[tombert]

To be fair, if you graduate in four years, and are alright with state universities or community colleges, and major in some kind of field that allows you to be an engineer, university doesn't have to put you in lifelong debt. Many students do community college for the first two years, and then finish at a university, and end up on the order of ~$30,000 of debt. That's a lot of money, but generally not a life-ruining amount for an engineer.

That's not even counting the weird universities like WGU, where you can get a bachelors for less than ~$15,000 without too much trouble.

[BeetleB]

> Many students do community college for the first two years, and then finish at a university, and end up on the order of ~$30,000 of debt.

For people in many European countries, this is an absurd amount of debt to get a university degree.

Edit: For context: About 20 years ago, my university's annual fees was $15000/year for out of state students, and $4600 for in state - in today's dollars. Now that university charges $28K for out of state and $8.3K for in state - almost doubled after accounting for inflation. In other nearby universities I see people paying $15K/year for in state. This is a huge increase in two decades.

[tombert]

That's entirely fair, I'm a big proponent of making colleges either free, or extremely heavily subsidized by the government. I completely agree that it's still ridiculous to leave with $30,000 of debt.

I'm just saying that, for someone working an engineering job, that is not generally a life-ruining amount of money, especially in comparison to the increased earning potential that a degree affords you (which is, I suspect, why they get away with charging such exorbitant tuition in the first place).

[Dma54rhs]

Are dormitories / living expenses included in those American debt numbers or you take them as separate?

[tombert]

I was taking them as separate. I did my bachelors online (while working full time), so I didn't know how to factor that into the calculation. I just texted a friend to ask, and he said he left his state school with about $35,000 in debt, but that was with a partial scholarship for the tuition, so I suspect a good chunk of that was the dorm.

If we double the number I gave to $60,000, that's a lot more, and starting to approach life-ruining territory, but I'd say still falls a bit shy of it for an engineer.

[wincy]

I met a person who went to a for profit university, never got a degree, and works at Cheesecake Factory. He owes $120,000 and has three kids. His life was effectively ruined by this college.

[tombert]

I'm sorry to hear that; I think that a lot (most?) for-profit universities are really predatory. You pay an obscene amount of money to them, you get an education that's maybe on par with a local community college, and if you drop out you end up owing a ton of money without even that. That's why I qualified my statements with "state school or community college". They're generally at least somewhat respected, and don't cost anywhere near as much as a for-profit school. There are also some non-profits private universities that don't charge a ton of money for tuition, like the aforementioned WGU.

The first time I attempted school and dropped out, I started getting a ton of advertisements for for-profit universities in the mail. I knew that they were often scams, so I threw them away, but I can totally see an alternate universe in which I don't know that and end up with a boatload of debt for the rest of my life.

[throwawayboise]

Your European parents paid that $30K and more in additional taxes though. The money came from somewhere; land and buildings and qualified professors do not come for free in Europe.

[Broken_Hippo]

Well, sure, but it isn't like taxes are that much higher - honestly, my taxes moving from the US to Norway weren't realistically higher than state + federal + health insurance, and if you consider the out of pocket for health care, the bill is cheaper. Not to mention that Folks that go to school and wind up working a lower-paying job (teaching, for example) aren't on the hook for all of it either.

And you aren't even paying for the same sort of things: Many colleges have sports teams in the US, for example, and the degrees take longer in the US. For example, you don't have to get an undergraduate degree in Norway to become a doctor so you spend less time actually in school.

[BeetleB]

I'm failing to connect your comment with mine. Yes, of course it came from additional taxes. Those additional taxes did not put people into $30K of debt in those countries. If you're poor, you don't pay that much in taxes. My mythical European parents did not get go into debt paying those taxes so I could go to school.

[imtringued]

Another commenter pointed out that German universities need 1.3% of GDP to educate 27% of the population without charging them tuition. USA actually gives more public funding to colleges than Germany and yet those colleges are still asking for tuition.