[Dannymetconan]

Universities in Europe are generally high quality and low cost. It does have it's problems but it is not one or the other.

You do not need a degree 30 years ago to do lots of jobs that now require one. Higher education for a lot of organizations is just an easy way to cut the application stack down

[georgeecollins]

Are Universities in Europe really that high quality? Certainly some are, but as a parent researching schools I have been really surprised by how many European colleges are a bit mediocre by the criteria I was evaluating. For example, Spain and Italy have some of the oldest colleges in the world. But in many ways there are four or five colleges in California that are better, four or five colleges in Texas, and across the US many many colleges than any college in those countries.

I know a lot of people will disagree because there are so many ways to compare colleges. But what I look for is the strength of the top faculty (not necessarily the teachers but who you might work with as you get more advanced), the facilities, the quality of the research that comes out of that University. The US really has an impressive number of schools that attract top faculty from around the world and produce world class research in many fields.

A lot of European colleges seem to give you a good education. But if you really wanted to be an expert in something, or just get the experience of working with top people, it is amazing how relatively strong US colleges are.

I know I am making a lot of generalizations, perhaps unfairly. So if you disagree or see it a different way please correct me. This is something I am really trying to learn about.

[lordnacho]

My issue with the rankings is how they emphasise research. Why would it matter to an undergraduate how highly decorated his prof is? We used to joke that the more titles a guy had, the worse he was at teaching. I think this is true because the guys with the titles have moved on to managing research and finding funding, rather than having daily tasks to do with the research.

I went to a very well known university that's known for giving tutorials with just a couple of students, and this always seemed to be the case. Top prof = doesn't have time or motivation to teach.

If you look at it, everything you do in undergrad is fairly well known anyway. There's no reason why a course at one uni would be much different from another, the fields have decided long ago what is and isn't important.

What might affect your kid is what peers they end up with. If you go to a top uni, people are used to doing well and tend to come from backgrounds that allow them to succeed.

[throwawaygh]

Well, a few things:

1. Research is part of the pedagogy. Getting involved in a research lab as an undergraduate is a great way to land in the top 5-10 percentile.

2. I think what you're saying is roughly correct, but would warn that you can very easily go way too far in the other direction. For example, check out some of the smaller colleges and state branch campuses launching data science departments staffed entirely by non-stats/non-CS faculty who have 0 days of work experience. Mostly because their math courses are under-subscribed and they've gotta do something with those bodies. The quality of these programs is about what you'd expect. So, you don't need top-tier faculty. However, you do need faculty who have at least a relevant terminal degree and/or significant work experience. Otherwise, it's the blind leading the blind.

3. Curriculum does vary radically between universities! C.f., Stanford and a random branch campus of a state school.

4. As you noted, cohorts can also vary even more radically.

[tnecniv]

> Research is part of the pedagogy. Getting involved in a research lab as an undergraduate is a great way to land in the top 5-10 percentile.

I just want to point out for any newer undergrads that might be reading that research is really one of the best things you can do during your time at school. Even if you don't plan on going into academia, it looks great on a resume and professors are often have industry connections that can get you an internship easily.

[jeffe]

A few caveats to be aware of: more scrutinizing employers will recognize that undergraduate research at the same university you attend is usually a gimme. And at my large state school was often used for cheap labor that grad students didn't want to do.

[throwawaygh]

It’s the project output, the faculty connection, and conference attendance. The line on the resume doesn’t matter.

[derangedHorse]

1. Research is part of the pedagogy. Getting involved in a research lab as an undergraduate is a great way to land in the top 5-10 percentile.

5-10 percentile in what? Grades? Amount of papers? Grades generally don't speak to someone's practical ability on whatever job they choose after college. For example, one's ability to learn stoichiometry in a time-constrained environment hardly implies they'll be a great chemist.

Papers also come cheap and there are already enough out there of insignificant value or dubious quality (a good indicator might be the journal/conferences most undergraduate papers are submitted and accepted to).

As others have said, just because a teacher is skilled doesn't mean they are skilled at teaching. To your second point, I've once had professors who had significant achievements on their resume not be able to explain the basics of their field in a coherent way. In a case like that, those professors are equivalent to lecturers who have 0 days of "work experience" (which seems like a weird term to use for what I read from your comment as "research")

[throwawaygh]

First Outcomes. So, either total comp or other relevant metric. Feel free to disagree, but I have tons of data so I’m not even going to debate.

You seem to simply not understand the rest of the comment. The “or” is a branch with qualified professors of the practice on one side. It’s ok to not have any research experience as a professor, but then you better have a strong track record in industry. Having no relevant research AND no relevant industry expertise is the problem. One or the other usually suffices. Yes, usually. Spare me your anecdata about that one professor you still hate.

High quality researchers almost by definition do have several years of experience — “research scientist” is a job. One that pays better than most, even. 200K total comp starting in CS - CMU and Mit publish data. Just because you’re not building crud apps or cleaning up PDFs all day doesn’t mean you don’t have experience in a marketable skill.

I know a lot of cs phds. 100% who are current faculty either spent time in industry or had mid 6 figure offers they turned down for professorships.

[derangedHorse]

"Feel free to disagree, but I have tons of data so I’m not even going to debate."

Why say you have tons of data and not just post it? If there's tons of it, it should be easy to find and post one link showing direct correlations between undergrads in research earning in the 5-10 percentile.

It's funny how you can say "One or the other usually suffices. Yes, usually. Spare me your anecdata about that one professor you still hate." when whatever evidence you have to support your "Yes, usually" is probably exactly that. When I was referring to "work experience" I was emphasizing the point that there's the "work experience" being referred to still doesn't factor in teaching which is a large part of what the job should entail.

And a 200k starting salary isn't too impressive when the time taken to get a PhD can be used to get that salary in the industry. 5+ year senior engineers can be seen getting 200+ total compensation on levels.fyi and I personally know people who make beyond that with even less experience than that.

