Another point: US universities look very different from German ones. I live in Corvallis (OSU) now but grew up and went to school in Stuttgart Germany. Compared to the German universities our US schools are country clubs: dorms, restaurants, coffee shops, fitness clubs, green spaces everywhere. Don't even get me started on the sports, it's an outrage how US schools have become sports franchises.
I'm guessing most US students would be shocked by the reality of German public universities which basically consist of giant rooms with blackboards and there's not much general ed to speak of. At the graduate level it gets more interesting but that's in years 5-8. My first 4 years studying ME in Stuttgart were almost 100% lectures with a final exam at the end of the semester. Virtually no tutoring and very little corrected homework.
You don't get what you don't pay for. On the other hand, you don't really get what you pay for in the US either since the universities have become so good at sucking up more and more student loan money without really improving on their core mission of providing higher education.
If by 'general ed' you are referring to optional classes that are not necessarily related to your core subject or electives, I would like to say that you have very much the option (and in most reformed Bachelor-type programs it's a requirement) to take such classes and choose among many types of seminars ranging from communication and negotiation coaching to optional language classes.
Also note that in contrary to (or so I think) most for-profit US universities which impose a rigorous bookkeeping on credits taken vs. tution fees, students at German public universities can -- on their own initiative, by asking the professors or offices directly -- easily listen in to or take exams in random classes, even from other departments. If the professor agrees, they'll get a singed certificate with a grade which they can use for credit in their electives. I on one occasion took a Psychology as well as Economics classes, and had no problems in turning these into useful credits.
> You don't get what you don't pay for
German universities work for people who can act on their own initiative, they enable people to progress. Guidance is optional and provided on request/on intervention. I'm thankful for that by not charging as a for-profit institution, our universities don't need to cater to their clients as (service) staff.
That's the thing. German unis aren't schools; in fact the whole point (or at least original point before we got degree inflation) of our "high school" (Gymnasium) degree is to prepare students to be able to go on with a higher education on their own.
If you want a more school-like experience, there are Fachhochschulen (more technical schools, "FH") instead of universities. Even in Germany many students complain that unis are too technical and don't provide enough handholding, and I always think WTH don't they just go to an FH then?
Often the FH offers very similar degrees, and while some employers care about the difference, many don't mind (many even don't care if you have a BSc or a MSc/Diploma, at least in IT). So there is a "Diploma in computer science" and a "diploma in computer science (FH)", in addition to the nowadays more common BSc/MSc.
Sounds similar to the Dutch situation. No handholding in university. Lots of opportunity to fuck up all by yourself. I never understand people who call it "school", because it really isn't. If that's what you want, there's also the "hogeschool" which also counts as higher education, but practical, professional education, whereas university is called "scientific education". The actual level of science varies a lot of course, but mainly you've got to do more yourself.
I spent a month in exchange at a Gymnasium in Germany. It is hard to express how different it is from a US high school. The main criticism I've heard is that the Gymnasien are good at the expense of the Hauptshchulen.
For those not familiar, the Gymnaisien are college-prep schools that start around 4th grade, and roughly the top 1/3 of academic performers qualify; the rest of the students go to Realschule or Hauptschule which are more of a vocational track and end around 10th grade.
Agreed, the German system worked well for me and there are other higher-ed systems in Germany that take up the middle ground between 6-year degrees and vocational schools.
It would be politically impossible in the US to have a high school system like Germany's where university students effectively get selected in 5th grade and in consequence the US has everyone entering the same undergraduate system. Universities here have to cater to a broader audience, they just don't do it that well because even state schools now look very much like for-profit operations.
>Also note that in contrary to (or so I think) most for-profit US universities
Most US Universities aren't for-profit. In 2000 (the latest stat I could find) about 6% of college students were enrolled in for-profit universities). For-profit schools also generally have rather dubious reputations.
if you believe that non-profit universities in the US in any way behave as actual non-profit institutions, I have a course on bridge-building to sell you
I studied in Berlin (Berlin has very little money) and while nearly all my undergraduate education was in the form of black board lectures (which I like very much), all my homework was corrected and every lecture had a tutorial session where homework was discussed and you could ask questions about things you didn't understand in the lecture.
In most cases, these tutoring classes are even run by students (because the professors don't want to / don't have time), so you get good explanations that you can actually understand, and the tutors have a nice way to make some money on-campus, and to go deeper into the subject themselves.
