As someone living in a country with free education, 33k is a metric shit ton of money. (Denmark)
But always cool, with more options.
But always cool, with more options.
It is very different depending on degree and also university. Medicine is very expensive and half the money goes into educating doctors.
The cost per year per student ranges between 5930 € and 12,170€ over the Bundesländer (counties), maybe depending on the degrees offered? [1]
I found a number for the average cost in the US at US$36,564 per year [2], which today is 32,199 €. So, for Germany, it's about a third per year on average.
edit: Is the US tuition the full cost?
[1]http://www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/studium/grossbild-263275-28...
[2]http://www.topuniversities.com/student-info/student-finance/...
The actual cost is probably still substantially smaller in Germany -- IMO higher ed is one of those areas where markets create lots of inefficiences that a mostly or completely socialized system doesn't have (e.g., spending tens of millions on fancy new buildings and other amenities designed to attract people).
...that victors write the history books.
Seriously, the notion that there was a single cause for the decline of the USSR -- and that this cause corresponds exactly to the ideologies at the heart of its antagonistic relationship with its enemies -- is prime facia suspicious. There were a myriad of economic, structural, political, environmental, geopolitical, and military reasons for the collapse of the USSR. Boiling all of that down to "Socialism Bad" is a nice rallying cry, but not exactly a helpful analysis (or at all likely to be very accurate).
>... because the inefficient universities would be out competed by the efficient ones
What does this even mean? What does it mean for a university to be "efficient"?
I think you're confusing what ideology claims should happen with observable reality; namely, that higher education in the US is 1) closer to a free market than peer nations; and 2) horrendously more expensive than peer nations.
>... because universities are not a perfectly free market
It's one thing to say "we don't know what works, so let's try the thing that one particular ideology prescribes."
It's another thing to say "Those people over there don't have our problem. I bet the reason is because we're not doubled down on the exact opposite of what they're doing."
In any case, I think I answered above why a free market won't fix higher education: brand names / flashy stadiums / dorms / academic buildings sell better than good instruction and solid research.
Agreed: more options is more better (I failed my paid English requirements, btw).
Free higher education is a good idea, but the cost is prohibitive. There's a difficult balance to strike between keeping the amount of money required affordable and opening up as many places as possible.
No they don't. [0]
What are you implying here. Make it more expensive, more people will come? That's a bit silly and just looking at the UK as an example ignores that educational attainment has grown everywhere. You could say the same for other countries where fees didn't become so expensive. The German Abitur (sort of A-levels that is a decent proxy for higher education) grew by sevenfold (as a portion of the population) in the last few decades. That's just the economy, political and educational system at work, improving.
Now does money impact education, obviously. A free school in a traditional form would definitely be crap. But there's a difference between free and costless to the student. That's the difference between the UK and most other EU countries. Take this chart for example, dark-blue is higher education expenses:
http://www.cbs.nl/NR/rdonlyres/0416FFB3-62FD-42AD-B3F2-074AD...
You'll find Denmark at the very top spending more than the UK per student (which makes sense, they're much richer). It's no surprise then that Denmark offers solid education and that Danes make ample use of it.
It's not that the UK spends more per student on education than everyone else, it's simply that the percentage of revenue sources is more from tuition fees and grants, than the public, than pretty much anyone else in the EU. At best it lowers educational attainment because you end up with the same funding for universities as before and the same as other countries, only the barrier to entry is now higher for students.
Some fees make sense to create incentives to do well in school, actually graduate and take it seriously. Like say in the Netherlands where you'll pay something between $7k and $10k generally in tuition for a degree. (supplemented by tens of thousands of funding from the government per student to the educational institution). But again, the notion that increasing fees in these countries makes educational attainment skyrocket is myopic.
[0] http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/201...
No. I was saying that providing education isn't free so someone has to pay, and individuals paying for their own places will provide more places because there's a very obvious risk/reward connection (risking borrowing money for the reward of a better job) than society paying for places (higher tax liability for societal benefit).
[1] Here, tuition fees in public higher education are around € 1k/yr.