How could this possibly make sense to German taxpayers?
Also, I studied in the UK and my tuition fees have been payed by the UK government. So it seems only fair to invite others to study in Germany.
I think that this is the crux of it. In my experience in the U.S., my taxes are funding things that I not only get no benefit from, but actively oppose on a moral level. That makes it a much harder thing to accept.
However, if Europeans had to do their own taxes for their salaries, I'm sure many more would be upset about high taxes.
There must be a similar process in Germany for people who aren't 9-5 types.
Germans are not so obsessed about not paying taxes like e.g. Americans or Swiss.
The reason for this being that the tax declaration is fairly straight forward and simple. Fairness of the (progressive) tax code is quite widely recognized, which makes for good - if not happy - tax payers.
If you're implying that evading taxes is something like a Swiss hobby and legal (bullshit I see quite often spouted by even reputable American papers) this is absolute rubbish. Tax evasion is not legal in any way, shape or form.
So my question stands: Where do the Swiss come into your equation?
(See http://ingeb.org/Lieder/palmstre.html for the full text of the poem.)
Though Germany isn't as bad as Italy or Greece
If your argument is Germans pay their taxes and don't care how the money gets spent I have to say I'm a bit skeptical.
However, since more and more Germans want to go to uni some fields of study are jammed with students in recent years. This in turn means that the quality of education goes down (for example: not enough capacities for tutors and not enough actual seats for students) So from that perspective it doesn't make sense for German taxpayers. If capacities are already stressed getting more students doesn't help.
On a more human level it is probably beneficial when Germans and Americans form more friendships and thus learn to understand eachothers views of the world.
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[0]"Although you can study in Germany for free at public institutions as an undergraduate, there is a charge per semester for enrolment, confirmation and administration – usually between €150 and €250 (US$170-280) depending on the university. There may be an additional charge of around €100 for a “Semesterticket”, which covers public transport expenses for six months. If you exceed the standard period of study by more than four semesters, you may also face a long-term fee charge, which could be as much as €800 (US$920) per semester." www.topuniversities.com/.../how-much-does-it-cost-study-germany
It's really outrageous. 35 years ago when my parents were in college, they could make enough money doing typical college-kid jobs (waiting tables, working summers, the same sort of things college students do now), to support themselves AND pay their tuition. I'm a software developer, working full-time, and I don't clear enough money after taxes in a year to pay for a year of tuition at the college I graduated from, unless I were going to be living in a van down by the river and surviving on free pizza provided by student groups.
In Europe,in most countries, education is virtually free, just look at the cost of law school or med school in France or Belgium for instance. It's what $500 dollars a year at most?
Of course there are plenty of private schools in Europe, but even these are usually half the cost of American ones.
I graduated in computer science, in France. 4 years of college education cost me, what, 1000$ at most?
Now sure, I pay a LOT of taxes. But I know at least some of it goes into education and allow other student like I was to afford a good education. Having stayed in US for a while, while salaries seemed higher I don't think the cost of life is cheaper than in western Europe.
In the 1960's, tuition & fees at a UC school was less than $2000 (2015 dollars) per year. In the 1950's, it was less than $750 per year.[1][2]
Today, tuition & fees at a UC will cost you $15,000 per year.
In order to completely pay for tuition and fees, the state of California would have to increase revenue $3 billion per year. Or increase tax revenues by just 3%.[1][3]
I, as a citizen, feel like our government's priorities have been absolutely abysmal since the 1980's. To me, this level of insanity transcends political ideology. It's just plain dumb not to fix this.
> Now sure, I pay a LOT of taxes. But I know at least some of it goes into education and allow other student like I was to afford a good education. Having stayed in US for a while, while salaries seemed higher I don't think the cost of life is cheaper than in western Europe.
Cost of living is lower in the US (as a whole) than Western European countries, and median household income adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP) is quite a bit higher in the US.[4][5]
That doesn't make any of this sensible, though. Sure, I'd take lower taxes if Californian kids had to pay just a couple thousand more to college than French kids. But $14k more? Insanity. Raise my taxes please.
1. http://www.dailycal.org/2014/12/22/history-uc-tuition-since-...
2. http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=84&year1=1956&y...
3. http://www.sco.ca.gov/state_finances_101_state_taxes.html
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity#OECD_co...
My point is, it's very difficult to compare the economic realities in different countries. There are whole categories of expenses that just do not exist in many western European countries. That said, I'm sure if you add everything up, Silicon Valley is the place to be for single, healthy, smart engineers. But that's a pretty narrow set of the population.
Simply stated, because of the high levels of tax and rife avoidance, it's probably quite difficult to quantify earnings in London, for example.
How? Which particular state benefits are you talking about?
