> universities primarily compete on entertainment and prestige.

I like to call this "resort-style education".

Still, I do not get it. Why would this competition / exclusivity rule be so much less prevalent in large parts of Europe?

I don't want to say Europe is without problems, but I think this kind of legislation, together with social security in general, is a clear example of how it can be handled more efficient and fair for most people.

Good question. I wonder if labor competition in Europe is less reliant on University names and reputation? IT could also have to do with cultural difference is what students look for in a university.

My understanding is that most universities in Europe look more like US bare bones commuter schools, opposed to an all inclusive recreational experience.

The top ranked university in Europe is Oxford, which educates more than twice as many students as MIT with half the budget. I doubt this is because Oxford is cutting corners on educational curriculum.

>The top ranked university in Europe is Oxford, which educates more than twice as many students as MIT with half the budget. I doubt this is because Oxford is cutting corners on educational curriculum.

Maybe, maybe not. It could just be from cost-of-living differences: salaries for many jobs (particularly highly-educated ones) pay a fraction outside the US what they do inside the US. How much are Oxford professors and staff getting paid compared to the ones at MIT (which is Boston, which is a very high cost-of-living city for the US)?

I found this on Google:

    > According to ZipRecruiter, the average salary for a professor at MIT is $114,792 per year, with a range of $94,500 to $179,500.

And:

    > A professor's salary at the University of Oxford can range from around £89,429 to £122,261 per year, with an average of £104,347

The average at Oxford is much higher than MIT. Note: GBP to USD is currently 1.27

According to the sister comment to mine, Oxford pays only professors well, and everyone else quite poorly. There's a lot more to a university's staff than just the professors.

"Professors" at a UK university are the most senior academic staff - mind you there does seem to be a move in some universities to move to US style job title where all academics are a professor of some kind.

When I worked in UK academia the hierarchy for permanent academic posts was something like: lecturer, senior lecturer, reader, professor.

Im not sure what you mean by maybe not. If oxford is cutting corners, it still has the top rank in Europe, so I suppose they are the correct corners to cut.

Perhaps high professor and admin salaries in the US are a problem with US education.

>Perhaps high professor and admin salaries in the US are a problem with US education.

This is exactly my point. And not just professor and admin salaries, the salaries and costs for everything.

It's not about "cutting corners", it's that if you compare the cost of something in the US to something in another country, the US usually is much more expensive; this doesn't mean the other country is cutting corners, it means the US is just too damn expensive.

I feel like that is circular logic. We started with the idea that the US is more expensive. That isn't an explanation for why it is more expensive. Why do we have so many more admins, and why do we pay them so well compared to median income, while Europe does not?

Largely because of cost-of-living differences. America is an enormously expensive place to live, between housing costs, healthcare costs, the lack of a social safety net, the car-based society, and more.

Oxford doesn't pay staff well unless you are in the top of the pyramid, i.e. a professor. Paradoxically those tend to contribute less to education. Senior postdocs and fellows do a significant amount of teaching but their salaries are incredibly low.

You need to make lots of life compromises to be able to sustain yourself at one of those. For example, fellows teaching at different colleges often get stipends and salaries in the range of £30-35,000 per year. Keep in mind that those fellowships require a PhD and a stellar CV.

Most other British and EU universities suffer from the same issues. For more information, see this article at The Guardian, which generated lots of debate: https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2015/no....

In a nutshell the article states that "[...] I no longer believe that early-career positions at Oxbridge universities are viable for individuals without independent financial means." Also "[...] the median non-professorial academic salary at Oxbridge is £45,000."

MIT is a huge outlier in terms of R&D and the population it selects students from, it would be more fair to compare Oxford to Harvard. Oxford...really is about as far from commuter schools than you can get, for example having to wear robes to the dining hall...that is straight out of Harry Potter (and indeed, where they filmed the dining scene at one of the colleges).

    > MIT is a huge outlier in terms of R&D

I think most R&D at MIT is paid for by gov't science research grants.

actually ETHZ and EPFL are very good and highly ranked, and have cheap tuition and open enrollment. i don’t know how they do it. I guess things just work better in Switzerland.

I was speaking to the US situation, and agree most European schools are quite cheap in comparison. Not only in tuition, but in terms of their budgets; US schools spend 4-5X as much per student- so it isnt just about state funding.

Guessing those schools can't provide access to the exclusive social network you get by restricting admissions.

I'm sure you can get some exclusive networking done at Oxford, with 25% the cost per student as MIT.

Education quality, especially adjusting for tuition, doesn't correlate to prestige. Which, after WWII, almost required "Anglophone" as the language of instruction.

They’re also significant funded by the state particularly as they’re the two federal universities. The figure I heard while there, although I can’t find actual numbers online, was in the low tens of thousands in subsidies that may otherwise mostly be collected through tuition.

Also, it’s not exactly what I would call open enrolment as it’s only open to Swiss students who are accepted into and pass a Matura program or similar in grade school while other students typically require applications or minimum exam scores depending on the program.