How do countries afford low cost education? -

[bruhidfk12345]

I was looking at a thread dedicated to ranting about the costs of college here in the states, and this was a comment:



I legitimately do not understand how only paying 1900 euros (2133 USD) a year for a full blown university education works. I know countries that have lower cost education tend to have super high tax rates, but I don't see how taxes are able to fund both healthcare and education.

Are professors just not paid very well, or is everything else related to university just underfunded to compensate? Where is the money coming from for this? Does this technically devalue a college education even further?

I just want to put out that I absolutely think college costs here in America are massively inflated, but I really don't understand how the opposite approach of people only having to pay like 2000 bucks a year is in anyway sustainable in the long run.

I also want to put out there that I know community colleges typically run like 2-3k a year, but the post in question seems to be referring to a full-fledged university education.

 

[Libtard-Wrecking Krogoth]

the free market will fix it

 

[Varg Did Nothing Wrong]

Professors are paid differently in different countries, but generally professors do not get a tremendous amount of money. However, when you consider that their job isn't tremendously hard to do (really, all you're doing is just repeating things you've already said for many many other semesters of students), it's not a huge surprise.

Some universities definitely recoup the cost by offering non-citizens and shit the ability to study there, at a massively increased cost. I looked into educations in various Belgian and German universities and the prices will shock you. 160 credits to earn a Bachelor's degree in whatever sphere you're working on, at 100+ Euros per credit. Plus various fees and shit. From what I remember it worked out to around 22,000 Euros for a proper 4 year education for tuition and university fees alone, not counting food and living quarters.

 

[Rand /pol/]

>going to college

 

[francesco]

I think you're underestimateing both the amount of money (relatively) high taxtation can bring in and how brazenly private colleges can inflate the prices in an environment where people are told they absolutely need a degree to get a job.

And you can't apply the free market logic of " if people are selling it at an inflated price, competition will eventualy crush them" because:
a) Unis rely on prestiege and tradition to attract students and professors and a good set of professors is not easy to put together
b) a college can only teach a limited amount of students at a time so you can't take in more students at lower prices to undercut the competition
Hence why for-profit education is a horrible idea.

 

[crocodilian]

1. Massive taxes.
2. Low-quality professors.
3. No high-ranking schools.

 

[YourMommasBackstory]

I feel great because i don't pay for my uni at all.
But then i remember that my degree is worthless abroad and i get sad

 

[Sped Xing]

College expenses are mostly bullshit. For an auditorium and a speaker paid 100k a year to teach five classes of fifty students, you're just not talking that much cost.

 

[Exorbital Columnations]

You get what you pay for. Unless you're in North America, then you get substantially less than you paid for and gaslit into being a faggot.

 

[Maggots on a Train v2]

Unless it's a lab class, it can't really cost that much more to run than a bingo hall. Schools for kids are expensive because you also have to babysit, feed, and tardwrangle them.

 

[Y2K Baby]

For profit colleges run by big monkeys.

 

[Zeke Von Genbu]

Unless it's a lab class, it can't really cost that much more to run than a bingo hall. Schools for kids are expensive because you also have to babysit, feed, and tardwrangle them.

Depends on the college, but professors can be expensive which might be where the expenses start going up.

I go to a business college studying accounting in the US, and my professors get paid around 100-130k USD a year depending on if they're also researcher to be a professor. Despite that pay and the fact your PHD is more or less paid for with very modest living expenses my school is struggling to replace the 60-70 year old professors who are ready to retire, and I go to a notable state university. I remember in a class the professor literally tried to pitch us to get a PHD and teach at the university citing that very problem as a plus because it means you can get hired pretty easily. For comparison a High School teacher on avg gets paid 49k~ USD.

 

[Smoothie Queen]

Higher taxes and lower costs generally.

Also, costs in the US are absurdly exaggerated so that the colleges can profit off of their students, it does not in any way genuinely cost as much to operate a college as what they charge for it. The invention of student loans (virtually unheard of outside the US) and the government making it so those loans can't be discharged through bankruptcy like literally any other form of debt meant that suddenly, colleges could charge whatever they wanted and it didn't matter if anybody could pay it or not. The system in the US is not sustainable, it's basically a huge load of bullshit balancing on some carefully stacked toothpicks.

 

[Wraith]

In the US there is just no real competition. The teachers are overpaid, yes, OVERPAID. They get pensions up the ass. They have no quality standards they need to meet. So all they have to do is say, "We're raising rates to insane levels. deal with it, bitches."
There needs to be a racketeering investigation into this.