What I'm saying is that the school system is broken and isn't structured to incentivize good teaching. Some hiring processes for university staffs don't even take it into account even when some of their salaries and facilities are paid by students. If you want your kid to actually learn something then I'd suggest vetting colleges by other metrics that actually indicate something about the quality of education he'll be receiving and not the quality of education his lecturers received.

[dropofwill]

Your chances of landing a job in a research lab in undergrad probably doesn’t correlate with top research output. People who have armies of phds and post docs don’t have time for undergrads.

I spent my last 2 years of uni in a research lab and got some stuff published. Im pretty sure i got this opportunity because i went to a school with a dearth of grad students and i showed some initiative in an intro class for what became my minor.

[7thaccount]

I went to a public university with a good engineering program. After freshman year I took most of the Edx circuits course from MIT to see what the ivy league education advantage would be. It was pretty much the exact same topics and lectures. I thought the MIT lecturer did a slightly better job and I'm sure all the students were smarter than me, but I feel like I learned the same things for a fraction of the cost.

[noodlesUK]

One of the problems that universities need to contend with is that they’re simultaneously meant to be research institutions and educational institutions. I think universities tend to do better if they focus on research first and let that lead their (comparatively smaller) teaching responsibilities.

[ummonk]

This depends whether you go to college to be taught or you go to college to network and get involved in research.

[alexpotato]

Speaking as a dual US/Italian citizen there are some things I would add to your picture (which surprised me when I first learned them). I should also add, my picture is a bit dated since I last looked at this in the early 2000's but a lot of this is still true:

US vs Italian "high school"

- Finishing Italian secondary education is most equivalent to US high school + at least the first year of most US universities

- I believe this is true for most major European countries and boils down to the expectations for students being higher in Europe than in the US

US vs Italian universities

- It's true that Italian university is free

- It's also true that "anyone" can attend

- However, there is a mandatory "advancement" exam at the end of the first year that MOST (~70% in the early 2000's) students fail which bars them from continuing

- The above is what sometimes skews comparisons between US and Italian colleges

- To complete university, you are required to do a "thesis" and then defend it. Historically, this was done orally in front of a panel

- There is also the effect that because university is free and housing is usually paid for by parents, taking 5+ years to finish is both normal and somewhat socially acceptable (this is more of an interesting side bar)

Long story short, this means the Italian university is really Sophomore year of an American university plus some graduate level work. A good example of this is how there is(was?) no separate law school in Italy since you are essentially doing advanced level courses in "undergrad".

Another comparison: at the time (early 2000s) multiple people in senior level positions in European companies mentioned to me that in their opinion, having an MBA from a top US school was equivalent to a degree from a top Italian economics school like Bocconi University. Since most US companies thought of the MBA as the "advanced" degree, they weighed it more heavily so it did "matter" in that sense but not from an education only perspective.

[andreilys]

“ Another comparison: at the time (early 2000s) multiple people in senior level positions in European companies mentioned to me that in their opinion, having an MBA from a top US school was equivalent to a degree from a top Italian economics school like Bocconi University”

HBS and GSB have much more brand value than Bocconi university. Whether the economics education you get is on par is debatable but it’s clear one of the selling points of an elite US MBA is the signaling.

I’m skeptical of the claim that Bocconi university has anywhere near the signaling effect of HBS/GSB.

[vikramkr]

Bocconi might have more signaling value to European or Italian companies perhaps, but American companies have European companies thoroughly beat in terms of number, size, power, global influence, etc. One of the "benefits" of valuing capitalism as much as we have is that the opinion of American company management carries quite a bit more weight around the world, and they would pick harvard over bocconi any day.

[yolovoe]

US high school education is not uniform throughout the country. Are you going by some states' requirements here or are you assuming some amount of AP credits?

[pa7x1]

Top European universities provide pretty good education pre-PhD level, in many cases the first 3-5 years in European schools is superior and more focused than the equivalent US curriculum. The first 1 or 2 years in US universities seem spent filling the gaps left by a mediocre High School education.

US universities are then miles ahead of most European schools in their PhD programs bare a few exceptions (Oxford, Cambridge, ETH...).

[srtjstjsj]

US college isn't longer because it's remedial, it's because it has more out of major liberal arts required courses.

There are a lot of remedial classes at US colleges, but those students wouldn't be in college at all in Europe.

[7thaccount]

This is true. There are a lot of pointless liberal arts classes for a STEM degree in the US. For example, my engineering degree required 3 English classes, psychology, fine arts, and sociology. These were all incredibly easy and I found the course material was what I was used to as a freshman in highschool (no I'm not exaggerating). So those classes weren't even remedial, but felt like a joke. Please note that I'm not saying all liberal arts classes are a waste, but I think all the 101 classes are pretty bad. The fact that people were complaining and struggling to make a C was mind boggling. The university says they're there to make you well rounded, but we all know it's an excuse to charge more money. The human brain can only take so many technical courses at the same time as well, so it's not like I could cram in another mathematics or engineering course and stay sane. Instead of giving you a break and getting to use that time to study, you have to take the useless other classes which costs more money.

[ridaj]

> There are a lot of pointless liberal arts classes for a STEM degree in the US.

I understand, this was my outlook when I left school too, but I changed my mind about that.

It took me maybe 5 years of work experience before I realized that no matter how "technically" smart I was, my technical skills were worth shit if I couldn't communicate better with my teammates. My writing was poor, I couldn't explain myself concisely, I could get flustered when someone didn't understand a point that looked straightforward to me... I had no notion of how I might go about convincing someone to do something I needed, especially someone who wasn't working in the same field as me or didn't have the same educational background. Not saying I'm a rockstar at this either now, but at least I understand the benefits of well-roundedness in a way that I didn't see earlier in my career.

