Germany has long shown far greater foresight than the United States in the investment into science, infrastructure, and alternative energy — investments that are now giving the country huge returns as a leading economic system. With a decision of Lower Saxony, the German have now shown precisely how serious they are about keeping the country as one of the most educated in the world: they have eliminated all college and university tuition. The Germans view education as not just a right, but an essential component for continued growth.
There are critics to educational subsidies who raise some good-faith issues of how such payments can eliminate pressure to make efficient choices and actually drive up costs. I actually see value to students paying some tuition. However, with tuition sky rocking in the United States and falling enrollment numbers, the United States is heading to a reckoning in the future for our lack of investment in our workforce. While we have spent trillions of dollars on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and just renewed our commitment to the later to keep forces in the country), we have continued to cut environmental, scientific, educational, and infrastructure investments. The inevitable result is that we will continue to drop in our competitiveness in the world market and the future economy. Every other country is investing heavily in education while the United States continues to be distracted by shiny objects with more immediate political benefits for politicians.
What is striking is that it is not just third world countries that are investing heavily education, but economic leaders like Germany.
Notably, tuition was only introduced in Germany in 2006 after the German Constitutional Court ruled that limited fees do not violate the country’s commitment to universal education. However, the tuition rates proved unpopular and the country is now tuition free. Of course, there is no such thing as free tuition. The taxpayers are footing the bill. Moreover, such government subsidies can have a negative impact on not just the choices of students (who feel less pressure to make efficient choices) but on schools which are dependent on the government.
Nevertheless, the contrast could not be greater with the United States in terms of the commitment to education as not just a right (as it is in Germany) but as a real national security priority.
The article below has an interesting discussion of how England rejected the free tuition approach but has lost more money due to the higher student default rate on tuition. Yet, the English students face a maximum debt load of $14,550 per year where U.S. tuition rates and debt are soaring. Student loan debt in our country now stands at $1.2 trillion.
Of course, that is less than a third of the costs for the wars, but no one is making such comparisons.
http://thinkprogress.org/education/2014/10/01/3574551/germany-free-college-tuition/
Oops “Paradigm”. Typing to fast.
Ohh goody, more talk of tax payers paying for other peoples decisions. My dad taught college math for 29 years. He says the worst thing that happened to teaching was unions and tenure.
It also seems to me that the whole college system is outdated and is due for a new paradyme. It’s hard to justify college tuition when you can get the same class cheaper online. Also, suppose you are a world class teacher. Why settle for a college position when you could offer your class at $1 to hundreds of thousands of people around the world? If I was a teacher, I would be shaking in my boots about the future and how useful I am.
Good points Po and Issac. That’s an interesting perspective, Paul. How do we get a mindset back of “what’s good for our country?” We’re all about “us” and “them.” We’re perennially divided by multitudes of criteria. Just look at the divisive points in the media. One day, “black vs. white.” “Republican vs. Democrat.” “Rich connected vs. the masses.” Take your pick. I don’t think you can point to any one thing other than greed and power at every level of society here. We’re not Americans anymore. It also helps serve the purpose Issac describes–don’t know what to do about that. May just be the end result of the “rugged individualist ideal” that helped develop the country so quickly, but may not allow it to prosper in the long haul.
slohrss29 – I cannot disagree more. We are still Americans and to think we are not is to denigrate all those who have died for what is important to us.
Now this is a college president you can get behind.
http://collegeinsurrection.com/2014/10/college-president-will-pay-for-students-textbooks-if-beaten-in-madden-video-game/
Forgot about their environmental focus and producing clean energy.
Annie: We also paid for modern Iraq. Hmmmm.
Yep! And China is paying for us to rush ourselves off the cliff. Thanks?
Germany is just wiser. They seem to have adopted the native armerican philosophy of taking no action unless they ponder its impact on the next generations. Between their free tuition (which is a typical european thing, France offers free higher education, and whether linked or not, now silicone valley employs 60,000 French people (I must check number but think it accurate.)
As Schlor says, Germany has a very strong trades system, that forms great workers to support a strong manufacturing industry, which is also supported by a strong union. The German leaders are not caught up in the politics for politics sake that holds us back, and act more as managers than the political personalities we tend to elect.
Anyone here familiar with construction tools would know about Festool, the hottest German brand on these shores. Greatly designed and well thought out tools that perform as tools should, built in Germany and offering a 3 year warranty rather than the usual 1 or 2 of the American brands whose products are made in China.
To hold any product of that brand, is to see the system and structure behind it. The well trained minds who can imagine a product and design it; the well trained hands who can take such design and bring it to life; the precision and pride of the system that ensures that every product made is worthy of the brand, precise, effective and well-backed; the integration of the system that ensures that the brain and the hand complete each other rather than being blind to each other, and finally the national pride and sense of responsibility that ensures that each product further helps establish Germany as a brand for quality and efficiency.