I remember my mother speaking to some college admissions person at a semi-prestigious school in Pennsylvania, many years back when I was in the throws of applying. When speaking to some admissions confusion with respect to my high school, the guy said, "Well frankly, it's not called the Ivy League because of its academics." That's always stuck with me. Athletic scholarships? You betcha. Academic scholarships? What are those?
Ivies give so much need based scholarships that athletic scholarships aren't required. If someone's parents and poor, the school finds a way for them to graduate debt-free. (This is a big plus for them)
As for sports having an impact... They may not let in a 900 SAT football player, but 1200 may be enough for an Olympic rower.
>"Well frankly, it's not called the Ivy League because of its academics." That's always stuck with me. Athletic scholarships? You betcha. Academic scholarships? What are those?
What are you talking about? Ivy League schools do not offer athletic money and all (now, not when I was applying) are need-blind, giving tons of money to those who need it.
I never said anything about them not giving money to students who need it. Not once.
I simply stated what was told to me about athletics. There's a difference between financial aid, and academic scholarship. Recruiting for academic purposes occurs much more so in post-undergrad situations. Whether or not you want to believe that athletics play a role in admissions and awards is up to you.
This is not my experience at all. I studied physics at a public university in Germany. We had about the same number of tutoring hours as lectures each week and had to hand in homework every week for every lecture. That homework got graded and decided if we were permitted to take the final exam. Also from the second semester on we had compulsory experimental courses throughout the year.
On the other hand you are right, there is hardly any general education at university level, but that is (supposed) to happen in high school. At least compared to the UK, high school covers a much broader range of subjects.
> On the other hand, you don't really get what you pay for in the US either since the universities have become so good at sucking up more and more student loan money without really improving on their core mission of providing higher education.
If you laser-focus on making money, then eventually you become pretty good at it.
If you laser-focus on educating people, then eventually you become pretty good at it.
> If you laser-focus on educating people, then eventually you become pretty good at it.
I don't think you can call putting 500 people in an amphitheater in front of a single person and a blackboard remotely "pretty good at educating". It's one of the worst ways ever to transmit knowledge. And it shows.
This is a myth. A common myth yet still unintuitively false.
I once reviewed statistical data for high school level success metrics across countries. It is statistically observable how small a correlation there is between class size and education quality
A good teacher can engage 50 students as easily as 500. Some of the best classes in my life have been in 200 people packed amphitheaters.
It's not about the class size, it's about the environment. Amphitheaters suck bad. A normal classroom is much better, and an online class is way better than an amphitheater.
Well the Berlin universities sort of have those things as well - federally funded student housing, canteens, coffee shops and university sports. I think the difference is mainly in the amount of money thrown at it. American universities just tend to have a ridiculous amount of money to throw at everything - from research to fitness centers.
In my native Norway the universities have more money than in Germany, but still not the kind that American universities have. The American dominance in research comes from two things: A PhD culture and the best lab equipment on the planet.
If efficiently managed, dorms shouldn't represent a significant burden on students above the price of living in off-campus housing.
>restaurants
Generally make a profit.
>coffee shops
Generally make a profit while employing unskilled students.
>fitness clubs
Okay, these are probably excessive, but fitness is fairly important.
>green spaces everywhere
I'd be really surprised if this accounted for an appreciable percentage of institutional expenses, except maybe if the campus was located somewhere with very expensive real estate.
I'm guessing that the real story is that German universities bring in a lot more taxpayer money and employ fewer people.
German here who also studied abroad for a year (US state college). Overall, there are many similarities, but also differences.
I was surprised how freaking EASY everything was in the US university, compared to Germany. Multiple-choice tests, not much background knowledge assumed. Very school-like system (instead of assuming students will learn some of the necessary background at home).
I've seen different German universities, and indeed some of them might not offer a gym or on-campus dorms. In fact, often at least a few university buildings are spread out throughout the city, instead of being in a single connected campus area.
My German university had some subsidized housing though, and there were also private student dorms and they were very cheap, unlike the US dorm which was IMHO quite expensive. I also had a small but nice gym at my German uni.
Probably every German uni has a restaurant ("Mensa") which is often very cheap because of subsidies. Again, in the USA we had to buy expensive meal plans and overall it wasn't cheap at all.