I also see this with some of my younger colleagues now, who seem to care about technical output and cranking out smart stuff, but they're having problems communicating or taking feedback, and it's really clamping their future professional opportunities until they work on that...

Anyway - I don't mean this to disclaim your experience of feeling like you were wasting your time, and maybe the classes weren't the right level for you, just pointing out that at least for some people in the tech field, lack of skills in the humanities dept eventually prevents their professional advancement, hence it's not necessarily a waste of time for everyone to take classes outside of their major even if they're studying in a STEM field...

[fiblye]

I think he means there are classes that really are pointless. They're basically adult babysitting.

I found quite a few interesting history/culture/etc classes and enrolled in them. They had no prerequisites, but offered engaging material. A week in I notice... these classes don't fulfill my general education requirements--only the most fundamental, non-challenging classes do.

So I switch from classes with 15-20 students that would've involved long discussions, some research, and actual thinking, into lectures of 150 students and only 3 multiple choice tests in the entire semester.

I went to every class. Never was I challenged. They were very much "here are facts. Memorize these for the tests" classes and nothing more. Very surface level stuff. Not even any questions from the professor, and oftentimes if students asked questions, the professors would tell them to ask later because they're short on time. Just a waste of time and money.

[7thaccount]

I've been out of school for a decade now and would agree that communication is vital. However, that isn't learned via English Literature, psychology, sociology, art history...etc. Public speaking, writing descriptive emails and so on require practice, literacy, and putting yourself in someone else's shoes. Something like Toastmasters in class form would've been nice.

[pathseeker]

None of what you identified are covered in these useless classes. In my undergrad we had a sociology course that when over how people have different roles in life (family head, care giver, money maker, etc). It was all stupid obvious stuff without any non-technical merit.

If only those mandatory liberal arts classes taught things as useful as communicating and writing...

[hakfoo]

The one that got under my craw was when I went to see an academic advisor with one or two semesters left.

I had been fastidious about covering all the specified requirements, and my proposed course-load covered the remainder. Except apparently you needed 128 total hours, and actually covering the requirements of the programme left you six short. They designed the timetable assuming that people would bounce between majors or otherwise load up on go-nowhere electives, and the advisor basically said I could take underwater basket weaving and it would count for the gap.

I ended up taking a CLEP exam a few weeks later to claim the equivalent credits of several semesters worth of Spanish classes.

[dragonwriter]

> There are a lot of pointless liberal arts classes for a STEM degree in the US

Only in a liberal arts program. In an engineering program, there is almost none. Other programs may fall in between. When I was at UC Davis (which was before Biological Sciences was its own college), the non-major liberal arts course load went (both in general, and where multiple colleges had the same degree program, between those specific programs) College of Letters and Science > College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences > College of Engineering.

> For example, my engineering degree required 3 English classes, psychology, fine arts, and sociology.

That's, what, semester and a half all told? That's an odd basis for claiming “a lot”.

> The university says they're there to make you well rounded, but we all know it's an excuse to charge more money.

No, if they wanted an excuse to charge you more money they'd drop the liberal arts requirement, keep the length of the program constant, and add more engineering courses, whose faculty are much higher paid, and keep the same tuition to cost ratio.

[7thaccount]

I've looked at many programs and most schools claim that they want students to be "well rounded". I think that is pretty common and a scam, but that's just my opinion.

We may have a difference of opinions here, but six classes that I have no actual need for IS a lot to me. I still had to show up for those classes, listen to the instructors, do homework, buy stupid textbooks, and briefly study for the tests even though they were easy. That cost money that was the equivalent of me flushing it down the toilet, but more importantly, robbed me of additional time I could have spent studying for my thermodynamics, electronics, and differential equations classes (things that I was struggling in and I was intentionally paying good money to learn) or sleeping or actually getting to spend time with my fiance.

[galaxyLogic]

I had a colleague who told me he went to a university in Florida. I asked him what did he study there, and he said "Golf".

[PaulDavisThe1st]

PhD programs in the US and elsewhere are often not directly comparable. Doing a PhD in the US typically involves 1-3 years still taking classes. Doing one in the UK means starting thesis-forming research immediately. Not really the same thing at all.

[ianmiers]

Uk CS PhD: spend one year figuring out what you are doing, 1/1.5 years doing research. 1 year writing up. Thats the summary I've gotten from several faculty.

On top of that, you have to go do a few postdocs if you want to do academia.(maybe a good thing, but not necessary in hot areas in the US for PhDs from highly ranked schools)

There's a reason the UK is trying to go over to centers for doctoral training and 5 year PhDs. Yes, in those and the US system, you spend 2 years taking classes. But in that time you are also getting spun up and then doing research.

[google234123]

Most programs I've seen have students starting research immediately. Sometimes you might have a few months of rotations through different groups.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Every friend I have (or ex-wife :) with a US PhD (this spans physics, history, computer science, physiology, geology) did classes for the first 2 years (roughly).

[google234123]

You can do both at the same time.

[tnecniv]

non-US PhD programs typically require you have a masters. In the US that is not a requirement, hence the course work. If you are a more mature student coming in (e.g. have a masters) the course work is often a straightforward refresher and you can start doing research when you aren't doing classwork.

[pyuser583]

US and UK degrees in general are not comparable.

[Nimitz14]

Uk is the outlier here.

[Beldin]

Not compared to northwestern europe. France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Germany are similar (not the same - similar). Scandinavia probably as well, but i don't have experience there.

[Nimitz14]

In no serious field does one do a PhD in 3 years in Germany.

[ridaj]

US is great for Masters levels and above, where there is indeed such a thing as a world-class specialists helping shape the next generation of experts.

