Even during a crisis, colleges abuse their economic and reputational privileges | Hacker News Reader

Even during a crisis, colleges abuse their economic and reputational privileges

city-journal.org

62 pointsnreece100 comments

I'll zoom in on the diversity point, but I realise it's not the whole focus of the article.

Seems to me the real point here is both blindingly obvious, and for some reason never discussed. Education is a pipeline, and everyone is obsessing over the final stage, forgetting the rest. It's short-term thinking that misses the real problems.

If you want your society to produce successful university graduates from all demographics, you need to ensure all demographics have access to quality pre-university education. As I understand it, this simply isn't the case in the US today. No-one seems to have any interest in improving the state of affairs. (Perhaps because it's less glamorous than talking about universities?)

As it stands, the left-leaning suggestion is to explicitly weight the universities' admissions criteria to ensure an increased number of disadvantaged candidates are able to gain admission, despite falling short of the usual academic requirements (branded positive discrimination). A disproportionate number then fail in their studies, as the article says. The right-leaning suggestion is to do nothing at all, as far as I can tell.

Neither is a solution. Solve the pipeline problem. Invest seriously in pre-university education. I'm continually surprised that articles on the topic don't even mention this in passing.

Disclaimer: I'm not an American, I'm not an academic, I'm just a random muppet on the Internet.

I agree that the needed work (and hardest work) is access to quality pre-university education.

That being said, I find it bizarre that we fret over whether minority applicants are given an unfair boost, while at the same time allowing legacy admissions and athletic preferance admissions to continue. Both of these boost applicants who otherwise would not make it through. We don't fret too much when a spot is taken by a wealthy legacy admit or obscure sport admit, yet we have multiple lawsuits and court cases if the spot is taken by a racial minority.

John Hopkins University ended legacy admissions and I applaud them. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/why-we-end...

I'm in the UK. I've never heard of 'legacy admissions' happening here, nor admissions in return for dropping money on a university. I get the impression from The Guardian that these things are quite unique to America, and really don't occur in the UK. [0] [1] [2]

Similarly I've never heard of someone being admitted to a UK university for the purpose of getting them to complete in university sports. Sports are funded by universities, but generally, few people really care about university sports, the way it should be. It may help in admissions if you have non-academic achievements on top your academic ones, but sports aren't given the special status that they are in US universities.

On the race point, the only lawsuit I'm aware of is the one against Harvard for discriminating against Asian applicants. (There's no question that Harvard have higher grade-requirements for Asian applicants.) The courts decided the Harvard admissions policy wasn't unconstitutional. [4] My understanding is that if a similar approach were taken in hiring decisions, that would be extremely illegal.

If you'll excuse a tangent: we also don't have 'campus police' in the UK, for which I'm thankful. Universities hire security guards, the way business parks do. The American system is to have police officers on the payroll of a university, expected to follow orders from the university's power-structure [5]. Deans should not be able to issue orders to police officers.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/oct/01/harvard-ad...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/23/elite-school...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/education/shortcuts/2019/mar/13/...

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/oct/01/harvard-ruli...

[5] https://www.google.com/search?q="ordered+campus+police"

Yes, unfortunately in the US we have legacy admissions and athletic admissions without much oversight on how athletically talented the student is.

"A study, published earlier this month in the National Bureau of Economic Research, found that 43 percent of white students admitted to Harvard University were recruited athletes, legacy students, children of faculty and staff, or on the dean’s interest list — applicants whose parents or relatives have donated to Harvard.

That number drops dramatically for black, Latino, and Asian American students, with less than 16 percent each coming from those categories.

The study also found that roughly 75 percent of the white students admitted from those four categories, labeled 'ALDCs' in the study, “would have been rejected if they had been treated as white non-ALDCs,” the study said."[1]

We are already aware that the current admissions policy has the effect of heavily and unfairly favoring wealthy white students. Then we try to "correct" for that. For some reason we talk about and fret a lot more about policies that tip the scales for minorities, but for legacy admissions it's just "how things are done". In my opinion if a university uses legacy admissions, they should be barred from receiving federal funding. When JHU stopped using legacy admissions, the number of minority students increased. It would be interesting to know if the number of nonwealthy white students increased as well. My point is, there is clear favoritism for the wealthy class, and at least one easy fix (drop legacy admissions) to get towards a more merit-based system.

[1]https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/study-harvard-finds-43-...

I traveled around the US to practically every major city of the United States selling software to middle/high schools. The quality of education is excellent in certain places and abysmal in others. You can probably guess the correlation between school quality and the wealth of the surrounding neighborhood.

Even if you were to tackle the issue of vast economic inequality, you would still need a new generation of parents who understand how to nurture an academic culture within their home and community. It is irrelevant how helpful our education software was to the classrooms who implemented it - it requires students who value education and who show up at school with food in their stomach and without the all-encompassing stress of what awaits them at home at the end of the day.

> Almost no college is considering a tuition rebate, which implies that online learning should be valued at the same rate as an on-campus class. Students and their parents may start to ask why they should pay astronomical fees for a campus experience if they can get the same instruction over the web.

Prof Scott Galloway's blog (No Mercy, No Malice) recently took a swipe at higher-ed fees and the ever-increasing financial burdens being placed on students - and younger people in general. It considers this in a post-Covid-19 world:

https://www.profgalloway.com/post-corona-higher-ed

Insane to do an online masters for 30k. I see the ads everywhere and I just can't imagine who really wants or needs that - and then you apply for jobs and get refused because it's "just" an online masters...

