[readthenotes1]

The college loan programs obviously already created perverse incentives. It should come as no surprise that the loan forgiveness does as well.

It is almost as if there's some motivation other than to allow children of poor families to obtain a college education.

As for the college should be free anyways like it is in Europe, then perhaps we should administer universities like they do in Europe. Only a few select students are allowed to go and they don't provide training leagues for professional sports teams.

[dudul]

"A few select students"?? Maybe in some countries, but in plenty of countries it's whoever wants to go. That's the problem when talking about "europe", it's not a homogeneous group of countries.

As for training leagues, they still have professional sport teams in Europe right?

[daenz]

Which countries don't have university acceptance rates? I looked at Denmark and Sweden, they still exclude people. Someone mentioned in Germany if you don't get accepted, you go on a waiting list.

[dudul]

AFAIK France is an example where graduating high school is the only requirement.

[malermeister]

Austria comes to mind.

[yeuxardents]

Good point about free college, most people don't realize that college is not the same in Europe as it is in America, there are reasons for it being able to be free.

[1659447091]

Could you expand on the reasons for it being able to be free?

I had no idea until just now that it was free. TIL

[_nalply]

It's not free but affordable.

Terminology is not the same, however.

When I was twenty years old I enrolled at the University of Bern for Computer Science. For that I had to go to preparatory school (Gymnasium) between 15 and 19 years old. It was a harsh school. I learnt the languages French, Latin and English and I had to write essays in German. Then there was geography, math, biology, chemistry, physics, human sciences, programming. Finally there was a round of examinations. 4 hours of math, 4 hours of essay in German, 2 hours of essay in French, oral examinations, etc.

For the university I had to pay about 1000 francs, about 2000 dollars a year for tuition (the conversion rate is somewhat arbitrary because 30 years ago the conversion rate was completely different, so look at this more like a ballpark figure). I was able to pay this myself because I had some odd jobs financing myself. I could live at my parent's the first years then I moved out into an appartment sharing with friends.

This is typical for Europe: students usually are able to finance themselves.

[malermeister]

> Only a few select students are allowed to go

What are you talking about? I went to university in Europe and literally everyone with a high school degree is allowed to go.

[daenz]

I tried to verify the claim. At least for Sweden, their universities still have an acceptance rate, with the highest being 80%, and the next highest being 35%[0]. Denmark's highest acceptance rates are in the upper 70s, low 80s[1].

Yes the acceptance rates are relatively high, but the fact that they have an acceptance rates for their universities suggests that not everyone who wants to go to university can.

0. https://www.sabonews.org/universities-in-sweden-with-high-ac... 1. https://uscollegeinternational.com/universities-in-denmark-w...

[tarboreus]

In Germany you just go on a waiting list if you don't get in. If you really suck the waiting list is pretty long, but you can still go.