If you're thinking about college though, that doesn't churn out experts. The material is well-known, and IMO it's more important to have great teachers available to answer your questions than to have world-class research experts on the brochure. Great teachers are also not everywhere, but they are in far higher abundance than the so-called "top faculty", and maybe good teaching doesn't even correlate very strongly with research brilliance.

Some of the classes in which I learned the most had teachers who were (I now see in retrospect) relatively middling postdoc folks, or long-tenured professors who didn't really have much more research "juice" in them... but they had a well constructed syllabus, were able to cleanly articulate concepts, give examples, give exercises, give encouragement, etc.

I've also taken classes with world-class researchers, and some of them were outstanding, while others had sloppy syllabus prep, didn't adequately coordinate with TA's, gave lectures that weren't engaging as they jumped into long solo calculations at the blackboard that they had trouble making their way out of... In short, they couldn't be bothered.

So I wouldn't generalize from my experience either, but I think that especially for college, teaching quality, and student body quality (peers are an important source of motivation) are more important than world-class research renown.

Working in tech in the US, I see enough high-performing European and Asian immigrants that I think it could be good for an American kids today to consider getting a degree from a school abroad for a fraction of what it would've cost them in the US.

[baskire]

The best math professor I had was atrocious at teaching. If not down right abusive.

Taught me how to ask the right questions. How to capture requirements and learn on my own.

Top Universities aren’t their to teach. They are their to empower you to teach yourself and explore deep in areas. While also learning the fundamentals that are necessary for this enablement.

That is drastically different than the average ranked schools.

[jillesvangurp]

Nonsense, there are a lot of universities in Europe to choose from that have been around for centuries with excellent reputations that also publish world class research, rake in nobel prices, attract foreign students & researchers, etc.

US universities tend to be better at marketing because their core business is separating their students from their cash and making them feel good about that. That does not automatically translate into a better academic performance. There are a lot of second and third rate institutions that are perhaps better at their marketing than actual academic performance. Arguably the smart move for a US school kid would be to opt for the life experience, language skills and education at a university abroad instead of opting into a mortage to get an education from some local college.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Are Universities in Europe really that high quality?

Anecdote from a friend studying biochemistry in Milan, but mind-blowing. Apparently, he was the only one in his graduate class to know how to use a pipette and other basic lab equipment. Until that point, their training had been purely theoretical.

There are a lot of other problems in a similar vein. But the quality of American high-access, high-quality higher education from a practical perspective is a solid counterpoint to the European model of high-access, low-cost.

[tinco]

That's weird, basic glassware use including pipette is part of the national final grading in The Netherlands, I guess there's differences across the EU.

[mixmastamyk]

Reminds me of the Feynman story where he goes to Brazil. May be a southern/latin Europe thing?

https://v.cx/2010/04/feynman-brazil-education

[ChuckNorris89]

I think the US collages you say are stronger than European ones just boils down to money.

It's amazing how having more money just buys you more and better facilities and teaching talent, not to mention the US Gov. investing far more into STEM R&D (for defense) than Europe plus all that sweet private R&D money from all the fortune 500 companies.

It all ads up in the end.

[pyuser583]

Also admissions criteria. Italian colleges are known for having little control over who they admit (and graduate).

Almost all students attend a local university, often without leaving the house. The universities are essentially required to admit (and graduate) large numbers of locals.

[eecc]

Well that indeed is a problem.

I graduated Engineering from an Italian university and I must say much of my curriculum consisted of mind-bending exercises meant to keep us busy and out of the way. The currency we lacked most was context, insight, and an understanding of why some particular detail mattered.

I do think that of all that was thrown at me, something stuck after all; but admittedly the most insightful and profound opportunities that I missed are to be blamed on me, and on the precious little attention to students that the scarce funding allowed for.

[GlennS]

I always find it a little suspicious that all the university rankings in English-speaking newspapers rate English-speaking unversities the highest.

That said, there are definitely opportunities in the USA that aren't available elsewhere.

[ju-st]

At least in Germany research is often done by e.g. Max Planck or Fraunhofer Society. These are public research organizations which are practically part of the universities but their research output is not counted in rankings.

[galaxyLogic]

It may very well be the that the 10 best universities are in the USA so if you want your kid in the best university rather than sending them to Europe that might be the way to go.

That doesn't mean that in general the quality of education, for the general public in Europe would not be higher.

It's a bit like the US healthcare system, the best in the world, but only for those who can afford it.

[alkonaut]

> what I look for is the strength of the top faculty

I think most people getting doing normal undergraduate program rarely notice where the top factulty is strong and where it isn't. I sure didn't in the first years of an education. Every university has better and worse departments (those with some reputation for its research, and "others"). I have seen nothing that suggests that the undergraduate education given by staff at the less-known departmenmts is worse than the education given at the "good" ones.

Of course, if you want to get a PhD or even take an advanced undergrad or PhD-class in a 4th or 5th year at a university, you'll notice where the skilled academics are. But the vast majority of the education done at an university is in the basic undergraduate classes given to hundreds of students every semester. It's the quality of that I think is most important, and I'm going to argue that it's probably not dependent on the number of Nobel Prize medals in the department.

[pjmlp]

My degree was 5 years with professional Software Engineering accreditation (legal title in Portugal), and it had a level of data structures, systems programming, distributed computing, graphics and programming languages that I still find people missing out in online discussions.

So naturally there are bad ones as well, it is a matter of doing the research, and in Portugal's case, having the required grades to get in.

[etripe]

I haven't done a STEM education, but it seems to me like the quality of research output is dependent on the field, to start with. Second, doesn't it really only become relevant at the PhD level, not bachelor's or master's degrees? Seems to me like nothing precludes you from going for a good education in Europe and then getting good research opportunities in the US.

[rscho]

Europe educates people. The US let you believe your child can bring in his little league bat and get to play with the Yankees.