 

[lurk_moar]

The bright side is if I were to work at my rural, independent, non-profit hospital and go pay as I earn, my student loan can be forgiven in ten years if I were to make 120 payments. I read online that loan forgiveness is a lot swifter if I were to work at an Indian Health Service facility. After I can get my facility to help pay for my bachelor's degree, I plan on staying for as little as possible as an MLS. As an MLS, I want to work for an IHS facility on a reservation, so that I can be forgiven of my student loans faster. Even working at a non-profit as a secretary for ten years, your student loans can be forgiven. Student loan forgiveness is not just for people in the medical field or teachers serving an underfunded, crappy area. The biggest caveat is that 99% of people are rejected and that the forgiven student loan amount is income that the IRS wants you to pay taxes on.

Small, homogenous countries with rich natural resources can afford to give a free college education. If America gave away free college education, many people would abuse it and become career students never working a job in their life or take every single class that the college offers. If you are poor, community college is free if you qualify for state and federal grants.

 

[Zeke Von Genbu]

In the US there is just no real competition. The teachers are overpaid, yes, OVERPAID. They get pensions up the ass. They have no quality standards they need to meet. So all they have to do is say, "We're raising rates to insane levels. deal with it, bitches."
There needs to be a racketeering investigation into this.

My question to your comment about being overpaid, what about when you're teaching a profession that has good/great pay outside of being a professor? In the end being a professor is a job within the field you're teaching like any other and especially if you want a younger professor (30-40) instead of a 55-60 year old person who will retire in roughly 10 or so years.

I cited my personal experience with my accounting program in my business college above, but that figure I gave (100-130k usd) isn't THAT impressive when you consider that you need to get a PhD which delays your earnings period until you're basically in your near 30s if you went for it right after your 4 year degree. If I were to go into public accounting I'd likely be at least a manager by that point and by my mid to late 30s I could become a partner of my CPA firm where you can make high 6 figures a year depending on how well the firm is doing. Even if you aren't going into public accounting long term and you go into private/corporate stuff you can earn similar pay depending on high you go and what company you work for. The important aspect is the fact you need to delay earning money due to needing to get more education.

So if you cut pay significantly, how do you convince people to actually be a professor in a field like I've described? My school can't get enough people now and it is one of the better state universities in my state, so how do you answer that?

I'm not saying you don't have a point especially on the quality standards part, I just wonder how do you answer this problem?

 

[queue-anon]

Colleges in the U.S. used to be extremely cheap, and this included prestigious Ivies. They kept college cheap by offering bare bones facilities, not supporting students very much (if you failed, tough shit), hardly offering any extracurriculars, not offering very many kinds of degrees, and not bothering with prestige projects. As an example, it used to be a big deal for a college to focus on research, but now it practically seems standard. They were also cheap back when you simply didn't need a college degree to get ahead. A hundred years ago, you could get by with an eighth grade education.

I doubt colleges abroad are that minimal, but they're probably more focused on the basic act of educating their students than U.S. colleges are. European colleges also don't seem to spend much, if any, money on sports. It would help if professional football and basketball leagues were forced to create their own minors rather than use colleges for recruitment. Although I'm sure that would go over like a lead balloon with sports fans.

U.S. colleges are doubling down on all that expensive shit despite crushing student debt because they're all trying to compete with each other and they're treating college students more like consumers. Since they're paying so much, might as well offer them a nice experience.

Since I'm currently in school, I see a lot of ads for new bullshit degrees, and it's fucking ridiculous the shit they're passing off as a useful education. I keep seeing ads for an online-only LL.M. that doesn't require a J.D., and I can't imagine what that's supposed to accomplish or what employer would ever take that seriously. I have a personal interest in science writing, and I also keep getting ads for a master's degree specifically in science writing, and there's no way that's as useful as getting a degree in a STEM field and just, you know, writing about it.

 

[muh_moobs]

I'm sure the points have been hit already, but it boils down to three main points:

1) Socialism - Post-Secondary institutions are subsidised by the state. The entire population pays via taxation to offset the cost of education.
2) Jacked-up fees for foreigners.
3) Diversion of government funds. Most places that have things things in place are NATO allies and under-fund their militaries in order to make this possible. The US then picks up the slack in defense preparedness.

 

[Y2K Baby]

I'm sure the points have been hit already, but it boils down to three main points:

1) Socialism - Post-Secondary institutions are subsidised by the state. The entire population pays via taxation to offset the cost of education.
2) Jacked-up fees for foreigners.
3) Diversion of government funds. Most places that have things things in place are NATO allies and under-fund their militaries in order to make this possible. The US then picks up the slack in defense preparedness.

Aren't you a TERF

 

[Zero0]

I think people here have made very good points, but you also have to realize that colleges in the US have nothing to do with most colleges in europe (where I'm from anyway), you guys have clubs, and debate teams, and dorms, idk who pays for all this shit.

My university had class rooms, labs and a library, that's it, there was no fluff, no extras, every event that was put together was done so by the students (and you're supposed to turn a profit) or by companies trying to recruit us. So it was fairly cheap, it costs about 20% of minimum wage to go college here, about double for a private university( So it's not even about government funding), masters degrees and doctorates are more expensive.