the population [55%] has some college compared to 22% of the German population with post-secondary education. The percentage of the US population with Masters and PHD is almost as large [10.5%] as the percentage of German population with any type of University degree [13.6%].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_U...

http://www.destatis.de/jetspeed/portal/cms/Sites/destatis/In...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abitur

  > [...] and the opportunity for second, third, and
  > fourth chances at a college degree.

Can you clarify what you mean by that?

In the US it is easy for people to return to university after dropping out. Even doing so multiple times is not a consideration for admission, e.g. I had five different majors over 12 years at three different universities (plus a stint in vocational school) before earning a bachelor's degree.

It is also common people to pursue a bachelor's degree in their 30's or 40's or later. Culturally, in large part this is a result of the changes to US higher education created by the GI bill following WWII - one of my grandfathers earned his bachelor's degree at the age of 40 following the war and my father in law his bachelor's at 43 after retiring from the navy in the 1970's.

But pursuing a degree in later life is not just tied to the GI Bill. One of my brothers-in law earned his bachelor's online at 51, another has earned two Master's degrees after age 40 (bachelor's at 36) and a third earned his bachelor's at 46.

None of my relatives would have been considered for the Gymnasium under the German system and my switching majors four times would have been frowned upon within German higher education(from Electrical Engineering to Chemistry to Geology to Chemistry Education to Philosophy)

Do you consider it a good thing to have people getting 4 or 5 degrees and/or majors before they figure out what they really want to do in life? If yes, do you believe the cost of getting these degrees and/or attending college for more than 4 years should be paid for by themselves, or by others.

In some ways, yes, I think it is a good thing. Channeling people into vocations at 18 [US system] or 10-13 [German system] isn't consistent with what is known about human development in general, and brain development in particular [http://hrweb.mit.edu/worklife/youngadult/changes.html] - and that's the scientific part of your question. The human cost of such channeling may be seen even here on HN [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2238225] where fortunately for the poster he has access to the US educational system.

Who should pay for what is a political question - but in general the US system is pay to play and most students are not subsidized by with public funds (even though their loans may be Federally guaranteed).

  > Channeling people into vocations at 18 [US system]
  > or 10-13 [German system]

Don't exaggerate. Yes, it's true that there's some segregation going on at that point (Gymnasium versus Hauptschule versus Realschule), but the boundaries are permeable.

Even if one assumes that students stick to their "path," that doesn't mean that they don't have a choice over their vocations later on. You're free to do whatever you want. Most students start their first degree when they're 21/22. 30-35% (IIRC) change "major."

I wouldn't say that HE flexibility is a specifically American strength.

a) The GI bill was an exception to the rule. I sincerely doubt that people earning BAs in their 40s are as common nowadays as you claim they are. At least not more than common than in Germany. (Yes, it happens.)

b) Changing majors four times would indeed be frowned upon. But that doesn't mean it's impossible or even actively discouraged. Moreover, I don't believe that such radical and seemingly aimless changes are perfectly acceptable (in a social sense) in the US.

October 2009 US statisics:

College students over the age of 35 = 1.18 million full time + 2.01 million part time.

[http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/school/cps2009/tab0...]

To put it in perspective approximately 1.00 million students enter German universities each year. Considering the three year structure of German University education - a crude approximation would be that there are roughly as many US college students over 35 as there are German university students.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Germany#Student_Po...

First you are comparing the percentage of the US population over 25 with the German population 15 and over.

Also, I'm not sure how you came up with the 13.6% or the 22% figure.

13.6% = Degrees of applied Sciences + University Degrees + Doctoral Degrees

22% = 100% - [No Vocational Qualification Obtained + Apprenticeship Qualification]

12% of the German population is between 15 and 25 which as you point out would raise the rate of German degrees - but not significantly close the gap. http://www.destatis.de/bevoelkerungspyramide/

You should be using the combined number for Germany: 35% or so have a post-secondary degree. (If I'm reading the statistic correctly.)

Beyond that, I'm not sure your numbers are comparable. First, you're using “some college” against graduations. Secondly, the better metric of associate/bachelor doesn't really apply since most EU universities' main program is a master's (though only slightly broader than the U.S. bachelor's) and associates – or candidates/licenciates – are not distinguished, as they're typically considered contained within the master's program.

Edit: though from what I understand, Germany's education system is pretty rigid, you get bucketed into a certain educational path pretty early. I don't think any of the other EU countries has a system quite like it. Please correct me if I'm wrong before I get around to reading an article about it.

I'm not sure you are reading the numbers correctly. Since 78% of Germans have apprenticeship training or no vocational training.

I restricted myself from the broader field of post-secondary education because it is less readily available for the US [we focus on college] and a bit muddier considering that a great deal of post-secondary vocational training is done by the US military services.

The German University Diploma is far more focused than a typical US bachelor's degree - typically it does not have the general distribution requirements found in US universities.

Is it possible that German businesses do the smart thing and don't require a bachelor's degree for basic data entry and other similar tasks?

I have a hard time believing 55% of the jobs in the US require a college education to perform.

Some people believe education has intrinsic value.

Sure a real liberal arts education where you study the classics has intrinsic value.

Job tech training not so much.

Some people believe an XBox has intrinsic value.

And much like the people who believe education has intrinsic value, they should pay for it themselves.

In the US, most people pay for education with private money.

Certainly, but I very much doubt 55% of America is paying tens of thousands of dollars for that reason.