I'd be most surprised if the progress you make as a student was correlated to having the rock stars of the field in your school. In the age of the internet, if you're good and motivated you can work with pretty much anyone in the world.

[pyuser583]

Spain and Italy have a reputation for crappy universities. Italy especially.

[realusername]

> The quality of the research that comes out of that University

Research in continental Europe does not come from universities but mainly from research institutes, so I'm not sure what you are comparing here...

[BurningFrog]

> You do not need a degree 30 years ago to do lots of jobs that now require one

This is part of the problem.

Stop demanding a formal degree for jobs, allow anyone who can do the job to do it, and much/some of these problems will go away.

[Dannymetconan]

I think it is more of a problem of inflation.

If you get 50 application is easy just to automatically remove the X that don't have a college degree.

Similarly to the way you might have a GPA cut off of some amount but they don't actually care what your degree was in.

In Ireland there are a lot of people who go on to do a Masters because when a large number of people have degrees it makes you more competitive. Anecdotal most my friends will tell you they use neither their undergrad nor masters in work life

[BurningFrog]

I was mostly thinking of when lawmakers or regulators decree that to do job X you must have college degree Y.

As an employer with many resumes to choose between, you'll of course pick whoever you prefer.

Except if you're not allowed to hire them because they haven't paid a college for a document.

[Qwertious]

>Stop demanding a formal degree for jobs, allow anyone who can do the job to do it, and much/some of these problems will go away.

It's a symptom of people needing more jobs than are available - if there's a massive labour shortage these unnecessary requirements will evaporate overnight, and if people stop needing to work to survive these unnecessary requirements will evaporate overnight.

[coffeecat]

Excellent observation. I expect this is one problem among many which would be solved by a UBI or some other form of guaranteed economic security.

[srtjstjsj]

The majority of people don't go to expensive private college for the degree , as that is available cheaper elsewhere. They go for the feeling of elitism.

Some of the worst money wasting colleges are the scam trade schools like University of "Phoenix".

[hpkuarg]

University of Phoenix was founded and is based in Phoenix, Arizona, so if you want to put scare quotes on a part of it, maybe "University" of Phoenix is the better way. ;-)

[dodobirdlord]

I think their point is that most of the University of Phoenix's programs are online.

[jessaustin]

The time is past, when one could disparage online learning merely for being online.

[donw]

I don't think that UoP is being disparaged -- it just sounds a bit odd to tie a virtual university to a physical place.

On the other hand, "University of 4Chan" doesn't have the same ring to it.

[chii]

> They go for the feeling of elitism

it's not a feeling - it's real. Connections with other highly connected (and rich) people will give you more opportunities that merit alone won't give you.

[galaxyLogic]

It's hard to know what exactly the job will be in a few years. But if a person has successfully completed years of study you know they have a lot of background knowledge which MIGHT become useful in the job as circumstances change.

[zo1]

Sure - as soon as we allow IQ and other such metrics to be valid for job-applications (I would love to just sort-by-IQ when filtering job and team applications). There most certainly is an over-abundance of individuals willing to work for the available spots, and we're artificially handicapping the methods by which the pool can be pruned. That's why we have leet-code type quizzes in tech, they're essentially proxies for memorization, IQ and determination. Consequently, degrees are a secondary proxy for the above 3 criteria, so no wonder employers have been relying on it.

[ChuckNorris89]

>Universities in Europe are generally high quality and low cost.

The cost is low for the student but it's pretty high for the taxpayers. Not US high but still, it's not free, there's lots of bloat in the system that thrives on volume of students not on quality so they try to push forward legislation and programs to increase the number of students, especially from abroad and build more faculties/universities with more staff to hire regardless if the jobs market has need for more students or not.

It's not super expensive for the taxpayers but because it's mostly free for the students, lots of them treat it like Highschool 2.0, bouncing in and out, not bothering to finish it or prolonging it till their thirties, etc. which turns into of a waste of public resources at some point.

[Hokusai]

> The cost is low for the student but it's pretty high for the taxpayers.

That is a supposition that proves to be false. The same happens for health care. To have a centralized state sponsored education or health care system allows it to be more efficient that smaller for profit institutions that have incentives to increase cost to the students as their profit depends on that.

Also, I would like to notice, that for European tax-payers it is an investment. That money spend in education brings back way more money that what the original cost was. So, to just talk about "cost" misses the point.

> bouncing in and out, not bothering to finish it or prolonging it till their thirties, etc.

Not true. I have never been in a classroom where anyone was above thirty, probably no one was over their 25 anniversary.

But, that is my personal experience. Can you provide some data about that? I have not been able to find any statistics to confirm your statement.

[twic]

Americans are absolutely, utterly, unable to imagine that the way they do things is not the best. It's incredible to watch from outside.

[JamesBarney]

Americans are over 300 million people, and like Europe we are not homogenous.

And many Americans believe European healthcare, education, and infrastructure are far superior to the U.S.

The problem is that despite Europe being far more efficient at health, education, and infrastructure spending it also has a wide range of policies. So it's difficult to determine which policies are driving the increase in efficiency and which aren't.

[coredog64]

There’s no such thing as “European healthcare”. European countries (and I’m going to ignore Brexit and include the UK) approach provision of healthcare in a unique way. For example, the UK has the NHS, Switzerland has insurance mandates, and France has strict regulation of private insurance companies.

[mschuster91]

Yet all of Europe has one thing in common: people don't go bankrupt over surgeries because 99.99% of people have an insurance.

[JamesBarney]

Yeah this was my point.

[x86_64Ubuntu]

What does homogeneity have to do with anything?

[JamesBarney]

>Americans are absolutely, utterly, unable to imagine that the way they do things is not the best. It's incredible to watch from outside.

Treats Americans like they all have the same beliefs, i.e. homogenous.

[DoofusOfDeath]

Please refrain from nationalist slander. It's unproductive and against site rules.