Online classes at the same university cost more than in-person classes.

At least that's been the case atmoublic universities here in Florida for the last 10+ years.

Apparently, if one engine of a four engine airplane stops working, the airplane flies 10% slower. But this doesn't mean if all four engines stop working, the airplane will fly 40% slower.

What I am saying is: if a large number of the newly unemployed are not satisfied with their life circumstances in a few months, there could be a complete breakdown of society. It is unlikely the "everything will be the same, but only accelerate" model will play out when the acceleration also depends on the "cooperation" of 10s of millions of suddenly unemployed people.

Here is my counter prediction to the entire article: A lot of prediction makers are going to go back to the drawing board and come up with better models for their predictions, because no model can adequately capture the chaos which is almost guaranteed to ensue now.

I've effectively given up tbh. I would honestly really like to get my bachelors at least, but it seems like I have two choices: Good or Cheap. Now certain circumstances make my situation rather unique, but all the research I've done seems to point to non traditional students in general being tossed aside. I've wanted to write about it, but i imagine it wouldn't be very well appreciated because it is, in part a rant.

The article seemed to me to be a mix of two things, railing against the costs (blamed on the rise of administrators), and railing against the existence of diversity administrators.

I'm a professor employed at my present institution, a small liberal arts school, since 1990. I am not an administrator of any kind, don't read the Chronicle, and don't understand where all the money goes. I will say though, that when I started we had very few students who were not white. Very few, particularly if you omitted athletes. But today a good chunk, 40% maybe, of the student body is, to my eye, nonwhite. I don't know how much of that can be ascribed to the diversity officer but it is IMHO a very good thing.

There certainly seemed to be an over-abundance of jabs at Diversity and Inclusion programs and staff. They’re surely a very small minority of the admin bloat, and they pursue a noble goal.

It wasn’t that surprising to see Jared Taylor being recommended in the comments, given the subject matter and conservative angle this piece has.

The US is 72.4% white. You would then expect there to be 27.6% non-white students at any particular institution, assuming no racial discrimination, etc. So then why is 40% non-white a desirable outcome? I thought the point was to compensate for exclusion / marginalization / discrimination, in which case the target should be that aforementioned 27.6%.

EDIT: since many people are replying to me saying that using the national demographic stats is a bad thing to do, I will use the stats for GP's state, which appears to be Virginia. Using these stats (94.2% white), you would expect the school to have only 5.8% non-white students, assuming a complete lack of racial discrimination compared to the state population.

I personally still think using the national stats is a better idea, as the goal of a college / university should not be to only educate people from the state it is located in.

"The White, non-Hispanic or Latino population make up 61.3% of the nation's total, with the total White population (including White Hispanics and Latinos) being 76.9%." - Wikipedia

"White alone, not Hispanic or Latino, percent: 60.4%" - census.gov

What is your point? Hispanics/latinos can be identified as white. The percent of people in the US that are white by the 2010 census definition is 72.4%.

But asians are in same boat as whites, lumped together in by the diversity promoters.

Man, you twisted this comment so much to extract that message. The commenter is likely saying it's good that the campus is more representative, not that they're for the elimination of whites or some shit. Also, you don't know where they live. Where I come from, it's about 80 percent nonwhite. Before you comment, consider that the story you make up in your head isn't always the most likely.

Edit: Hawaii has 25 percent whites, so my estimate was correct.

I am using national statistics given a lack of information by the GP. If the GP wants to update with a more accurate location, they are free to, and we can have this discussion with better accuracy. Without that, the "story in my head" is, in fact, the most likely.

Also: It doesn't even matter what statistics are correct, your assumption that the original commenter was celebrating antiwhite sentiment is absurd by itself.

Original:

You're using statistics for the whole USA. There are half a million people here, you're just regressing to the mean, some states have a larger percent nonwhite people.

Hawaii has 25 percent whites, so my estimate was correct.

Edit: also, your stats are wrong, see the other comment and get some perspective.

I'm confused, why are you going on about Hawaii?

From looking at the GP's account info, they seem to teach at a school in Virginia, which is 94.2% white.

You threw around racial discrimination because the national average white-concentration is 10% off from what the other commentor said, while, at the same time, again, you don't even know where the school is within US. Your use of statistics is a bad kind of quick-think.

Edit: noticed your nickname is fastball. A bit ironic.

When did I throw around racial discrimination? Again, if the GP wants to update with more accurate racial distribution numbers for their area, this conversation can move forward. Until then, my interpretation is the most likely. It is just as likely that GP's institution is in an area that has more whites than the national average than it is that there are fewer. Therefore my analysis is the correct one until we get an update.

EDIT: it seems like GP teaches in Virginia, a state that is 94.2% white (alone). Assuming that is in fact that correct state, you are right that I spoke too quickly. The non-white population at this school should presumably be 5.8% if the makeup of the local area is important, as you claim.

And what is the non-white percentage at the university over there?

(I live in France so I do not have any stakes in this discussion, just curious)

Those averages are across the country. The distribution will be hugely different depending on whether you are in Iowa or Florida.

Moreover, the distribution is not equal across ages. And since only young people go to universities, this has a huge effect.

Are colleges only supposed to attract people from the local area and therefore reflect local demographics? That seems a bit backwards to me.

Regardless, GP seems to teach at a school in Virginia, which is 94.2% white.

