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Comment by martin_a | Hacker News Reader

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.)

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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.

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.

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.

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.

>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.

> 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.

> 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...

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?

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.

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