Hacker News Reader

Comment by jpatokal | Hacker News Reader

This is not unique to Germany. Finland also offers free degrees for everybody, although there are rumbles about changing this from 2017-ish. Get in while you can ;)

http://www.studyinfinland.fi/tuition_and_scholarships/tuitio...

It's also worth mentioning that in smaller countries like Finland, the level of English is correspondingly higher, since everybody has been exposed to it since they were young children and, by the time you get to the university level, most textbooks are in English only. In larger EU countries like Germany and France this is not the case.

View on HN

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)

I am surprised by this, from what I understand, employment-based immigration to Germany is is one whole order of magnitude easier than to the U.S.

Yes, for skilled/educated people, it's very straight forward process.

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).

Yup, Swedes find English easier because the languages are related, while Finnish is not. But broadly speaking, more or less anybody under 50 (60?) or so in Finland will speak and understand English enough to communicate, and in a university environment staff and students will be effectively bilingual.

Swedish is definitely easier to learn than Finnish, I'll give you that much.

Really? I was there for a month working and found that most people spoke flawless english.

When you see an english tv program in Sweden or Finnish is often in english with subtitles in the country language. South European countries instead normally translate the program to the language of the country. Is as simple as this. Each system have its own advantages and handicaps.

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.

I know about Germany: Yes, they can. There are some limits in how many hours/year you are allowed to work. I think it is the equivalent of 2-3 months fulltime/year).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com