(And it seems like you're talking about evasion - which is illegal, rather than avoidance which is a mix of normal tax planning (a contractor registering for VAT and claiming some of that back) and loophole-manipulation).
Health care is the obvious one. University has kinda jumped the shark though.
Trust schemes or defer forever, depending on your attitude to risk. I'm not saying said schemes should be used, just that it's popular and skews what people really earn.
Avoiding tax once you're not PAYE is pretty easy, there are loads of loopholes but the government sanctioned method is to take £40k per year at under 20% and leave the rest in the company. If you have a non-working spouce, this becomes £80000. You can also contrib, I believe, £40k to a pension, double again for your spouce and set yourself up for a super early retirement.
If you're open to more risk, there are loan based trust systems that'll get you access to your money a lot quicker. They're currently totally legal but the government does make a lot of noise about shutting them down.
Point being, earnings aren't reflective of wealth in the UK and you can do well here too as sadly, the well off have a lot more opportunities to legally avoid tax.
Do the numbers really come out in favor of raising taxes? Another commenter gave the 3% required rate for the tax increase. Would a student actually be better off paying 3% extra taxes for the rest of his/her life, as opposed to paying 15k/year for only 4 years (I'm asking from a numbers perspective)?
Currently, this tax is raised in the form of fees, due quarterly (or per semester) for the four (or more, or less) years of UC education consumed. Paid for by students and/or their families. Payment plans, subsidies, and loans may be available to pay this tax...
(I know I'm being a bit colorful, but I hope you catch my drift)
What I am trying to say is that, from an individual perspective, it makes more sense to pay the $15k. If you're making $50k/year in income, 3% of that for the rest of your life (assuming you work for about 50 years) comes to about $60k, which is what 4x$15k is anyway. However, if your income is above that, you pay significantly more. The US median income in 2014 was $51939 (got this number from a quick Google search, might not be 100% accurate), so half the population would indeed pay a total sum larger than $60k with a 3% tax.
I meant 40 years here (and HN won't let me edit the comment anymore).
Which government? What does the federal government have to do with California's subsidy of the UC system?
That probably makes financial sense. Of course, it doesn't scale, but for the number of people studying right now it's probably a net benefit.
1. We have a 20% sales tax, income tax that is usually somewhere between 35%-45%... car taxes, highest energy costs in the world... just taxes everywhere.
2. The overall mindset here is much less libertarian and much more "let the Goverment handle it".
3. Smart brains are needed for the local economy to stay competitive.
4. Another thing to keep in mind: the actual cost for a student isn't really that much money. There are no million dollar sports teams, luxury gyms, technical equipment usually just isn't on the same level...
Also, the program is selective, which means that you're hopefully only grabbing decent people and not riffraff. This further maximizes your return.
What you are saying is that if you want to do competitive sports, you won't get a degree in history of business or other feign courses pros take in the US university sports system.
It is better to get someone who has already graduated, but getting someone about to graduate and contribute to the economy is not bad either.
>Germany wants these international students here, even though their taxpayers foot the bill.
>“Germany is not a country that's growing,” Malone says. “Its population is not growing. They need people, they need immigrants. They want to be a migration country.”
>Think about it this way: it’s a global game of collecting talent. All of these students are the trading cards, and the collectors are countries. If a country collects more talent, they'll have an influx of new ideas, new businesses and a better economy.
Entering into an age that will be dominated by robotics, greater general automation, artificial intelligence, etc., having more people across the board will not be a net benefit. Germany is worrying about this at exactly the wrong time.
Germany has vastly expanded their economy since 1970, while adding zero additional people. They'll be able to do exactly the same thing over the next 40 years by leveraging the incredible productivity gains that are inbound right now. No population growth is necessary or desirable; if Germany holds its population steady, and increases economic output through greater productivity, they'll greatly improve the odds that the median standard of living will increase in line.
For a comparison see:
It's a different kettle of fish when more of the people are retired and living on generous tax-payer pensions, and less are working.
The effective population changed quite a bit, too: first fall of the wall, later integration of eastern central Europe into the German economy.
That was with £17,000+/year fees (for non-EU students), so they were super-rich and also clever. If studying at Cologne is free for them, and in English, that will attract potential students away from Britain.
I paid about £1000 year, like all British students, but I'd definitely consider Germany if I was 17 now. Fees for British students have increased to ~£9000/year! My workplace has a very international staff, all bilingual staff's teenage children are pretty much guaranteed to study elsewhere in the EU, with others considering it.
The closest equivalents are either offered by the local public transit unions (which are limited to the region covered by that public transit union, of which there are a ton in NRW) or the BahnCard 100 (which covers all of Germany -- but not necessarily all local public transit -- and is ridiculously expensive).
No, that's not the alternative at all. The alternative would be to have people from other countries pay their own way and provide free education to your own citizens.