Watch their soccer team play and you see the same qualities displayed.
po – do not forget they (Germany) invented the first smart bomb, the first ballistic rocket and their scientists put a man on the moon using the same rocket that destroyed great sections of London. The also invented the first jet plane. And they would have invented the first atom bomb if we had not been willing to sink a ferry full of people just to stop it. BTW, glad to see you on another blog that is not Islam related. 😉
po – an the pictures taken by the Japanese of Pearl Harbor were taken with a German Leica camera.
Gigi, like I said, the Germans didn’t just “bumble” into this. That’s not the way they do things. Their commitment to education/guild/union system is one of the main differences that separate German culture in Europe.
JT is correct. It is always incumbent for the person to have some of their own money invested to make it worthwhile. Ever notice that when you go to the ER the first question is always, “Is this work related?” The reason is if the answer is “Yes” then EVERYTHING is covered and the patient has no copay. There is no investment by the patient to keep the medical industry in check. That is one of the reasons our education industry is so dysfunctional. It’s all govt. money. And boy, do they want to keep it that way. Having govt. subsidize certain things can be legit. But when it’s “Free” it eventually becomes worthless.
The last thing globalized corporations want is an educated population or people who can think past the jingoism and shiny toys. The, almost universal, experience of thinking which attacks almost all first and second year college students can have adverse effects on the structure based on cheap labor. Mindless labor is cheap labor and when you compare the quality of life, wages, and levels of education of the US with these other countries, it pretty much tells it all. Americans are being groomed for low paying jobs, jobs that lock the majority into a dependency on service industries which have low ceilings. Germany has beed expanding its engineering and manufacturing base providing higher wages and a greater middle class while the US has been reducing the middle class, lowering wages, and bleeding manufacturing and engineering jobs.
There was a time when education from K through college was left to the states, private donations, low tuition, and scholarships. We flourished! Since the federal government has dipped its fingers in the pot, our educational system has suffered greatly at the hands of Uncle Sam. Perhaps this same intrusion by Germany’s government will not be their saving grace but their demise as well.
I would like to see our country return to what worked for us in the past.
People in the US also don’t realize another difference. Germany has seemingly progressive ways of doing things, but they are very conservative about their implementation. The trade guild/union system goes back at least to the 1500s, and most likely further. The US seems to use the knee-jerk method of handing most matters, and that is usually because everything is politically motivated instead of being a solution that is for the benefit of the entire country.
And let’s not forget the billions of dollars spent in Afghanistan, now both countries fighting to get back to the stone age. Germany has designed it’s own success by learning from the past and being able to look to the future…progressively.
That is true to a point Paul, but the German systems were in place before all of that started. We need to stop taking credit for all of that too. In the time we have caused a wake of failed states across the world, Germany absorbed the failing east, and have done so successfully and much faster than critics said could happen. The US is being bled dry and left behind.
The other important aspect of Germany is trade guild/union model. Not everyone has to face the cliff of higher education and make a choice. When high school kids pick a trade, they embark on a journey to become an important craftsman that is instrumental to the German economic model. Everyone has the chance to contribute, make the country stronger, and live a good life. There is quite a difference between the German union model and what we have here.
And it does seem that trying to achieve a quick and tremendous growth is the common model for schools here now. I think the system will crash hard at some point. Plus, if there start to be large scale defaults on the ridiculous student loans, that may make the housing problem look like a picnic.
We also paid for modern Iraq. Hmmmm.
Annie – when you start with nothing you can create what ever you want. Germany ended the war with rubble on the ground, no food, no equipment, no men, etc. The Allies brought food, stability. The Marshall Plan brought in infrastructure. They got to build the country they wanted on our dollar. Without being too harsh, we paid for modern Germany.
Well, you also have to look at the tracked high school system which is putting the top students only into the college system. There is a way to save the American college system, but you would not want to hear it. Go back to the original way of universities. The students pay the professors directly. If you are unpopular you starve. My alma mater seems to think growth is the way to keep from going under.
What else do you have to say? We are spiraling downward in a maelstrom of greed at all levels of society. Even the major colleges in the US have become cash hogs and have lost the site of the goal to make a more educated country. I think Germany sees the writing on the wall for the west, and is going to refuse to become a slave to China, like the US will eventually.
Germany also embraces unions and public healthcare. Such silly people. How in the world can they do so well? I bet their economic collapse is just around the corner!
Wonder how many wasted majors there will be now at German universities? Is Germany willing to say not all majors are equal?