That is a good point about how racial demographics can change between age groups though. Do you have more accurate numbers that we can use in this regard?

You're lucky I was waiting for a render to finish =) A google of "race distribution over age us" got me this:

  https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/30/most-common-age-among-us-racial-ethnic-groups/

BTW,19% of Virginia is black.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/states/states-by-race/

I believe that you are mistaken. My reading of this table from the Census Bureau is that white is 60%: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045219. Further, college age students are barely majority-white, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/raceindicators/images/figures/f.... Those are the national stats.

I happen to not be from VA. I happen to be from VT (as a google of my user name or email would show). FWIW, I teach at a Catholic school so many of the nonwhite students we see are a variety of Hispanic. But there are also plenty of others, including African Americans. We draw from New England in general, and to a lesser extent the entire Northeast.

But if I understand your comment correctly, you are not mistaken in that I am a person who thinks that it is right for educational institutions to make strong efforts about redressing our country's heritage of making life harder for some people than others. In my note I meant to express that there are anecdotal signs of progress. Too few, for sure, and I cannot say how much is due to the diversity officers, but wanted to suggest that the article's contempt for work in this area is not wholly justified.

I think costs are so high because every institution needs to spend more money each year to continue to grow, and growth has infected finance and academia like a virus, forcing us into a race to the bottom to continue to feed the growth death cult. Diversity is just a Boogeyman that those same cultists use as redirection from their own crimes because it's easy to convince people that the other guy is out to get you.

Why is it a good thing there is more non-white students? Why does it matter what ethnicity they are if they have the right grades to go there? I don't give a shit about someone's sex or race when working with someone, nor do I go around a room counting how many white co-workers I have. I am baffled by it.

Tbh, diversity only seems to be a thing in America (and slowly creeping into the UK). I think it's partly more pronounced there because your race is significantly correlated to your income levels, which determine your ability to go to college. Meanwhile, most of Europe is homogenous largely, and thus insusceptible to any effects from diversity issues. Even in the UK, the most diverse European country, except for some Windrush immigrants, most immigrant groups such as the South Asians have largely been able to transcend the income divide between white and non-white.

In the UK there is a class divide (linked mostly to wealth but not entirely). Everyone that is naturalised or was born here is considered British no matter what their race is (the same applies to the French IIRC). Yes unfortunately people are bringing race into our politics which is a shame tbh because it is considered rude to mention someone's race in anything other than maybe describing their physical appearance (for the purposes of identification).

If a student wants to go to University they are means tested which determines the amount of grants / loans they are entitled to. Race isn't a consideration only wealth (based on household income).

In France wealth is secondary to the place you live in and where you come from (in terms of divisions in the nation).

Of course if you have French nationality your "race" does not matter (there are no programs for minorities) but the reality is, also of course, different.

Looking at the last 40 years, I wrote say that Islamism has become the greatest divider (for 10 or 20 years now). This was a non-subject when I was a kid in the 80's.

The same is true in the UK there is a North / South divide that is historical, economic and cultural.

It is a good thing because historically it has mattered what ethnicity people are. It still matters because there is a narrative pushed by some that we are a meritocracy but in fact social mobility is very low. This is not just about ethnicity, but ethnicity is definitely a part of poverty in the USA for instance, and ethnicity is visible.

It shouldn't matter what-so-ever what race someone is. It should be irrelevant. It shouldn't be a positive or negative thing. If social mobility is a problem then you means test the household based on wealth and give grants to those that satisfy the criteria.

What should or shouldn't matter is irrelevant and pretending like it's relevant is naive. It does matter. That's a fact. You want to take your argument to 1850 and argue what should and shouldn't matter? We fought the bloodiest war in American history over this so you know what, it does fucking matter. And even in 2020, racism is still widespread, so you know what, it fucking matters. That's reality. It most certainly fucking matters that certain people were held back for hundreds of years through slavery and racism while whites progressed forward. It most certainly matters that this is still going on today. Look at the median household worth in the US to see how much it matters. This idea that you're putting forward, that history doesn't matter, that reality doesn't matter, is frankly absurd. It's not even an argument. It has no basis in reality. It's a fantasy. History matters and affects the present. It's as simple as that.

> It's not even an argument. It has no basis in reality. It's a fantasy. History matters and affects the present. It's as simple as that.

I was going to rebut most of your angry ramblings. Then I read this and I remembered why it pointless with talking to people like yourself. You think there cannot be any discussion on a topic outside of what you think it correct because you have decided that you have the correct opinion.

I said "this shouldn't matter".

Makes me sad for the fall and discarding of meritocracy in favour of filling enrolment and diversity quotas

Meritocracy is the lie we tell ourselves to justify inequality. There has never been a meritocracy.

I think you have that other way around

Is this about how D&I efforts are ruining higher ed or about higher ed being a "Ponzi Scheme"?

The conversation is starkly different here vs. the Disqus conversation on the article page.

Also, authoring "The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture." makes me question the author's motive/bias.

> ever more marginal students who stand little chance of graduating

> Before their inevitable withdrawal...

> ...even larger pool of likely dropouts...

rambling mishmash of concepts and overt racism gets in the way of complaining about tuition and crass lack of support for students during COVID here. Oh well.

It's like they couldn't resist saying that those non-white students are inherently less performant. "They're condemned to failure if they get in (look at their slightly lower grades), so it's better not to give them an opportunity at all!"

