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0 pointstsimionescu8mo ago0 comments

It's very funny to see the US perspective here. $30-40k debt for a new graduate of an average university sounds crazy expensive to virtually everyone outside of the USA, I would bet. I paid $0 for my university, as did most of my colleagues, but even if I had had to pay the tuition, it would have amounted to $4k total for a 4-year bachelor's degree, or $6.5k total for a 6-year bachelor's + master's, at one of my country's premier state universities (and consider that private universities are a joke here, just diploma mills).

Granted, none of the top universities in my country even makes it to the top 500 in the world, so maybe this isn't a completely fair comparison? Actually, it's expensive by some other EU country standards - public schools in France and Germany, including PSL (ranked 28th in the world) and TUM (ranked 22nd), are free for all EEA applicants, with some nominal yearly registration fees (amounting to $1k in total for a 4-year degree). A more expensive school, like ETH Zurich (rank 7 in the world), is $4500 total for a 4-year degree if you're a Swiss citizen or EEA citizen with a Swiss work permit; it's triple that for an international student.

So yeah, when we say "university is crazy expensive in the USA (and probably UK too)", we're actually talking about the $30-40k numbers you're looking at. $200k and so are almost inconceivable to us.

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parineum8mo ago· 2 in thread

> $30-40k debt for a new graduate of an average university sounds crazy expensive to virtually everyone outside of the USA

That's the cost over 4 years. Most people will be able to get financial assistance to help pay for that and you easily manage to make 30k (or less with grants) in 4 years to pay for school. People making below 35k per year are going to pay practically zero taxes. You can work about 15 hours a week making $10 per or full time over the summer to pay for that.

There's no need to take on any debt.

People in the US make considerably more money than those in the EU and, generally pay less taxes so there's a lot more disposable income available. I think people here prefer to be able to just get what they can pay for rather than hope the government will let them pursue the education they want (there are aptitude tests and quotas in some EU countries).

It's not really better ir worse, it's just different.

tsimionescuOP8mo ago

There are aptitude tests of some kind and quotas for all good universities everywhere in the world. Harvard won't admit 100k students in a year if they randomly decide to join, nor will they accept a student without a stellar record (apart from legacy admissions, of course). And I would bet you whatever you want that you'll get a much better salary fresh out of college in Europe with a bachelor's from the Technical University of Munich (total cost: around $2000 if you're a citizen of an EU country), or TU Delft in the Netherlands (total cost: around $9000) than you will in the states with a degree from a random college that doesn't even have to bother with admissions tests.

Sure, if you're a brilliant young mind and can get into Harvard and qualify for assistance with your tuition, you're set for life, basically, in a way no EU university can match. But for the vast majority of the population, the outcomes are significantly better with the EU system.

Also note that the gigantic tuitions at US universities are actually a relatively recent phenomenon (and a similar thing happened in the UK). Even in the 50s and 60s, tuitions were much closer to the current EU norm.

parineum8mo ago

We're not talking about private universities, we're talking about public universities that have plenty of room for whatever major you choose.

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