[seibelj]

Europeans are utterly unable to create new global enterprises at the rate of America and China, apart from a few odd balls like Spotify. Different places optimize for different things, for better and worse.

[vkou]

> Europeans are utterly unable to create new global enterprises at the rate of America and China,

Having a homogeneous, single-language, single market of 350 million, and 1.4 billion people, respectively, is an enormous competitive advantage that Europe cannot replicate, without doing away with sovereignty and brainwashing ~80% of its population.

And despite all that, the quality of life of the average European is pretty good.

[seibelj]

Counterpoint - Israel. Tiny country, unique language, way more success in tech and VC per capita than Europe.

[plafl]

Europe is a collection of small countries. It's not coincidence that the economic powerhouse of Europe, Germany, is the most populated country. And since this is going quite off topic here is some wild idea: let's keep just a fraction of the current universities, like say 5 or 10%, force talent in Europe to concentrate in a few places, force mixing across nations. Actually this is already encouraged somehow but let's be more brutal. Just thinking out loud maybe an stupid idea.

[srtjstjsj]

Whose fault is it that Europe has many small countries instead of being dominated by Germany the?

If the EU hadn't stopped its continent-scale genocidal domination, it could be on par with USA and China for linguiatic and economic unity.

[justinmeiners]

Europeans are absolutely, utterly, unable to imagine that things they pay a percentage of all income earned, over their entire life, are not free. It's incredible to watch from outside.

[sushid]

CAs tax rate when you factor in federal tax is comparable to the EU and we get none of the benefits.

[dragonwriter]

> CAs tax rate when you factor in federal tax is comparable to the EU

Nominal rates might be, but tax burden is not. California tax burden is well under 15% GDP, and federal collections in the state are a tiny bit higher than state tax revenues, together still under 30% tax burden. EU overall tax burden is over 40% of GDP.

[justinmeiners]

I agree, that state is a mess. I happen to live in state with low taxes and affordable school.

Perhaps the european model is better overall, or perhaps there are other complications. Regardless, the debate is not "free" vs "pay private companies". Both models have costs and benefits.

[morei]

I think they are well able to image that, but it's paid as part of income taxes so the hit when they're not earning isn't as catastrophic.

Also, consider that EU tax collection is comparable (and often lower) than US tax collection, despite not EU not having to separately pay for education and health...

[justinmeiners]

I don't disagree. I am not making a judgement of which is better overall, just that neither alternative is free, or even close to that.

[sudosysgen]

When you consider the totality of costs, inside and outside taxes, European healthcare and education is significantly cheaper for comparable or better outcomes.

[justinmeiners]

See other comments. That may be the case, but it's wrong to frame it as "free" vs "paid".

[dnautics]

> That is a supposition that proves to be false.

To date, that may be true. But give it a few decades. With the GI bill and the immediate post-war boom the US is arguably ahead of Europe in terms of the "college access for all" mindset, and cost of college only really became near the turn of the millenium (note that college debt is a "millenial" issue) and unbearable around 2005-2010 or so; so US colleges have had a bit more time to hone the fine art of rent-seeking.

[JamesBarney]

> Also, I would like to notice, that for European tax-payers it is an investment. That money spend in education brings back way more money that what the original cost was. So, to just talk about "cost" misses the point.

How do they know this is the case at the margin? The analyses I've seen of this is usually [benefits of education] = [# of college grads] * ([avg. college grad salary] -[avg highschool grad salary])

Which has two large fundamental issues. One that college grads are differently from highschool grads in ways besides education, and probably the people most likely to go to college are the ones that would benefit from it the most.

Not to mention several posts have talked about how much better educated Europeans are despite the U.S. spending significantly more money on education than any large European country.

[UrsaMedius]

The Swedish report "Education and Economic Development - What does empirical research show about casual inter-relationships?" https://www.regeringen.se/rapporter/2005/12/ess-20054/ asks a similar question and starts its conclusions as follows:

"Our results are potentially contradictory. On the one hand, we have shown that the best studies which used variations in education between countries and regions – here we consider recent studies to be more reliable – indicate that there are no strong external effects from education. On the other hand, we have pointed out that there is strong evidence that education leads to improved health and life expectancy, politically more active citizens, lower crime and possibly that the children of educated persons become more productive. One explanation for these seemingly contradictory results may be that the favourable effects of education are not sufficiently strong to have an impact on economic development. It is also possible that the traditional measure of GDP is too narrow (and perhaps insufficiently stable) to capture the favourable effects."

[AdrianB1]

> To have a centralized state sponsored education or health care system allows it to be more efficient that smaller for profit institutions that have incentives to increase cost to the students as their profit depends on that.

There is a major flaw in this argument: mixing incentive with potential. Yes, governments have the potential to be more efficient due to scale, but there is no incentive to do it. Smaller for profit institutions don't have the economy of scale, but have the incentive to be very efficient. In the end, private institutions need to be extremely efficient to compete with the free state colleges in Europe, while free state colleges have zero motivation to improve and compete, their money is a given.

[galaxyLogic]

> while free state colleges have zero motivation to improve and compete

Couldn't this argument be extended also to primary schools? Shouldn't they too be profit-maximizing businesses? Or are they already?

[Kbelicius]

This would be a valid argument if the only incentive for human action was money. Since we know that to be false makes your argument invalid.

[DINKDINK]

>To have a centralized state sponsored education or health care system allows it to be more efficient that smaller for profit institutions that have incentives to increase cost to the students as their profit depends on that.

An institution whose survival depends on profits is incentivized to...reduce costs, not increase them. All profits are, are the difference between what is consumed and what is produced. Either your argument is: institutions who produce more than they consume are bad or a service provider ("centralized state education") can be granted a monopoly to the service and will, more efficiently, produce the service. Typically monopolies charge monopoly prices (bad for everyone except the monopolist), if the granted monopoly has its prices legislated to address these concerns (the case in Europe), it must sacrifice either on {cost, quality, quantity, quickness of delivery} of the product.