Their barely contained despise, hatred and anger bleed through the lines. It's funny how decades of racial segregation were simply ignored, almost like diversity initiatives popped out of nowhere in a society that has always provided equal opportunities.

No, not a ponzi scheme. Inflows aren't funding outflows under an illusion of value creation.

The article claims that, pre-covid, an increasing number of bureaucrats were being funded by an increasing number of increasingly ill-prepared freshman. Those freshman were not receiving value. If one accepts the article's perspective, why was that condition not a ponzi scheme?

Curious to know what people here think about industrial PhD programs.

For a while I thought it was about bureaucracy, but it's just someone annoyed by seeing non-whites at American universities. Nothing to see here.

As someone who has planned on returning to grad school this fall to finish my PhD in computer science in hopes of becoming a professor at a teaching-oriented university, I am worried about the future of the occupation of being a university professor, particularly from the standpoint of being able to do research. One of the things I wonder about the post-COVID-19 world is what's going to happen to research as a career, whether it's in academia or in industry. In computer science I've noticed these two trends occurring in the past 30 years:

1. Industry has largely moved away from funding long-term blue-sky research, increasingly shifting toward short-term, product-driven research projects. We have moved from places like Bell Labs and Xerox PARC where researchers had a large degree of freedom to places like Google today where researchers are assigned to product teams (see the paper "Google's Hybrid Approach to Research" which describes how research at Google is operated: https://research.google/pubs/pub38149/).

2. Academia has its own challenges: (1) the competition for a professorship due to the fact there are more PhD graduates than there are professorships, (2) the competitive environment for obtaining research grants from the NSF, and (3) the increased reliance on adjunct faculty members, who don't have tenure.

The economic effects of this COVID-19 pandemic will undoubtedly lead to universities reducing their hiring. Some universities may even face closure. The sudden shift to online teaching may also have permanent effects on the future of university education.

I believe that there are many opportunities for students that will become available if online education becomes the new normal, especially if online education leads to reducing the cost of a university education, which is a serious problem in the United States given the student loan crisis.

However, I'm concerned that a move toward online education will accelerate the trend of adjunctization occurring across academia and may even lead to the concept of tenure disappearing at all but the most competitive schools. I believe places like Stanford, MIT, and Harvard will emerge from the post-COVID-19 world just fine. I also believe that public research universities like UC Berkeley and University of Washington will emerge fine. But what about regional comprehensive universities such as the California State University system? What about small private universities that don't have the prestige of places like Caltech or Harvey Mudd? It's these types of universities that will face the most pressures to adapt to a world of compelling online educational choices.

I'd like to still be able to pursue a career in research, ideally with autonomy and the ability to pursue long-term projects, but between the trends that have been occurring for the past 30 years as well as the challenges of a post-COVID-19 world, I might not be able to pursue such a career.

>1. Industry has largely moved away from funding long-term blue-sky research, increasingly shifting toward short-term, product-driven research projects. We have moved from places like Bell Labs and Xerox PARC where researchers had a large degree of freedom to places like Google today where researchers are assigned to product teams (see the paper "Google's Hybrid Approach to Research" which describes how research at Google is operated: https://research.google/pubs/pub38149/)

Industry wants their money to produce other money fast. Maybe having the state sponsor long time research is a better thing to do. In some parts of Europe much of the research is sponsored by the state. I think that's true for China, too.

As for online teaching, I don't think that can be as good as participating in person.

Maybe the crisis will cut just the beaurocrats and live knowledgeable people to do their work.

I can't help but suspect some bias in an article that defines neoliberalism as "academic-speak for capitalism". No mention of public university tuition rising in response to cuts in state funding?

> After the 2008 recession, colleges made up for the drop in state support by raising fees. Tuition jumped nearly 30 percent nationwide from 2007-2008 to 2014-2015, while real median income fell roughly 6.5 percent, according to Paul Friga of ABC Consulting.

One can only shake his head when you hear about how things work in America.

Why are you so hostile against each other and/or the weaker/younger/non-wealthy people?

In most of Europe, education is free. You'll obviously have to take care of your own cost of living, but there are no real fees where you come out of your education and have 100k in debt.

Why do things in America work so different? It's not (yet) a third world country, it could probably easily finance things like these for its residents. But instead you milk your youth, leave them with debt and shrug your shoulders about things like these?

Why?

(free = Universities in Germany have what is called "Semesterbeitrag". This varies but for my university it was like 700 €/year and you would get free transportation in NRW with that and more benefits.)

My guess: It is politically wanted to have graduates that will take any job because they are deep into debt with no chance of getting rid of it through bankruptcy. This pressure keeps wages down and "motivation" up.

From a purely free market perspective, it makes sense. getting educated takes resources, that education then has to earn you more resources in the long run, meaning you can pay off the loan.

That ignores all the sociatal benefits from having a more well educated poopulous, and I like free education, but you can't deny there's some internal logic there.

I don't agree with this sentiment and I believe it's based on a big lie, but here's what some of the "average" Americans might think:

"I'm an American, my ancestors for generations have pioneered the frontier and could only rely on themselves. I don't like the idea of helping some lazy bum get their art degree on my dime, so I'm against free college. I'm a working man, and my son will be too, or he'll get a degree as an engineer or scientist and be able to make enough money to pay his loans. My daughter will get married and have babies. That's the way it's been and America has been awesome forever, so I don't see why we should follow Europe, who has so many countries in debt crisis that couldn't pull themselves up like America did."