But I loved the connectedness of the US campus, the atmosphere, the greens. The whole campus culture gives you the opportunity to either have a great partying time or a great studying time - I've had a bit of both. But overall, in Germany I learned MUCH more of the technical stuff.
Buildings spread out through the city seems to be a product of having older universities. The oldest Dutch universities have that too, whereas newer universities tend to have most buildings concentrated on a campus. I know of only one that has on-site dorms (TU Twente), but most do have affordable student housing in the vicinity (though never enough for all students). There's usually a cheap, student-oriented sport center connected to the university.
University restaurants (also called "mensa" here) are pretty cheap, but quality is mediocre. Better cook your own dinner.
Hm, I've heard many complain about the food quality at our mensa, and many never ate there, but overall my experience wasn't bad. No fancy restaurant quality, but better than typical prepared/frozen meals and not at all bad.
Well, it was a state college, I'm actually really good, and we couldn't pick graduate classes in the US, even though I was a senior already, and if you compare standards that basically means graduate. But most likely it just wasn't an engineering school.
I've also had other classes, though (languages, marketing ...), and those were really easy as well.
Whether you believe they're what a university should be concerned with or not (and that's just, like, your opinion, man) the fact that they turn a profit means you can't point to them as wasteful spending or a culprit for high tuition.
They are frequently granted monopolies and students are required to pay for them whether they want to or not, which means that they aren't subject to any market forces and costs spiral out of control. Frequently there isn't even a line-item you can point to on your bill, it's just swallowed up in general tuition.
They don't run those, they generally contract them out to Sodexo or similar company. The only reason they are there is because students spend money on them. You should have more of a problem with student free spending ways than with the universities just providing for their habits.
Big problem with this. Particularly with dining plans, many of which don't refund at the end of the term/academic year and are required for the dorms. You want to be thrifty and only spend 600 or the 800 you had this spring? Too bad, you're going to have to splurge the last 200 somehow or you're not getting it back.
You pay $x,xxx per semester so that your student ID allows entry to any of the institution's dining halls any time during operating hours.
Dining halls typically contain several stations with different kinds of food available at a buffet-style counter, and you can eat as much as you want. Some meal plans count entries; others are unlimited.
The system has its drawbacks, but keep in mind that:
- Dining halls primarily serve students who do not have access to (reasonable) kitchens. Forgoing dining halls would mean increasing the sqft/person ratio of the housing system.
- It is probably best that students with low discretionary income aren't in a position where they feel obligated to skip meals to save money.
- Dining halls are paid for by their customers. If you move to an off campus apartment (or even on-campus apartment-style housing), you are no longer obligated to pay in to the campus dining system.
The biggest offense, to me, is that dining hall systems are usually contracted out to huge corporations like Sodexo and Aramark. Dining plans can average to $12/meal, but the quality is several times worse than what I could buy at a restaurant for $12. My dining halls also employ (generally poor) adults from the neighboring community. While I guess this is nice, it's a little weird that we're the ones eating and they're the ones being served.
I'd much prefer that my university run its own dining halls, employ students to staff them, and not ask us to pay somebody's profit margin.
When you live in a dorm on campus, you are required to buy a meal plan for meals, and they aren't cheap or flexible. This is why I couldn't afford to live in the dorms as an undergrad in America.
So a meal plan is like an subscription to meals? Why don't they sell it normally? How much is each meal with that plan?
In our Mensa at the university we pay between 1.50 and 4€ per meal (exclusive drinks).
To go into more detail, here's the typical lecture format at a German university (note that this is "typical", not universal, and professors have a lot of leeway in how they can structure their courses).
There'll be a lecture twice a week (four "semester hours", 2 times 2 * 45 minutes) and a two semester hour exercise session. The lecture will be held by a professor [1]; the exercise session for undergraduate courses will generally be conducted by a TA in smaller groups.
More often than not there won't be a textbook, except for heavily standardized courses (or where the professor chooses to pick one). You'll work off the professor's lecture notes and any notes that you took yourself (sometimes the lecture notes are basically a textbook by themselves, but that's obviously a lot of work for a professor). The lecture notes may recommend additional literature, which is generally available through the library's course reserves (and out of which students will photocopy anything they consider relevant; private copies short of wholesale copies of books are generally legal in Germany) or online (in the case of individual papers).