If you really do think that monopolized industries outperform markets with "wasteful profits" you might study the history of the CCCP and democratic welfare states.

The market manipulation that started in US education is a result of price fixing -- the price of education is a molested price: service purchasers don't select on electing a provider based on cost because that market price has been pushed up by government-secured debt to which a party cannot default on (otherwise know as selling yourself into slavery). Since producers have less competition on price, they compete on quality, quantity, and quickness. It's the same issue that resulted in the FAA price-setting airline tickets - airlines couldn't compete on cost so they had an ever increase set of luxury options to attract customers.

See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_deregulation#Civil_Aer...

https://fee.org/articles/the-effects-of-airline-regulation/

[silvestrov]

No, the cost to tax payers in Europe is less than what people in USA have to pay the college.

This is because my University (in Europe) had no sport facilities whatsoever, not even a soccer field. It also had no dormitories, canteens, no fancy library, sport teams etc.

It did teaching + research, and nothing else.

[user5994461]

For reference, cost in France is about 11kE per year for undergraduate and 22kE per year for master in computer science engineering. That's what it costs the university per student, not what the student pays (up to 1k a year). This doesn't cover accommodation or canteen since that's not part of the university.

I don't know what's the cost in the US but I don't imagine it's orders more. The worst number I heard from coworkers was 60k$ a year in NYC (that's easily triple income and taxes compared to France so not a straight comparison).

[pb7]

That's roughly how much public in-state universities cost in the United States on average[0]. Some states are significantly cheaper.

[0] https://www.valuepenguin.com/student-loans/average-cost-of-c...

[sudosysgen]

Wait. You're comparing total cost in France, to cost at the point of use excluding taxes in the US. Education in public in-state universities is also highly subsidized.

[gammarator]

Those state subsidies have steadily been eroded over the time period under discussion--part of why tuition has increased. At most large state flagships, public funding is now a significant minority of revenue.

[ericmay]

Is it highly subsidized? Any reason to think that is the case?

[SilasX]

Right -- in the context of Europe, high quality means high education quality; it may not be high quality in the sense of all the frills Americans usually expect out of the college experience.

[nemothekid]

>had no sport facilities whatsoever, not even a soccer field. It also had no dormitories, canteens, no fancy library, sport teams etc.

Sports teams and dorms are no where near the top of the ticket of University expenses. Many of the Ivies hardly invest in sports and still come with a 60k ticket.

American private universities are more expensive because American universities hire more administrative faculty and pay them more. That’s largely where the money is going.

[zamfi]

> Many of the Ivies hardly invest in sports and still come with a 60k ticket

Believe it or not, at some of those Ivies, the cost per student exceeds $70k/yr, and is covered by overhead on grants, endowment, and other donations.

[srtjstjsj]

Ticket price has nothing to do with budget. The schools have endowments and scholarship for rich students to pay more while poor students pay less.

[ericmay]

Idk. People say this but are sports the real cost driver here? Many sports programs in the US pay for themselves and more or might be close to break even.

We also have Title IX (1) which in some cases will lead to increased costs. Not to mention we have, you guessed it, a Title IX coordinator at every university that has to comply with Title IX who probably makes $50,000 - $100,000. If you think about other programs at universities, you’ll see quite the glut of administrators.

https://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/advocacy/what-is-titl... (1)

The US education system is really just screwed up by free, guaranteed government loans. If we just made loans dischargeable then most of our issues would go away overnight. The issue you have here though is that we are concerned about access to affording college for those who have to take out loans, but this route we have just makes college increasingly unaffordable. It’s a viscous cycle. I think stopping it is the way forward.

Most likely sports are going away at US universities. Big football programs will stick around though because the make a killing and people generally love them. Men’s basketball too because it’s relatively affordable. For reference, as I’m watching Bloomberg there was a report that came out suggesting star quarterbacks at major Us football programs at the collegiate level should be compensated at around $2.4 million dollars. We won’t have a men’s rowing team, or women’s volleyball anymore though. Kind of sad since these are also used as Olympic training programs. But maybe we will change how we do things. I think the US will start losing a lot of sports talent though because the infrastructure isn’t there outside of the university system.

[skissane]

> We won’t have a men’s rowing team, or women’s volleyball anymore though

Universities in Australia generally have sports clubs where students play sport at an amateur/non-professional level. And that can even involve a representative team that plays the sport with students from other universities, even a handful of sports scholarships for promising athletes. That doesn’t cost the university that much at all, because unlike many American universities they are not trying to field a professional level team, just provide students with a recreational break from their studies, some exercise and socialising

[1123581321]

Yes, most lose money and average losses are projected to increase. Here’s an NCAA study: http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-center/news/growth...

[triceratops]

> We won’t have a men’s rowing team, or women’s volleyball anymore though.

Why not? Can't they be funded in the same way as intra-mural sports i.e. by the athletes?

[jldugger]

Title IX (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_IX#Equity_in_athletics) has pretty broadly been interpreted as meaning equal funding. So scholarships you allocate to men's football needs to be equally funded in women's scholarships. IDK what the OP is talking about, beacuse there's no way the status quo changes until Title IX is repealed.

[triceratops]

Equal funding, yes, but not necessarily to the same sports. They're allowed to take into account interest and participation. Otherwise, wouldn't we see million-dollar coaches for women's college football teams too? (I actually don't know of any women's college football teams, for that matter)

[watwut]

Afaik, only few super winning sports programs are earning. The rest of them costs money.

[ericmay]

Probably 20-30 I’d say safely make money. For the others, it depends on how much it costs. Like if they are in the whole $100,000/year they could instead fire an administrator, or ask alumni for donations.