It's not a big lie, it's more of an American frame of mind.

What you described is called the "Just World" fallacy - you get what you deserve. Or a more modern term, "I got mine."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

The US founders, the Pilgrims, were (religious) puritans, and that mindset carries on until today.

> you milk your youth

Politicians and the oligarchy are very concerned about personal moral hazard, not so much about corporate moral hazard. So youth get non-dischargeable student debt, and companies get bailouts. (Since most bills are written by lobbyists, not elected officials, it would be very interesting to see who wrote that education bill.)

How deep is the fear of personal moral hazard? There were bread riots and Washington, DC was occupied by rioters in the Great Depression after Washington refused to provide aid in case, "everybody would just stop farming."

As Warren Buffett said, "[The war between the poor and rich in America is over. You lost.]" (Note that he is one of the few billionaires who has gone on record about this, because he knows there's a problem with 15% capital gains tax rate for investors like him, when employees like his secretary pay around 40%.)

> you come out of your education and have 100k in debt.

Oh, and it's 200k in school debt, and no health care. And buy a car if you want to get around. Rock on!

More seriously, the US lacks a coherent policy on anything (healthcare, education, infrastructure, etc.) So it's an Oliver Twist-style existence for the bottom 99%.

You can probably use this search filter to find intelligent discussion about US politics, "no policy" plus "US" and your favorite topic. This isn't a Trump problem, it's a "too many lawyers in Washington" problem.

If you want to read astonishing truthfulness by politicians today, read anything by top Malaysian leader, Dr. Mahathir, or the investor Tan Teng Boo:

https://www.thesundaily.my/business/foreigners-exremely-caut...

How's that for transparency and honesty? Every conversation with those two is a roadmap for progress for their country. So it is possible.

This is basically agricultural era thinking peppered with laissez-faire ideology.

In 1700-hundreads you could drop average household with some seeds and few tools into the forest and they would go on. If there was village around with 50-100 people their productivity would probably double. Connected to organized state and trade it might increase even more.

Today >95% of the value from work comes from the infrastructure and society around people. Marginal improvements to aggregate education levels improve aggregate incomes and productivity. If your country has higher educated lazy bums than some other country, it creates value and wealth and you are freed to do marginally more demanding and valuable work for yourself. Getting even lazy bums go trough college can easily flip into net positive due to slightly better lifetime earning and health.

There you go, they don't realize that they're already reliant on society, they think that they're doing it all themselves, it's peak narcissism.

That being said, in 1700-hundreads they still depended on army. And the interdependence with other households was great too. The was reasons back then for people to bundle themselves into small cities - survival on you own would be quite hard.

That's the big lie: that there ever were more than a small handful of actual frontiersman, most people lived in civilization, but the people in power want you to believe you come from a long line of bootstrappers. In reality, we've all been interdependent for hundreds and thousands of years, being ground down by the elite.

Another misconception is that free market is the default state in society.

In the pre-industrial societies concept of 'fair price' in contrast to 'market price' was very important. Any attempt to increase or lower price to get advantage of distress of others was dealt by the community.

The other difference of course is that in Germany, only a fairly small proportion of high school students is even allowed to go to Uni.

People that were not placed into Gymnasium at age 8 are set on a course where, once they turn 18, do not get to go free Uni; they simply are not allowed to go to Uni at all!

Also the problem of cost of living while studying isn't exactly trivial. Accommodation, food and participating in general student life all are things that cost a lot of money. You will need at least 1k-1.5k EUR net per month, which means earning 2k or more gross. That's not exactly easy to do on the side, since most degree programmes are full-time only; you are expected to put your 40 hours a week towards the degree and not some other job to finance yourself.

When polled, 87% of students answered that they were dependent on financial support from their parents and 12% received state-sponsored loans [1].

So let's not kid ourselves. The question of whether you will go to Uni or not, in Germany, also depends to a very large degree on who and how wealthy your parents are.

Statistically speaking, your chance to go to Uni is 27% if your parents are blue collar workers. It is 79% if your parents also hold academic degrees. If your parents have no professional training at all, the probability is 12%. [2]

So maybe we should focus on our own issues first ;)

[1] https://www.sueddeutsche.de/bildung/studienfinanzierung-so-k...

[2] https://www.forschung-und-lehre.de/lehre/nichtakademiker-kna...

It's a very complex issue with many elements.

E.g. the EU has been critising Germany's early 'tracking' on one or the other path for decades, some changes have taken place with a new school type introduced a few years ago, but getting schools/cities/.. to switch to this has been an uphill battle. While German students are expected to finance themselves, those from low income families get financial support (a loan with very favourable terms that only has to be paid back if the student reaches a certain income threshold after their studies). The problem that low socio-economic background youth don't study is not primarily a financial issue; much more a matter of aspirations and the tracking you mention. There are ways to switch tracks but it's not the most obvious choice for students.

But it's also a matter of what is prioritised: in Germany (and Austria, Denmark, ...) vocational education is much more important and also much more respectable than in most other countries. What is on each track also differs, e.g. in Germany you could study IT/software development etc or you could do most of these also on a vocational track and most often right away have a job afterwards. Nursing is in Germany a vocational profession, in the UK you'd pursue a bachelor's at a university for it. In Spain many youth go to university because they don't have any other real options to choose from; and graduates leave university there often with zero practical skills (improving in past years but not easy). Lithuania has a higher education rate that is above 80% and they are actively trying to reduce it as you just can't use that many higher education graduated and need the vocational professionals as well.

