Re:Time to talk about why so many postgrads have poor mental...
by YeGoblynQueenne on Monday April 02, 2018 @06:52AM
(#16733563)
>> In countries like Germany, tuition is free, i.e., the whole society pays for your degree.
The same is true for most of the EU, except, notably, the UK, which is the other developed country, besides the US, where higher education is a proper industry and where students often get some serious debt to go to university.
I did all of my studies in the UK, though I'm from Greece. From the start I was struck with how much the public discussion around education is focused on money. It's not so much that university studies are aimed at getting you a (better) job, it's more like the UK society has lost its ability to measure the need for education with any other metric than how much more money you're making afterwards.
With the debate focusing on money like that, I think it will be pretty hard for the US or the UK to do anything about their "crazy fees" like you say. They now see those fees as a kind of investment: you pay some money up front to get a return to your investment later.
That is certainly a broken way to do education, higher or otherwise, but the solution is not to tear down higher education altogether. The obvious (to me) solution is to make it publicly funded again, as it used to be in both countries in the past, so that younger generations can benefit as their parents and grandparents did, without taking on extravagant debt.
The same is true for most of the EU, except, notably, the UK, which is the other developed country, besides the US, where higher education is a proper industry and where students often get some serious debt to go to university.
I did all of my studies in the UK, though I'm from Greece. From the start I was struck with how much the public discussion around education is focused on money. It's not so much that university studies are aimed at getting you a (better) job, it's more like the UK society has lost its ability to measure the need for education with any other metric than how much more money you're making afterwards.
With the debate focusing on money like that, I think it will be pretty hard for the US or the UK to do anything about their "crazy fees" like you say. They now see those fees as a kind of investment: you pay some money up front to get a return to your investment later.
That is certainly a broken way to do education, higher or otherwise, but the solution is not to tear down higher education altogether. The obvious (to me) solution is to make it publicly funded again, as it used to be in both countries in the past, so that younger generations can benefit as their parents and grandparents did, without taking on extravagant debt.