| > 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. |