So, complex issue. Not everyone needs to have a higher education degree (and much less does everyone want one). Too few or too many tertiary graduates is both not ideal. But do students need to end up with debt around 100k (US) or even just 30k (UK) if they choose tertiary studies? I don't think so.

"People that were not placed into Gymnasium at age 8 are set on a course where, once they turn 18, do not get to go free Uni; they simply are not allowed to go to Uni at all!"

I lived and worked in Germany and eventually moved back to Canada. When I would hear people talk about how university here should be free like Germany I would often think, well if university was like in Germany, you might not be going, but not because of money.

Seeing the quality and attitudes of the students, I don't think having limited access to university would be a bad thing.

In The Netherlands education is cheap (compared to the US) and there's a test that you're allowed to take when you're 21. If you pass that test, then you can study any undergraduate degree that you want. I know this is the case for Dutch citizens, not sure about other nationalities.

The reason I'm writing about this is because this test is not well-known at all. I found it by Googling when I was a student, for fun. A family member (much later) actually took it and she is now done with masters in fiscal law.

So before people say it's impossible in Germany, might it have something similar? I mean, our high school systems seem quite alike (I went to a pre-university high school and they make you believe that your faith is sealed at the age of 12, good times). So they might also have this rule of exception.

In Germany there are, as far as I know, also a number of ways to get an exception. The normal way to attend Uni if you did not get the right Abitur from your high school however is to simply repeat high school from age 18 to ~21. This is called "Zweiter Bildungsweg" (Second Path to Education).

There is the colloquium doctum in the Netherlands, but you're still at a relative disadvantage if you're not put on the right track (VWO) as a child. So while the Dutch do a lot of things much better than the Germans, I think this one is only marginally improved.

Also cost of living in the Netherlands is far from cheap and as far as I know the Uni doesn't really help with that. So I'm still not sure how one would go about completing five or six years of full-time studies here without any financial assistance, either from their parents or by taking out a loan?

At the end of the day, it's always possible to go to Uni somehow, even if you had the bad luck to get sorted into the wrong bucket as a child. But it obviously takes much more effort than would have been required if you were placed in the right high school from the start. And even once you are admitted to Uni, not having a steady stream of passive income puts you at a huge disadvantage compared to most of the other students that do have it.

So my point is that, even in Europe, having wealthy and well-educated parents still puts you at a huge advantage when it comes to education. It's not exactly a solved problem here either.

> There is the colloquium doctum in the Netherlands, but you're still at a relative disadvantage if you're not put on the right track (VWO) as a child. So while the Dutch do a lot of things much better than the Germans, I think this one is only marginally improved.

I disagree. I'm curious what you believe the disadvantage is. There is adult high school education in which you can obtain the VWO level (pre-university level -- loosely translated to English). You're a few years behind, but that's not too much of a disadvantage, unless you live in very poor (unsustainable) circumstances. The issue then becomes simply surviving and doing well academically, that is really tough.

I've seen my family member go through this and the odds were stacked against her. Yet, she transformed from someone who I considered as ignorant[1] to someone who was articulate and quite well-measured. All she had going for her was that her situation was stable. But:

- She had a child to take care of.

- She had a rough childhood and all the educational disadvantages that come with it.

If she can do it, then most people can. A lot of people in her situation miss the drive, or don't have a stable situation.

On an educational/state level, I can't see how the government can improve it, the opportunities are there. There are adult schools, there is a relatively fair entrance test. To make it more fair, they'd need to give disadvantaged youth a break from their abusive parents because that's how ignorance is cultivated in the first place: a fucked up/very toxic family situation. But how is a government going to do that?

[1] Little skills, really strong unfounded opinions, forcing them down your throat to the point of throwing a huge temper tantrum, not curious about anything.

> People that were not placed into Gymnasium at age 8 are set on a course where, once they turn 18, do not get to go free Uni; they simply are not allowed to go to Uni at all!

There are a few ways to get into University later in life in Germany. I wasn't placed into "Gymnasium". But I got my "Mittlere Reife" (grade 10, age 16), did a three-year apprenticeship, worked a few years and got back into school ("Berufsoberschule"). I finally got into University in my late 20ies and have a Masters degree now.

> Also the problem of cost of living while studying isn't exactly trivial. Accommodation, food and participating in general student life all are things that cost a lot of money.

If your parents can't support you, there is "BAFöG". Depending on your situation the state can support you with e.g. around 600 EUR per month for up to five years. You have to pay it back after your studies but only up to 10000 EUR (~ $11000). You can wait up to five years to start paying back and then pay around 390 EUR per quarter. Or you can get another discount if you pay it back all at once.

And there are other programs to help pay for your accommodation if you really can't afford it.

I'm not saying it's easy, but it's certainly possible if read up on the school system and support programs or if you ask the right school/student advisors.

> You will need at least 1k-1.5k EUR net per month, which means earning 2k or more gross.

I am currently living as a student with ~ 500 EUR per month from working a student job in Berlin. This is not the most comfortable life, but is certainly is doable. On top of that we have BAföG which, if your parents don't earn very much, can be enough to study or at least be a good support. While BAföG is still some kind of loan, you only have to pay back half of it and the rest has no interest.