I have to think most universities aren’t losing too much money or they’d cancel the sport already, but I think with COVID-19 this is going to happen across sports in college anyway,

[Terr_]

One theory goes that the whole "College ranking" apparatus has created a "race to the most affluent" situation, since high tuition costs have no negative effect on a College's ranking, and if you don't spend on facilities and things to up your ranking, then you'll lose customers to the competitor who does.

[chmod775]

Aren't college rankings mostly using the bullshit "citation" metric, for which researchers optimize by forming citation rings? [1]

[1] not to mention self-citations, which is probably half of all citations in the US vs roughly 1/4th of them in most other places: https://www.scimagojr.com/countryrank.php?order=au&ord=desc*

[kakwa_]

> The cost is low for the student but it's pretty high for the taxpayers.

Well, not really. In France for example, the cost per student per year looks like the following:

* Classe preparatoire (math & physic 2 years course to prepare ranked for Engineering schools): ~15K euros per student per year

* Engineering Schools: 10 to 25K depending on the specialty, with a few prestigious schools (Centrale Paris, Polytechnique, Mines de Paris, etc) in the 30 to 60K bracket.

* Literacy student in university: 5 to 7K

* Math or Physic student in university: 10 to 15K

* Business School: 15 to 20K

However, keep in mind this figures don't include housing.

Apart from Business schools and less prestigious engineering schools, most of these are public schools with low tuition fees for students (even if these are slowly increasing, Centrale Paris raised them to 3.5K recently for example).

Also, cost apart, having public schools with low/no tuition fees helps keeping open opportunities for everybody, and mitigate social and economic aspects.

It reduces the "my parents don't have the money to allow me to go through university" or "do I really want I 200K lawn from the start of my professional life?" aspects.

It's just better at giving more equal opportunities to every students, minimizing somewhat factors that are outside of their control like the socioeconomic background of their parents.

Don't get me wrong, it's far from perfect and these factors still play an important role, but at least it's an effort in the right direction.

[watwut]

> bouncing in and out, not bothering to finish it or prolonging it till their thirties

Very rare. Mostly because school is not paying you unless your results are super great. Meaning, if you want to eat and live inside, you need money.

[ChuckNorris89]

Not exactly true. When parents pay your rent and food and University is free some have little incentive to take it seriously.

[watwut]

The parents who do that till yoir 30ties who simtaneously insist on you being formally student at university are rare. Either they cut you off or are fine paying you even if you dont study.

And frankly, my impression is not that American students take school more seriously in average. They dont seem to, the paying money effect seems to be primary demanding more support and stufd from school. Not working more.

If nothing else, the college experience where massive focus is on fun, parties, extracurricular acrivities, fraternities, sorrorities, networking, fun again and sport tend to be American focus.

[donw]

> Universities in Europe are generally high quality and low cost.

And not universal. You do not go to a German university from a Realschule or a Hauptschule -- you go to Gymnasium, and if you succeed there, you can go to University.

Otherwise, there are professional and vocational tracks available.

University slots are limited as well -- you may have to hunt around for a university that has open space for you in your program of choice, or choose a different course of study.

Changing study programs is much more difficult than in the US.

I would be abundantly happy if we did this in the US, but the "everybody must go to college" crowd would have none of it.

[pjmlp]

As Portuguese living in Germany, with experience in other European countries as well, that tiered school system always pisses me off.

In those countries I have goten to meet clever individuals with university degree, that in Germany with their high school background would never had gotten the opportunity to attend university.

[donw]

I have met plenty of absolute morons with university degrees.

University is, for most people, a massive waste of time and money.

Not because they are stupid, but because going to university does not further their life goals.

It certainly didn't for me.

University only one of many paths through life.

We need to stop treating it as the only option into which we force everybody.

Plenty of brilliant people go into skilled trades, or into professional tracks. There's a reason Germany still has such a robust manufacturing sector.

We would do well to follow this in the US.

[pjmlp]

Sure, but at the same time there are lots of clever people that missed the opportunity to actually go, due to artificial barriers that consider them too dumb for university.

Morons? There are morons everywhere.

[donw]

What’s wrong with a clever person becoming a truly amazing welder? Or a dentist (professional tracks do not require university)?

[pjmlp]

Everything if that wasn't in their life goals.

Dentist requires university degree in many European countries by the way (4 years).

[indymike]

" Higher education for a lot of organizations is just an easy way to cut the application stack down"

This is an easy way to ensure you do not have a diverse workforce, or even the best people for the job

[barry-cotter]

> Universities in Europe are generally high quality and low cost.

But they’re not universal and there’s nowhere near the level of handholding and support that’s common in US universities with high tuition, i.e. private ones. If you have a problem in a German university it’s on you to run around and solve it and if you can’t the administrators are quite likely to say “tough” if you tell them. Missed a deadline? Your problem, should have read the syllabus. Come back next year.

[tnecniv]

> If you have a problem in a German university it’s on you to run around and solve it and if you can’t the administrators are quite likely to say “tough” if you tell them. Missed a deadline? Your problem, should have read the syllabus. Come back next year.

They'll say that in all the private fancy US schools I've attended, too.

[3np]

From my experience at a German university, the administration is in reality very helpful and can be proactive once you reach out.

They won't come chase you if you evade them for anything short of criminal, fraudulent or unsafe behavior, though, and it'd surprise me to hear if that's the case in the US.

[OpieCunningham]

Is that really the argument? That high quality and low cost are only possible if students are responsible for solving problems? Sounds fine to me. Students solving problems is at least half the point of undergrad anyway.

[graeme]

You completely missed the point. The author said pick two out of three. High quality, low cost, universality.

As you say, you can have high quality, and low cost. But European university isn’t as universal as north american universities are.

[pyuser583]

How universal are they?

[nvr219]

How uni are these unis?