[vog]

These numbers still look very high from a European point of view. It seems it makes a huge difference whether a society deeply cares about educating the population, or cares just superficially.

For example, in Berlin you spend less than 300€ per semester, a CS master takes 10 semesters regular time. Add two semesters to make the time more realistic, and you end up with 3,600€ which are roughly $3,800.

Oh, and it contains a full time ticket for public transport (which would otherwise cost 970€/year, i.e. 485€/semester). In other words: University education is cheaper than regular public transport, even though it contains a full time ticket.

Oh, and if your parents don't have that money, you can get half of the university costs + half of the living costs + half of the rental costs from the state. [1]

And note that Germany is by far not the best one in Europe regarding education, in universities as well as all other types of schools. It is regularily and heavily criticized for cutting educational expenses more than is good for the country. [2] However, after reading statements like the parent comment, I suspect it is still pretty good.

[1] More precisely, you get a debt called "BAföG", from which you have to pay back only ~50% after finishing - either in rates or all at once.

[2] For example, this forces universities into projects financed by third parties (i.e. companies), which adds a strong bias to the research direction and even more so to the results. Even worse, if this research contains business internals (which is easy to claim by any company), this leads to results being only partly published, or not being published at all. To be fair, the latter is more a problem of the law and not of third-party project. There should be a law that demands everything that is fully or partly paid with public money is Open Access as well as Open Source.

[xiaoma]

A society that cared deeply about educating the population wouldn't confuse schooling for education.

Yes there's some education conferred along with the schooling, but credentialism is a huge part of it and even more so in Germany than most countries.

[vog]

> wouldn't schooling for education

I agree that there are not-yet-mainstream concepts for schools/universities/etc. that should be covered by public money as well, at least partly. Currently, this exploration happens entirely in the private sector, which is simply inadequate (read: too small and too slow) for the society to move forwards with its educational system. A society should actively invest into improving their education the same way they improve on science, and that investment is clearly lacking in Germany and many other countries. We advance the educational topics, but not the educational system itself.

But: Investing into classic schools and universities is still better than not heavily investing into education at all, which is the only real-world alternative I've seen so far. (And I would be glad to be introduced into a real-world third alternative.)

> Yes there's some education conferred along with the schooling

Some? Maybe I was just lucky, but at school and especially at university I got a very good foundation and always felt well prepared to educate myself later on (through books, websites, technical manuals, and so on). Contrary to conventional wisdom, I learned more about critical thinking and judging sources in school/university than anywhere else. Not in all lectures, but in enough lectures that I would otherwise have missed. Without that initial foundation, educating myself later on would have been much harder.

[xiaoma]

Okay, I can introduce you to three real world alternatives I've seen in my own life—self study, direct mentorship and work experience. I'll share one example of each from different fields.

To be clear, I don't think there's a single one-size fits all solution for education. One of the core problems I see in formalized schooling is that by its nature it pushes large numbers of people through the same curricula. This may have been good in the early industrial era, but in today's world most job-related skills that can be commoditized are either outsourced or automated. Non-job related skills are also of great value, though it's not clear that it's best for people to build them in an factory-line style either.

Self-study: I put over a thousand hours into foreign language classes while growing up and got pretty bad results. It's an ancient discipline and curricula have had centuries to adapt, but it's just not well-suited to formalized schooling. I've met literally thousands of people with advanced degrees in English language study who don't speak that well. I've also met a lot of foreigners who graduated with degrees in Chinese who don't really speak or read comfortably. Though I've hired people for positions in which English language skills were important, I've never even considered looking at their related credentials rather than evaluating their results. Foreign languages are very learnable through self-directed study. This is even true for one's native tongue—most really good writers have gotten there through voracious reading and practicing their craft, not generallythrough advanced degrees.

Work experience: Another discipline I've seen schooling fall down is in sales. It's a core business skill, but those I've met who have excelled in it have come from a variety of backgrounds, not necessarily business schools. Almost invariably, the people who really know how to sell have gotten that way through work experience, either for themselves or on commission for someone else.

The third alternative, that of direct mentorship, is probably the most powerful I've encountered. Especially in music, athletics or other extremely competitive fields, there's nearly always a mentor behind the top performer, and often there is a series of several mentors over different stages of the learning process.

Now at this point, I suspect you're thinking about the fact that there are two types of educational goals—getting really good at something and getting to minimum level in all the core skills. Though my three examples were related to the first goal, schooling often fails in the second goal as well. It can succeed, but there are still a lot of people who do what must be done to get the credential they want and little else. On the other hand, it's exceedingly rare to meet someone who reads broadly and doesn't end up with at least a decent education.

