The reason why student debt is basically unheard of in Denmark since college is free (although to make that happen, the Danish government poses high taxation towards citizens like they do in order to maintain stable social security nets like subsidised healthcare and public housing, also why they have less homelessness).
Mainly Danish, Swiss and European citizens are eligible to study without stressing over student debt upon graduation. It stems from this: Danish government is more on for the people while American government is more on caring about themselves plus nepotism on the side (MORE & HIGHER TAXES TOO ON TOP OF THAT).
For full transparency, Germany does have tuition fees for non-EU students. Though at 650-1050€ per semester, they are still lower than most US tuition fees. The reasoning is basically that universities are financed with taxes and if you are likely to never pay German income tax, you have to make up for that. In an ideal world we wouldn’t need that and I don’t really like it but I can somewhat understand that the state wants to prevent people from coming over for free education and then immediately leaving.
Ha, there’s that understated German language. That price is a tiny fraction of US tuition.
More like the careful phrasing of someone who didn’t want someone to jump out of the bushes with “Well aaaaactually, if you live in my state, go to a university three states over, are born on February 29th and promise to give the dean a blowjob every Friday, you only pay 1200 USD which, by today’s exchange rate is a few cents lower than your upper bound.”
As predicted, you have a sibling comment doing exactly that.
Sometimes I think the internet was a mistake.
the real cost of college for most students is closer to $10K a year.
did you even go to college? or are you just ragebaiting yourself over sticker prices?
https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college
So you agree that the 650 to 1050€ figure in my post is lower than your $10K? Yes? Good.
I have a BSc and MSc in computer science from one of the top universities in Germany. I paid about 4000€ in total because I was unlucky to have my first few semesters fall into the time that had the 500€ per semester tuition. Someone who started a bit after me would come out under 2000€. Again, not per year but in total for two degrees.
If you were a student in the USA with American citizenship you’d pay similar or nothing. Most state unis, you’d go for free, and plenty of ivy league schools would have given you massively discounted or free tuition depending on your parents income.
The German education system, from top to bottom, is fundamentally different than the USA one. for starters. All students go to the same secondary schools, we don’t have Gynasium, Hochschule, or Realschule.
You can’t directly compare USA education to German, our universities are very different. Most Germans live at home when they go to university, most Americans, live in on campus.
A more apt comparison would be UK or Canada schools vs USA.
I’ve attended university in USA, Germany, and Canada. I have direct experience with all three systems.
Disclaimer to others: the comment I’m replying to has been almost completely rewritten while I was typing my reply so I’m quoting things that are no longer there. I will still leave my reply as it is.
In Germany, every EU citizen pays next to nothing. Doesn’t matter which university or what grades. As long as you qualify for university (i.e. you have finished high school), you are able to get a degree if you want. No “if”, no “I wouldn’t have to worry”, no “top student”, no “cheap”. There is no tuition, period. Most universities ask for a small administrative fee of less than 200€, most of which finances additional benefits that cannot legally be paid with taxes, such as a student council.
As mentioned, for non-EU students, there is a fixed tuition of at most 1050€ per semester. Again, no “if”, no “you wouldn’t have to worry”, no “top student”.
Also note, that I never, not even once complained about American tuition fees. If you re-read my comments, you will only find the stated fact that the tuition for non-EU students is lower than “most US tuition fees”. Which, by your own admission, is true. I never claimed that it is lower than the lowest possible US tuition, I never said anything about this being good or bad.
So please stop projecting your own rage onto something I have never said and stop insulting people. You are entitled to your opinion and I will gladly fight for your right to state it. What you are not entitled to is being rude to strangers. For that, I will downvote and possibly report you.
if you wanted scholarship you should have studied harder man.
or maybe been better at sucking the dean’s cock.
Only 17% of students who attend college pay sticker price. The vast vast majority are receiving substantial aid to lower those prices.
but hey, don’t let the facts of reality get in the way of your hyperbolic doomer narrative, where you are forced to suck cock.
Sure, and most people don’t pay “full price” at the hospital. Yet health insurance is insanely expensive in itself. So yes almost everybody gets some sort of discount, but it’s usually a drop in the bucket. $1000 “scholarships” might be a 1% discount.
you’re just spouting lies and bullshit.
these are all numbers we can look up, and the statistics aren’t as bleak wish they were.
but again don’t let reality get in the way of your hyperbolic bitterness towards the world, I guess.
a minority of people get fucked by the healthcare and education systems, and often it’s to some degree their own fault or ignorance. the median medical debt is $2,000. just because a minority of people it’s like 200,000, doesn’t mean that is a general condition for the vast majority of people.
But hey, who am I to get in the way of your ignorant rage?
k
Yes, we actually don’t know the numbers that are common over there, but I have heard that students get in debt for a huge part of their lifetime - which we consider a scandal and a shame for a country.
The numbers can be pretty crazy - but yeah it’s a complex hellscape of excessive prices combined with student aid designed to extract the most from every student.
My state is covering tuition at its public universities for people below a certain income. After federal subsidies. But you still need to cover room and board. Meanwhile the list price is higher than the Ivy League school I went to many years ago.
But the school my youngest really wanted, has huge subsidies almost half the cost, yet wanted us to come up with $50k/year.
But there’s also a cultural thing where college became almost expected, regardless of what you wanted to do in life. If you only look at it as a financial investment there are many scenarios where it will never pay off or the desired job is too low an income to pay it off. Of course people complain about poor choices in spending when the real problem is thinking of college merely as a financial investment. But college is a good thing if it helps people learn and think, regardless whether there is a direct payoff
The numbers are on google dude.
The average student debt is 30K. Most students pay about 10K a year for college here, because most students get a lot of financial aid. that isn’t a lifetime of debt. nor is it crippling. that student goes off and typically gets a 50-70K job, and pays off the debt in 5-10 years. But the media isn’t going to report that.
They are going to report the kid that has 300K in debt, and a degree in English, and can’t get a job outside of Starbucks, because that is DRAMATIC. Those people do exist, but they are a STARK minority, and frankly, having personally known some of those people, they are really really dumb and they make bad choices, even when better choices are available to them. Usually out of being stubborn single-minded asses. They usually get there from a series of bad choices, and they cry ‘innocent’.
I’ve also known people with modest debts, who didn’t pay them back because they want to party and ‘live it up’, and yeah 10 years later they are massive. Well… that’s how debt works. You need to pay it back. I am in my 40s and I meet regularly meet people who have never paid a dime back on their student loans after 20 years, who how have six figures of student debt.
A lot of Americans are very very bad with money. They buy things they can’t afford, and get angry at everyone else about their debts.
plenty of kids in america get cheap uni fees. You just don’t hear about them because that’s not dramatic.
The college I went to now charges a 100K sticker price, but when I went it was 30K, but I only paid about 5-6K a year. Had I gone today it would have been entire free. For my graduate degree I went to Canada because they offered me 20K a year to attend.
Many of my friends got free educations in the USA, often because they went to less prestigious schools and those schools were willing to pay them to go there. My nephew just got into college, and several of his friends did this, so they are going to school for free, rather than go 200K into debt to go to a fancier school.
The people who get shafted the most are kids from higher income families, who are not academically gifted or who can’t get a sports scholarship. if your family is making 150K+ a year and you’re a B student, yeah you’re going to pay full freight. But truth is your parents can probably afford it, even if it means they have to skip vacations for a few years.