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Comment by Swizec | Hacker News Reader

Here’s a lifehack: Attend college in Europe then move to USA for that high paying job.

Works really well. Cheap to free education, better skills because you’re not just living the college life and professors have little incentive to make it easy. It’s great.

Hell you don’t even have to fully graduate to get most of the benefit.

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If you're never going to pay European taxes, that seems like an unethical life hack. And if enough people actually do this, I wouldn't be surprised if European universities start raising their foreign students tuition.

Some countries like Germany (which generally costs 500 Euro/semester, except in 1 state) give you an 18(?) month visa post-graduation to allow you to get a job in Germany. This particular visa actually puts you on the same hiring level (at least theoretically) as German citizens.

Of course, knowing German fluently would be critical to be "on the same level" as German citizens.

So, most likely you are not going to be evading the taxes, at least in places like Germany. It is almost always better to get your first job post-graduation in Germany if you have a German diploma anyways.

This will also have the beneficial effect of drastically reducing immature America-bashing among the young.

I really doubt this. Irish people are plenty familiar with Britain and Canadians with the US. Doesn’t stop bashing at all.

Aren't European colleges the same price as American colleges if you're not European?

Depends where you go. I know we had some Chinese students in my college, they paid €10000 a year, compared to the Irish students who paid €3000 a year.

As far as I've heard, US colleges are on the order of $10000+ per semester.

My school was 30,000 a year, and my wife’s state school was definitely less than 10k a year. There’s a really wide variance.

There's also a point about sticker price vs. actual price. Anyone actually paying six figures for a Bachelor's degree is not only getting fleeced by an expensive school, but also can probably afford it (no need-based scholarships or grants?) and is also not very smart (no merit-based scholarships or grants?).

$10,000 a semester is cheap. The current price at the university I attended is $73k a year.

Germany for example offers free education for Americans/foreigners. I remember this was discussed a while back on HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9308261

Some states already require foreign students to pay 500€ each semester and others will follow. On top of that you will have to guarantee that you can support your life in Germany, meaning you are not eligible for any kind of government support if things get tough or you lose your job.

Going there thinking everything will be provided is wrong and the COVID-19 crisis will get a lot of foreign students into deep trouble as they lose their jobs and can't support themselves.

Only one state (BW) requires payment with no clear indication that others will follow.

> you will have to guarantee that you can support your life in Germany What's so special about that?

A lot of EU countries are not issuing standard/typical/normal visas at all. You can most likely forget getting a student visa altogether. At this point, you cannot even legally enter the EU (Schengen zone + more) without being an EU citizen or resident, unless you are a third-national humanitarian aid worker or diplomat, basically.

It depends on the country and sometimes the institution and program. Here is a price list from a Swedish university with the approx. USD amounts being between $10,000 to $30,000 depending on the program:

https://www.slu.se/en/education/application-and-admission/tu...

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