You'll get homework once a week, distributed as printouts during the lecture (and/or available on the course website). Students are encouraged to work on homework in groups and to even turn in their results as a group.
Homework will be graded, but it doesn't count towards your final grade; instead, you will be required to get 50% of the total points to be admitted to the final exam (this is more an incentive than an actual threshold). You can generally even copy the results from somewhere else (you're doing homework as preparation for the exam, so you're only hurting yourself if you do it).
Homework will be returned and reviewed during the exercise session, usually with either the TA or one of the students presenting the solution to each question on the blackboard and discussing it.
Your entire grade will be derived from the final exam (some courses these days have two exams, one midterm and one final exam so that your entire grade doesn't ride on one day's performance). Some courses may also have an oral rather than a written exam.
There generally won't be grading on a curve (though the professor can adjust the grades if the exam turned out to be harder than intended). If you fail to meet the standards that the university expects of its students, you fail. German professors won't shy away from letting most of the students in a course fail (though they will likely be sad when that happens). That's the price of a mostly open admission system combined with the university's desire to maintain its academic reputation.
In addition to lectures, there will be (depending on the subject), seminars, lab courses, etc. You will also have to write a thesis (including for a Bachelor's degree).
In general, there's very little handholding (that's not specific to Germany, though). You're expected to be able to both study independently and work productively in a group (skills that you should have learned in school) without needing support.
[1] Using the term "professor" broadly to include "privatdozenten" etc.
I've attended four different higher education colleges and three universities in the UK, and two universities in the US. Mostly STEM, some business and law courses.
My UK experience is pretty much in line with the above summary from my college life between 1986 and 1995. Lots of blackboard lectures, practical coursework where necessary, one, occasionally two exams per subject. Coursework grades determined whether you would be permitted to sit your exams. Broad spectrum of skill and knowledge levels at the start of the course, very even distribution towards the end. You either figured it out, or you failed.
My US experience was more like school, lots of handholding, lots of silly child-like exercises, broad spectrum of skill levels and knowledge at the beginning and it remained so right through to the end. Lots more negotation between students and professor about assignments and when they are due, and skirting the rules, especially on the business courses for an MBA I was enrolled in. The pace on the MBA could be described as "plodding" at best.
This is also my ancedotal experience and also probably not universal.
This was also my experience as a recent BBA grad. However I think that business schools expect a certain level of flexibility to be beneficial to its students as several (hopefully) will be partaking in entrepreneurial activities.
I took computer science and math courses at Michigan State myself for my Ph.D., and taught computer science there.
While the basic structure (lecture + exercises) is what you'll get in most countries (part of the point of my post was to dispute the OP's claim that there was little graded homework in Germany and no tutoring), I'd be surprised if your typical experience included, e.g., that homework didn't contribute to your final grade, was routinely done in groups (I've seen it happen at MSU, but it wasn't typical), or that your grade depended only on a single exam. In fact, looking at the syllabus for ME 201 [1], it's pretty obviously not the case in general.
To illustrate one of the major differences, consider that there really is no such think as cheating on homework at German universities. If you outright copy another student's work, the TA will generally just ask you to form a group to avoid grading the same solutions twice. Copying is considered stupid, because doing the homework yourself (ideally in a group) is important in order to be prepared for the exam, but it's generally allowed (again, exceptions exist). There are no complicated rules on when and how it's allowed to collaborate on homework [2] because the norm is that students are supposed to collaborate on homework (which has multiple reasons: working in groups is to be encouraged, it requires fewer TA hours and is thus cheaper, doesn't require anti-cheating technology, etc.) [3].
> There'll be a lecture twice a week (four "semester hours", 2 times 2 * 45 minutes) and a two semester hour exercise session. The lecture will be held by a professor [1]; the exercise session for undergraduate courses will generally be conducted by a TA in smaller groups.
That sounds like an average course that I've taken at my university here in Norway.
I'm no fan of how enormous college sports have become, but fwiw they are enormous sources of income and despite the extravagant stadiums and suchlike, they often pay for valuable research, courses, and amenities.
What's troubling about them is the exploitation of the student athletes; the ones that make money give a lot back to the university as a whole.
Sources for any of that? While some sports (football, men's basketball) are profit centers that can offset the cost of non-revenue sports, that really only applies to the top-tier programs (NCAA Division 1).