From what I found [1] about 41% of children are eligible for studying at a university. While I don't think this is ideal and the unfortunately the early tracking still does it's part to keep people from less privileged backgrounds out of uni, I do think that a system where access to higher education is tied to formal graduation sounds fairer than a system where you have to be well off or very gifted to make it to uni.

[1] https://www.welt.de/print/die_welt/politik/article156291438/...

> I do think that a system where access to higher education is tied to formal graduation sounds fairer than a system where you have to be well off or very gifted to make it to uni.

Seems like a false dichotomy.

You can have both success in school and wealth as a filter if that is what you mean, but I don't think that is very desirable outcome.

The other answer mentioned state scholarships, which are offered to gifted and poor students. The options to go to uni are now: - Have parents who can pay for your studies - Be gifted/hard working enough to get a scholarship (I don't know how easy that is.) - Be lucky to get a state scholarship for poor people - Take massive student debt

This still doesn't look very nice in my eyes. Of course I am heavily influenced by my own perspective. I most probably wouldn't have been able to study in the US system. My teenage self was way to inexperienced to even consider taking a massive student loan.

In our country we have state scholarships, awarded to both top students and poor students. While not much, that can help.

> People that were not placed into Gymnasium at age 8 are set on a course where, once they turn 18, do not get to go free Uni; they simply are not allowed to go to Uni at all!

This is curious. Can you elaborate?

So if you don't do a gymnasium class (i.e. physical education I guess?) at 8, you are barred from going to uni at all, regardless of grades? So you might suck at the parallel bars or pommel horse as an 8 year old, but be an absolute mathematical genius but because you couldn't do 100 star jumps in 60 seconds you can't go to uni? Who decides if you can do the gym class? What is it based on?

This sounds very bizarre!

I only have UK experience (or at least how it was years ago - I might be out of touch): unis set subjects+grades they are prepared to accept and if you are predicted to get the grades (or already have got the grades) then you are eligible to apply regardless of what you did as a child. In the UK you do pay these days though - when I went it was about £1000 a year but it is more than that now (9k I think)

This is not about sports. This might clear it up:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnasium_(school)

> The other difference of course is that in Germany, only a fairly small proportion of high school students is even allowed to go to Uni.

Among 25- to 29-year-olds in United States, the percentage with a bachelor’s or higher degree is 37 percent, and the percentage with a master’s or higher degree is 9 percent.

For Germany, the best guess I found was 32% in tertiary education. Which is lower, but not that much lower. It is not like most people in the United States would have college degree.

> When polled, 87% of students answered that they were dependent on financial support from their parents and 12% received state-sponsored loans [1].

The amount it costs to pay for "accommodation, food and participating in general student life" in Germany is significantly less then to pay for "college itself, books, accommodation, food and participating in general student life in United States. The fact that majority of middle class student can do it on parental help alone makes situation massively different then when students have to take on debt.

> People that were not placed into Gymnasium at age 8 are set on a course where, once they turn 18, do not get to go free Uni; they simply are not allowed to go to Uni at all!

Interesting. When I lived in Germany you could go to university if you had an Abitur by virtue of having attended a normal Gymnasium (grammar school), by attending an Aufbaugymnasium after graduating Realschule or Hauptschule and getting an Abitur that way or by completing an apprenticeship and then going to university.

When were those other routes to university closed off?

>People that were not placed into Gymnasium at age 8 are set on a course where, once they turn 18, do not get to go free Uni; they simply are not allowed to go to Uni at all!

Well, that's not true at all. If you finish Realschule or Hauptschule you can decide to go the Gymnasium when you are 16. You can also go to a Gymnasium for adults while you work.

From my experience at least a third of my fellow Realschule graduates decided to continue school and go to the Gymnasium. Then at work I knew at least two people who decided to go to an evening Gymnasium while they were working at their first job. The problem clearly isn't a lack of opportunity. The number of people enrolling at our evening Gymnasium is shrinking and at some point they might have to shut it down completely.

that is not quite correct. apart from the gymnasium which you enter in 5th grade (not at age 8) there is also the gesamtschule which offers all three kinds of graduations. in a gesamtschule the decision to do the final three years of high school to get the abitur isn't really made until you are in grade 10. so there is absolutely no reason that anyone is prevented from getting into university just because they or their parents didn't decide early enough.

as for the cost of living, there is financial support for everyone who otherwise can't afford it. if the majority of students depend on their parents then thats because those parents can afford it.

but money is not the main reason why most people don't get into university.

germany has other good options for higher education besides university. the USA does not.

it is only natural that most people follow their parents when it comes to higher education. i do not see that as a problem that needs to be solved. it may be beneficial to mix things up a little, but university education is not a panacea, and i'd rather see the reputation and recognition of alternatives increased.

There's a spectrum there. here in Denmark University is actually free, and you even get money for your.other expenses (I was able to. live on just that money quite comfortably when I was studying). For me the German system is alien too.

I think it's due to the deeply individualist mentality you see in America.

Because we don’t want to pay 50% in taxes.

Exactly, we want to pay 40% and have no healthcare, no free higher education, and no decent mass transit.

Exactly.

Let me spend the extra 10% as I want. You want free ed, pay for it yourself.

And waste the other 40% on random wars with random countries who pose no threat (which we will lose, of course), imprisoning people for no reason, and just general corruption and kickbacks to the American oligarchy who funded the elections. That's the American way. Billionaires don't need free university, health insurance, public transportation, or safety nets. And the idiot masses think they'll be the next billionaire. How cute.