Yes, that is correct. Obviously, with rising numbers of University graduates the situation is beginning to change -- albeit at a much slower rate than in the US. There are plenty professions that do not require a BA.[2]

I agree with the sentiment, by the way. University access in this sense[1] isn't intrinsically desirable. Quite the opposite. For a large chunk of professions, higher education is in fact a waste of money and incurs significant opportunity/real costs for the student. (Data entry with 150,000$ debt in addition to losing out on a similar amount of salary?) It's nice that a degree mill like the University of Phoenix has more students than half of Germany, but I don't understand why that's necessarily a strength. A significant proportion (> 60%?) will regret that degree.

[1] There are two interpretations of the notion. First, you want everybody's chances to be equal. That is, no racial or social discrimination when it comes to HE access. Second, you want everybody to go to university. That seems highly, highly inefficient. (Not all people require HE, even if you consider education an intrinsic good. Non-broken high school education help.) [2] It's important to acknowledge the cultural differences here: BAs (i.e., limited primary college degrees) were introduced very recently. Up until 2004-2005, you'd always graduate with Diplom or Magister which go a lot further than US BAs.

Actually some German states now also take tuition fees, but they are quite low (1000 Euro per year) compared to other countries.

I don't think they are insanely high by American standards. The marginal tax rate for Americans of almost all income levels is about 40%, until it drops to 15% or lower if you're extremely wealthy and able to route all your income through "investments."

Where do you get this figure?

MSN article: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Taxes/Advice/YourRealTa...

Paper: http://www.kotlikoff.net/sites/default/files/Does%20It%20Pay...

HN discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1656323

Thanks for the links!

Not insanely high, once you add up what Americans pay for health insurance that won't actually pay out if they get sick, plus state and local taxes, and higher usage fees and so on.

My daughter will probably be going to TU München instead of Purdue, actually. It's time to blow this popsicle stand.

Good university, and way better than 90% of what the American HE market has to offer. Unless, of course, you value the electives system a lot.

She wants to do Aerospace, and Purdue is pretty good there (4th in the US) and we are Indiana residents - and it would still cost $40,000 plus room and board. Tuition at TU München is 500 Euros a semester and you finish a degree in three years instead of four (because they don't have to spend a year at the outset on remedial courses). Student residences are subsidized, student meals are subsidized instead of being private buffets - I mean, financially it's a no-brainer. She'll get a comparable education and we can take the same money and buy her a house when she's done.

Plus my wife is Hungarian and has been wanting to go back to Budapest for a while now. So ... it's time.

Hey Michael!

Sounds great. München is an awesome city. Much better than Lafayette (sorry Purdue fans). She'll learn German too!

Question: As an American citizen how is it possible to take advantage of this?

Citizenship has no bearing on German university entrance requirements. For almost all Bachelor programmes you need German. As an English speaker it's not that hard to learn, I met a med student last month who was accepted provisionally, conditional on acceptable TestDaF results and went from no German to sufficient to study medicine in three months (of 8 hours a day, 5 days a week study.)

Note that most US high school diplomas will not get you into a German university, you need APs or community college credits. I am guessing that it would get you into a Fachhochschule[1] (again, you would need German) which grants Bachelor degrees, but is more vocational than the Universities.

[1]"University of Applied Sciences" is an abombinable translation, which tells you nothing, but it's the official translation.

A note on US high school diplomas - that's not entirely accurate. A diploma plus an ACT score of 28 or greater, or a combined SAT math+reading comprehension of 1300 or greater, or four AP classes, or a minimum GPA of 3.0 with an academic track, all qualify you. Pretty much the same sort of thing you'd expect to get into a decent college in the US, really.

[http://www.anabin.de/Xml/xmlZeugnis.asp?ID=704&Land=124&...]

See barry-cotter for the general answer, but the specific is that she's also a European citizen, because my wife is Hungarian. It helps that we've spoken German at home her entire life - she doesn't speak it, but her passive knowledge is quite good and I think a good class will get her up to speed pretty quickly. So it's not entirely a dart on the world map, is what I'm saying.

> yes taxes are high, insanely high by american standards - but in the end it more than evens out. plus life is less stressful.

The US tax revenue per person is about the same as the tax revenue per person in Western European countries. (The US collects more taxes per person than Canada.)

That means that the US govt has the money to provide europe-class services. It doesn't, but that's not due to a lack of money.

Note that US GDP per person is significantly higher than much of Western Europe.

Taxes are higher, but you don't have to pay for private insurances, healthcare etc. to the same extent.

I don't know why people keep bringing up the level of taxes, it's not important or interesting. What's important is how big part of your salary you need to spend on necessities like government, schools, roads, healthcare and pension. That's what should be measured.

I don't know why people keep bringing up the level of taxes

Because it wouldn't be profitable if people looked at service levels instead of an artificial number that made them think they were getting something other than the short end of every stick in their vicinity?

I know why politicians do that, but why do people do it here on ycombinator?

They really need to think they're not getting short ends of sticks, because if they thought they were being taken for fools by the powerful they'd have to downgrade their self-opinions. Tribal buy-in works on all primates.

French universities are a disaster:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/12/world/europe/12france.html

They spend less per capita on university students than on high school students, have something verging on universal access, and, looking at their economy, get approximately similar value out of the education system as the USA for much, much lower expenditure, and that's a disaster?

Sure, university is not as much fun or as luxurious as in the states, but what is actually wrong with the French system for French society? Note, I did not say for French students or French academics.

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