[golergka]

Curious reasoning about society. For me, american society seems to care about education more, exactly because it's members are willing to pay for it themselves. In your sentence, you juxtapose 'society' and 'population', but those are exactly the same things.

May be you meant 'government' instead?

[nojvek]

For someone who moved from Australia to US, I don't think America cares about education for all. Only education for the elite rich. Universities should not cost as much as buying a house. The country literally puts a student in debt for life. That's nuts

[witty_username]

But it's subsidized; so people who aren't getting an education are paying for those who do.

[vog]

> But it's subsidized; so people who aren't getting an education are paying for those who do.

This is just another way of saying that the society cares about this issue!

To put an analogy: When a society cares about parenthood and children, non-parents pay some share to parents. This is how financial solidarity works. How else should that work? By telling parents that they do a great job, that you appreciate what they do for society, but not giving a single cent to them? That would be hypocritical, not solidary.

[witty_username]

So why can't it voluntary via donations to universities?

> By telling parents that they do a great job, that you appreciate what they do for society, but not giving a single cent to them? That would be hypocritical, not solidary.

It's not hypocritical if you compliment someone without paying them money.

[thomasahle]

> So why can't it voluntary via donations to universities?

You could say that about any tax founded expense?

[witty_username]

For some things like courts and police it's required to stop violence and fraud; i.e. to maintain the rules of the game.

But, yes, I am in favor of a small, limited government.

[odbol_]

Education is perhaps more important for preventing crime and violence than police and courts are. Remember, police and courts just deal with the crime; they don't prevent it like having a proper education and employment does.

[kmonad]

Why wouldn't you see an elected government's policy as voluntary, ultimately?

[zeamaize]

Why would you see the decisions of the rich elite few allowed to be part of government as reflective of the population?

[witty_username]

No, only some portion of the population (possibly not even the majority--see the U.S. 2016 election) decides for everybody including those who are against it.

[Isn0gud]

One could very much argue that having educated people is more beneficial to the society, and therefore for everyone, than it costs the society. Also educated pay more taxes individually since they usually earn more.

[gaius]

But you'd have to argue it, it isn't self-evident that more education is simply better. Look at the number of PhDs who can't secure post-docs let alone tenure track. They may feel some personal satisfaction from the letters after their names, but it's very questionable that "society" benefits from churning them out. Once you educate people to the level of basic literacy and numeracy, say age 16, it's diminishing returns after that.

[fapjacks]

Yeah, it's sort of like American corporate subsidies: Not every taxpayer owns a petrochemical company. But every taxpayer pays for those that do.

[Matthias247]

Subsized - yes. But I don't agree to the second sentence: Generally the higher educated people are getting higher salaries afterwards and are paying way more taxes. These taxes are then used for providing education to the next generation (and also for lots of social programs which target the low/no income population).

[zigzigzag]

If education was always profitable like that, governments wouldn't subsidize it, they wouldn't need to. Heck people would be fighting to give student loans.

The reality is lots of people study subjects that don't result in higher salaries but political correctness insists that people be able to study the arts easily, so governments "have" to subsidize education.

[vitus]

Well, no, the cost of education is ridiculous. Not many people get out of undergrad without any loans, and especially if you want to go on to get higher education (yes, even law degrees which pay nicely after you graduate), you'll be stuck with a mountain of debt that you won't be paying off any time soon.

I know someone in particular who went on to get a law degree (and was steadily employed in her field from her time of graduation) but was only managing to pay in the double digits toward her loan's principal on a monthly basis -- the rest went toward interest.

[zeamaize]

The benefits are ridiculous. Not the costs. Where I live it costs $28,000 to get a BS. I took out loans for every penny. Before college my salary was just under $18,000. After college I was making $48,000. I got my MS and PhD for free, fully funded by my work while in graduate school. I even made a decent salary, $18,000 during the year and $30,000 during summer internships.

My first post-grad school salary was $112,000.

My education was an investment. It paid off.

[jkovacs]

Yes, but so are the trade schools/apprenticeships where people go that don't go to university, so what's your point? Your education is subsidized either way, unless you don't attend either of those options, in which case the individual is probably not going to pay for anything at all.

[witty_username]

> individual is probably not going to pay for anything at all.

Source?

[nmat]

When the government pays for health care (like what happens in most european countries) it means that people that are not sick are paying for people that are sick. Why should they, right?

[witty_username]

Good question. For saving someone from dying it may be justified to forcefully extract money from others.

But definitely not for education.

[tonyedgecombe]

'forcefully extract money'

I hate that sort of terminology, money only exists for you to trade because you are a member of a society that collectively decided it was a good idea.

[cagataygurturk]

Welcome to social state, where the state thinks the sustainable development of the whole society can be only accomplished by increasing the life level of everyone