How US students get a university degree for free in Germany

As someone who visited Finland and Sweden for a long period of time in my youth (and attended school in Finland), the spoken English was vastly better in Sweden than in Finland (at the gr.7 level).

Germany is also discussing how to better the situation here because many foreigners don't finish their degree here/don't stay here afterwards (which is quite hard, because of our tuff immigration laws to non-EU citizens)

Do foreign student allowed to work part time in Germany/Finland/Sweden etc? That will definitely attract more student who want to be self sufficient instead of depending on allowance from parent back home.

The tuition fees may be low but the cost of living is very high in Switzerland.

A woman that worked as scientist for a year in a swiss university tells me that the country is very beautiful, but people is hard to reach and you suffer a lot of micro-agressions out of the workplace. Is really hard to find decent houses for rent, and a lot of things seem to be more much expensive or harder to obtain if you are not swiss. It takes a lot of time and money to become a swiss resident also.

There are some major political parties also that actively spread xenophobia and fear against foreigners, specially before the elections.

Finally she realized that was not just earning enough money to be worthwhile.

Just an opinion, your experience can be different (specially if you 'sprechen deutsch'), but maybe american students think that is easier to work in other countries. You earn less but enjoy a better quality of life instead. And of course an english native is much more valued and find a job much easier in european countries that normally don't speak english.

You are making the same argument that proponents of the extremely high cost of health care in the united states make.

"list price is not the same as what people actually pay"

Are we in the bargaining meat markets of India ??

There are a non-trivial number of students who are paying out of their nose. The current student loan of the country is 1.3 TRILLION dollars.

Your anecdotal experience doesn't change the fact of the entire country.

I am glad that Germany is poaching many american students. This is the surest way to hurt the american educational industrial complex.

Full need-based aid (not merit scholarships), is extremely rare outside the very top universities.

At other schools, including those ranked in the top 30 or so, "need-based aid" is a euphemism for loans, often in extremely high amounts.

Anecdotal, but I've even seen bait-and-switch tactics at some places: my brother was accepted at Tufts with a decent aid package, and then after freshman year, with no change in family financials, saw it drastically reduced. He dropped out and transferred immediately.

As mentioned in other comments, American education has a lot of pricing similarities to American healthcare, and the lack of any sort of true market mechanisms is a big reason why. Good to see some price pressure getting applied.

Now, whether or not this is a good idea for Germany is a whole different question...

The point of this article is that as a B+ student, you can get into a globally competitive university for free. Financial aid at a competitive college in the US is available to students at A- or above.

There is some truth to this. For my Master's degree, I got a fellowship where I did some work that the university had a grant for (maybe 10-20 hrs/wk) and they fully covered my tuition and housing, with a bit left for food (but I would have had to eat very cheaply to make it cover all of my food).

Those Germans don't necessarily came to the US for academic reasons.

A lot of Germans just want to experience life the US. Others want to improve their English.

That said, I understand that if the top school for your sub-field is in the US why you would want to come to the US for graduate school.

If you land in the Ivy league, then yes the price tag might be worth it. Who wouldn't hire an MIT engineer, or an Harvard Lawyer if they can afford it? But if you are not at the top schools why rack up the same type of student debt while you can get the same level anywhere else in the world?

If your field is cultural then yes studying in the country in which it is more pertinent makes sense (Why study Japanese literature in Italy just to illustrate). But if your field is technical, or removed enough from local culture then looking around makes all the sense in the world.

But frankly there is plenty of schools that I regard as highly as MIT, CMU and such that are Europe (Polytech Paris, Poly Lausanne, Normal School of Pisa, Poly Milan, ... I am forgetting a lot) or Asia (Tokyo Tech) and while you might need to get a loan for some costs it will never get to US levels (I studied in Unis in Italy, France and Japan to get my BS and MS and all my loans were exactly EUR15000 by the time I found a job ... I had part-times and Scholarships but those were not hard to get, and I had declared bankruptcy I could have gotten rid of those since I took those loans in Europe).

I'd assume the real reason is that German is a very hard language rarely taught/learned in the US, and conversely, every German student with university access qualification has had at least 7 years of English lessons...

The article states that no German is needed for many masters programs.

Background: Germany has tons of foreign students, many from countries with poor school systems. I don't think that their performance is informative about how someone from the US would fare. But yes, speaking German is certainly a plus, even if your program is in English.

Why do you think that is the case? What sort of benefits do you feel you are you missing out on?

The problem is, if your kids can't cut it to Harvard or Stanford, or they don't qualify for aid, what are you going to do? Sink $250K+ in education for your kids?

That might be true, but not everybody can get into Harvard or Stanford, and for most people, those universities are prohibitively expensive.

If you're part of the tiny elite for whom Harvard and Stanford are an option, by all means go for it. But for a lot of people, studying abroad might be a better idea.

There's a nice: do your undergraduate in Europe for free (and do well there), then do a Masters at your target US elite institution. Much cheaper, same brand recognition and Masters programs are a lot less selective, i.e. easier to get in.

Accepted? By who? I don't know any industry that 'accepts' a degree other than maybe law and medical. If you want to transfer to an American university later on, then sure you might have to do some work just like transferring from any other school.

Are Italian universities cheap even for non-EU citizens? That's the part that is somewhat unusual about Germany's scheme, that it's near-free for anyone. Most EU countries with low tuition extend that only to EU citizens, and charge higher (sometimes UK-level) fees to non-EU foreigners. For example in Denmark there is zero tuition for EU citizens, but €10,000/yr tuition for non-EU citizens. This is because under the EU's equal-treatment provisions, EU countries have to treat other EU students equally with their own nationals. So those with no/low tuition for domestic students have to offer the no/low tuition also to other EU students. But they can chage non-EU nationals what they want, and many are lately treating foreign students (often from Asia) as a source of income.

> By the way only 280€ in Munich seems a little off to me...

Yes, it's more to the tune of 500€ at average for a room in a shared appartment (Source: https://www.wg-suche.de/magazin/wg-zimmer-preise-an-hochschu...). It's probably possible to find something a bit cheaper, but 280€ would be very optimistic. Maybe this is the price of some University accommodation, which is very limited in capacity, i.e. impossible to get.

It's about perspective. Besides education, one might plan to land a job nearby. Italy is very expensive while salaries are ridiculously low compared to northern Europe.

Nope! From the article:

> She did not need German, however, in her Master's programme, which was filled with students from 50 different countries but taught entirely in English. In fact, German universities have drastically increased all-English classes to more than 1,150 programmes across many fields.

Depends on your University. You can get the MIND courses in English. Other courses are usually held only in German.

Only tuition is free, full room & board have to be paid for.

Winning the hearts and minds, perhaps? It's probably cheaper than trying to compete with Hollywood.

It's not full room and board.

My university (in Denmark) had a large number of eastern European students it created a very different environment, a better one in my opinion. Students are exposed to different ideas, different approaches to solving programs and learn to work together with people with a different background and culture. Of cause my university focused heavily on group assignment and working in groups in general.

I honestly don't mind that my tax money is spend on education people from around the world, although I think it's currently only free for EU citizens. And perhaps there's the added bonus of a few opting to stay and work in the country.

Didn't the article say it costs the country only about $13,000 per student per year? If only a few of those students stay in Germany and pay taxes there, it's already worth it. And even if they return home, they'll be more comfortable doing business with Germany, which may still be worth it in the long run. And you get to export some of your culture and values.

It's not a bad investment at all. But ultimately, it's about making sure the next generation has access to good education, and how can you really put a price on that?