I've never heard of university sports programs being major sources of revenue for research or courses (outside of possibly sports-related studies).
I was talking about the top-tier Division 1 schools, mostly because I can't see anybody having a problem with intramural or Division 3 sports. Scholarships aren't awarded, they don't have huge budgets, their coaches generally aren't grossly overpaid, and they're a good way for students to get exercise, meet people, and relax.
I have to wonder if there is anything like this available in the US aside from MOOCs? I haven't explored far, but even the ostensibly bare bones community colleges I've looked at were trying to emulate the typical inclusive social experience model.
I guess your point makes sense for general university. However, there is a way to have fairly cheap education with good feedback, with skill selection. I went through the French equivalent of the Ivy League (Paris Tech): tuition was “free” (hundreds of Euros per year, paid-for for most students with economic difficulty) and tutoring was systematic. However, having consistent classrooms where groups of 15 had the same level helped a lot.
Those schools receive a lot more tax-payer money than university does, but not impossibly more. Saving on that without sacrificing the pedagogy seems doable: teachers often were alumni that could have easily contributed out of duty and prestige (I certainly did: paperwork to get paid was a maze).
True, but I would argue besides the point: the US universities/colleges offer a more integrated experience because many have a somewhat different tradition more in line with the "monk-like" experience from UK universities such as Oxford and Cambridge than with the public university systems of continental europe which assumes that many of these amenities are provided by other actors.
They also have to make up for massive differences in educational level, meaning you have a lot of foundational courses that are plainly unnecessary from the perspective of the German educational system with its, previously, 13 years of schooling -- and Germany is a lot more homogenous in that respect compared to the US, so the system works without all that much hand-holding.
If by "monk-like" you mean being distracted/surrounded by tons of incredibly hot 18y/o bombshells wearing hot- or jogging-pants (depending on the season) and flip-flops, then yes. I loved my year in the US, but it wasn't because of the monkness. (Although as a technical student or nerd you might end up the monk among the ladies.)
> Don't even get me started on the sports, it's an outrage how US schools have become sports franchises.
I graduated from a very large sports school (tOSU), and our sports program enables us have a relatively low in-state tuition. The 2010-2011 football season netted OSU 51.8 Million. 2011-2012: 48.7 Million. They also serve as a great way to get alumni to donate to their alma mater (in order to increase your odds of getting football tickets, you can donate). It is anything other than an outrage.
Hiring person tutors once in a while in this situation is miles ahead in cost/benefit ratio compared to an american university. And with the Berliner comment, it sounds like you can still get feedback and questions answered.
Hiring a tutor that may or may not be in tune with the specific issue at hand that you need help with and the class/topic context vs going to a TA who is intimately familiar with the course and is likely already leading recitation sessions and exam reviews, and two widely different things.
I work in the US but I never went to University here so it's hard to say. The German system worked great for me but honestly, I think the US systems would work just as well, assuming I could pay the tuition at a decent school.
Don't they have practical courses? Do experiments?
Soviet and post-soviet education systems were modelled after german ones, but lab practice makes around 30%. For more abstract topics, practice/discussion/seminars.
- lectures: final exam that accounts for 100% of your grade, and sometimes (possibly obligatory) regular homework
- practical courses / labs: how grades are assigned vary, sometimes this will be a "do a project in a team" kind of assignment, sometimes it's experiments where you are expected to write one or more reports
- seminars: you'll be assigned a topic (usually some recent, narrow scientific result, no wildcard giant topics here) and expected to write a report on it & give a presentation
The exact mixture depends on your course of study.
It depends on what you study. In my CS classes we had a few lab sessions where we had to implement small programs and sometimes even larger projects. However, a friend of mine studied chemistry and she never got to leave the lab.
I'm guessing most US students would be shocked by the reality of German public universities which basically consist of giant rooms with blackboards and there's not much general ed to speak of. At the graduate level it gets more interesting but that's in years 5-8. My first 4 years studying ME in Stuttgart were almost 100% lectures with a final exam at the end of the semester. Virtually no tutoring and very little corrected homework.
You don't get what you don't pay for. On the other hand, you don't really get what you pay for in the US either since the universities have become so good at sucking up more and more student loan money without really improving on their core mission of providing higher education.