No need to spend 50% in taxes for free public education. Just spend money for knowledge, not for politics. Don't give any money tu bureaucrats and diversocrats.

But the tax rates are very similar, especially in places like California, once you account for the property tax and health insurance.

Then CA has what it needs.

Look at the transit plans that CA has been trying to implement for years. Giving them more tax money will solve this?

>Why do things in America work so different?

I don't know about the rest of EU, but in my country we focus on knowledge, not on political correctness and politics. Thus we don't have many bureaucrats to feed so we can provide free education. WE also used to have a high barrier to entry in public Universities like tough admission exams, so only skilled people would be admitted. High barrier also meant very few dropouts.

In US they have a terribly large bureaucracy and funding that bureaucracy from public money wouldn't be wise or even possible.

In South Korea they have, if I'm not mistaken, one of the best higher education systems, centering on knowledge and performance, not on money and politics. China is starting to also have a very good high education system.

Education - yes. Subsidizing the horrendous waste at typical US colleges and universities - no.

I'm not sure it's the same in Europe. Maybe your "free" university is more bare-bones, essential.

I'm from the USA, and went to one of the "best" universities in the country, for a STEM degree. It was a huge waste of money. For my peers who paid to have communists tell them what Shakespeare means, it was an even bigger waste. Why should we subsidize something that is such a fraud? I could get the same or better education for 0-10% of the cost by taking classes online, self-study, and then paying, in a few specific/advanced cases, for hands-on experience in a lab or consultation with an expert. Outside of STEM it's even worse. I've seen students pay $5-15K for a foreign language course, when you can learn more effectively for $10-20/hour on Skype with a native speaker. I once listened to a philosophy class at one of the most expensive colleges in the USA. It was beyond parody.

Well, you will find some more "esoteric" or useless lectures at German universities, too, but all in all it's a pretty solid education with little fluff around it.

> One can only shake his head when you hear about how things work in America.

Or, maybe, that you are hearing only a small selective facts by people who are biased?

> Why are you so hostile against each other and/or the weaker/younger/non-wealthy people?

That is true of general humanity; Europe and Asia and Africa seem no different to me.

> ... there are no real fees where you come out of your education and have 100k in debt.

This is a good example of how little you know about USA. Going to 100K debt is a choice many youngsters make. There are far cheaper options like Community Colleges funded by local governments.

> That is true of general humanity; Europe and Asia and Africa seem no different to me.

That might be true on a micro level or interpersonal relationships (some of them), but in the bigger picture there a systems in place to keep everybody healthy, educated and provide shelter if you need it. Looks to me like those three points are privileges in America.

And on the debt: Ok, it seems like average student loan debt is around $29k [1]. That's still pretty much and depending on your job might take quite long to balance out. In Germany state-provided student loan ("BAfög" - you can also receive it when you start an apprenticeship) debt is limited to 10k Euro. That means: No matter how much you get, your debt will top out there. You'll also only have to pay one half back to the state, the other half is "a present" or an investment in the future of the country. Seems pretty smart compared to 29k.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2020/02/03/student...

> Why do things in America work so different? It's not (yet) a third world country,

That's debatable but regardless, we are speeding there as fast as we can. That's why. You already have the answer. For 80 to 90% of the population, it is a third world country. Why? Because the rich have to profit off the suffering of everyone else in all areas. Education, healthcare, food, safety, transportation, etc. I can't think of a single industry in America that's not focused on exploiting the poor, the young, the uninformed, the vulnerable, the sick, etc. Exploitation is what we do while pretending to care about people.

Even during corona times, Americans cannot and do not come together to help each other as a society. Yes, some people help each other, even some states, but the federal government is mostly trying to profit off the shortage of ppe and other equipment. They are focused on enabling profit for the corporations that elected it. So what if doctors and nurses die?. Fuck them. That's what America says. Don't believe it? Then where is our national stockpile of equipment? Where is our pandemic preparedness team?

This is in every sector. Why can't we have free education? How would these rich colleges get even richer then? Wait you actually think Americans care about the next generation? Please. Only as far as to how to exploit them. Half of Americans hate their neighbors so much, that they'd rather see them get sick, suffer, and die than create a healthcare program that covers everyone. But they have no problem spending trillions on wars and killing others. Americans are shitty people with a shitty government. They are stupid, incompetent, greedy, and above all else, cruel. They love to kill people, they love to hurt others, and they hate it when others are having a good time. Puritan ideals: hard to argue we don't have them.

So yeah, why are things like this? Because we are not a civilized country. Because we have no empathy, sympathy, or care for one another. Because we hate one another. Because we are willing to profit while others suffer and extend that suffering to profit more rather than help. That's why.

Please don't post nationalistic flamebait to HN. It leads to nationalistic flamewars, which I'm sure you don't want. If you're going to touch on a topic like this, your comment needs flame retardant, not lighter fluid.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Yes, a true racket in Ponzi style, and in Ponzi style, the crash will be huge...

Tech is gonna get hit hard just like every sector, so you better learn how to say that phrase too, buddy.

Every non essential sector will be hit. Tech by large is essential. Beaurocrats are not.

A bunch of tech is advertising and shit, there's a lot of techies working in that and other areas. Not all of us have jobs at places where they can weather the storm, remember that. Also, there is a lot of required essential work outside of tech and science, and your narcissism has blinded you to thise workers' value.

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