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Comment by p4bl0 | Hacker News Reader

As a French person my first reaction to the title was "that's awfully expensive!". Then I thought about the US education system and thought "Oh, the title must actually imply that it's cheap…". I still had to go read the article to make sure. And then I learned that it's actually an online master. So my (second) first reaction was that it's cool to be able to get a master's degree from a top university from almost anywhere in the world, but then I realized that the people who would benefit the most from this are in developing countries and $6,600 is already way, way, way too much there (and that's not taking into account the fact that these courses are video-driven and that available internet broadband might also be a problem). So I guess that's not really who it is intended for, which implies that it is a "second class" degree for US student. Not sure how I should feel about this.

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It's not necessarily as bad a picture as it seems from outside - I have a Master's degree in Computer science that I'd estimate cost me about $8000 (just for the MS part, the BS before that was mostly free due to scholarships). I didn't go to a prestigious university, but I do think I ended up with a good education. At least in my case, the fact that my university is mostly unknown has proven pretty much irrelevant in terms of getting a job, so I don't feel that I was disadvantaged by not getting my degree from a place like MIT.

You have to realize that European college education is heavily subsidized for their citizens. If a student from a developing country comes to Europe to study, they'll have to pay the full prize, which often comes down to €10,000+/year.

Do you know in which countries it's this way? The information I found about Germany I found says that they also don't have to pay tuition fees. I guess most countries don't need extra fees for foreigners because of the language barrier.

UK for example. International tuition fees are more than twice the rate for EU citizens.

I can only speak for how it is in Sweden.

We used to have free university education for anyone in the world. But that's now changed so that anyone not in the EU, European Economic Area or Switzerland have to pay tuition.

A three year Bachelor program would cost about 63000 USD for anyone not in those countries that are part of the above organizations.

My bill at my school in the US was 57,000 USD a semester. Albeit I didn't actually pay any of that (besides the required stafford loans).

what school was that??

Tiny liberal arts college in PA called Moravian. I think they broke 60k this year, I graduated a year ago now.

Albeit, that factors in the 2k and 8k per semester for food / housing (and the school requires you live on campus if your home is >20 miles away, and you can't get an apartment off) and you have to take that meal plan.

It is like $12k in classes per semester, plus the room / board, and a bunch of other line item expenses that add up.

Even universities in USA has two tuition rates, the in-state tuition being 1/3 of the "normal" rate, but non-citizens can also avail the in-state tuition if they have residency.

These days, closer to 1/2.

You're wrong. At least in France, education is free (well, almost, we have something like 200€ / year of administrative fees), for foreigners too. Depending on which school/uni you enter, you might even get a stipend and/or a room.

re: Second-class degree Geogia Tech's engineering program ranks extremely high in the U.S. and the United States' academic institutions rank extremely high on various world-wide charts.

Having spent a long time on the inside track of the Silicon Valley hiring processes, I can vouch that getting a degree from a prestigious institution really does fast-track your interview, at least when it comes to the screening or pre-screening phase.

$6,600 will at the current engineering salaries be at most a month and a half of your future net salary in the USA, or about 4-5 months worth of rent in San Francisco, so it is overall a very small forward investment to make if you live in the US.

I doubt the degree will be treated as "second class," this will occur only if the words get out that the program is somehow easier to finish and I strongly doubt that. If anything, without in-person TA-ing and live peer interaction, it will be harder to complete some of the courses.

re: Cost of graduate-level education in the USA I understand that EU-citizens get free Masters' education. This is somewhat a side-effect of the EU-wide Bologna process, which promoted everyone's Bachelors degree into a Masters by adding a year's worth more of education and introducing a credit-system. If you are a non-EU citizen trying to get a degree in the EU, you will be paying much more than $6600 in many countries, including the socialist-leaning Scandinavia.

Any US citizen can give FAFSA a try and (from memory) more than half of the undergraduate student body receives some form of financial aid from the government. There are reputable sources that say that paradoxically the generous FAFSA grants are partially responsible for a tuition inflation, but this debate is completely off-topic.

Re: FAFSA --

If you go into any community with a lot of college students / new grads you'll hear a lot of complaints about how its impossible to qualify for FAFSA, scholarships, financial aid, etc.

I'm a middle-class white male and was incredibly worried that I'd hit FAFSA's 'blind spot': our family has a home and a stable middle-class income, but not enough to comfortably afford even a public college education (for our European friends: public colleges offer lower tuition for students residing in the same state as the college because they are partially funded by the state -- instead of paying 50K tuition, I'd be paying around 20K). Furthermore, I was by no means a prodigy: I did well enough in high school to more or less choose the college I went to (I'm from Virginia, and our public colleges are some of the best in the country) I certainly wasn't being courted or showered with incentives.

I managed to still get a pretty fair shake from FAFSA (that 20K number was knocked down to around 11K) and was able to secure some elective scholarships. America's college system isn't some bureaucratic hellhole destined to crush the spirits of its entrants; its just coping with some changes it wasn't really designed to handle.

I was middle class(maybe lower middle class), and my entire education end up paid for. Not only that, but after work study, I actually made enough money to live on without having to get an outside job. Students taking out these huge loans should just consider a state school, or to put in for scholarships.

I understand that EU-citizens get free Masters' education. This is somewhat a side-effect of the EU-wide Bologna process, which promoted everyone's Bachelors degree into a Masters by adding a year's worth more of education and introducing a credit-system.

This isn't true. I'm from England (hence EU Citizen) and Batchelors and Masters degrees are two different things.

I have had to pay for both my Batchelors and my Masters degree - having said that the government does offer a basic loan for Batchelors degrees BUT there isn't any funding for a Masters degree, you have to pay that yourself.

Europeans don't have to worry that much about prestige, since in most (Western) EU countries, the quality of education is mandated and upheld by the Department of Education.

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