edit: In Germany. I‘m German and I have studied there. I should know.
edit2: Someone said this comment could be interpreted as the cost per year which is not the case. This is the total cost.
If you live with your parents, and the university is free, where does that number come from?
And if you don't live with your parents, you live with others students, spending 600-1000 euro month for living, how do you reach that numbers?
Overall, I estimate that my university education cost my parents around 7000 EUR. And this wasn't even educational costs, but mostly living expenses.
I am also there and I didn't pay any monies anywhere for university(unless you mean fancy private university?). All state universities are free and we only paid some misely amount every 6 months for the city-ticket(free access to all public transport in the city, cool stuff). Also, state pays each child ~125/month until they are 25.
I believe you are in some different parallel universe entirely O.o
[0] https://sfs.mit.edu/undergraduate-students/the-cost-of-atten...
Nobody discusses costs like this.
A room costs minimum 350 Euros or may easily cost 1000.
Food and going out costs at least 100 Euros or healthy food 200-300.
The subway ticket at that time cost 70 per month.
There are some additional costs such as health insurance etc.
Tuition at that time was 500 per semester for me.
Spending a semester abroad as is common is usually far more expensive.
And by law your parents have to pay. You are not required to even work.
On average parents are required to finance housing and food with 930 per month.
Source: https://www.verbraucherzentrale.de/wissen/geld-versicherunge...
35.000-45.000 for the Bachelor alone.
https://www.verbraucherzentrale.de/wissen/geld-versicherunge... (Verbraucherzentrale, semi-public consumer protection agency)
10.000 per year:
https://m.faz.net/aktuell/finanzen/meine-finanzen/frag-den-m... (one of the top quality newspapers in Germany)
36.000 und 75.000 per child:
https://www.sparkasse.de/pk/ratgeber/bildung/studium/studien... (Sparkasse, pretty much the largest credit union)
Up to 133.000 (1851 per month):
https://www.studis-online.de/studienkosten/
But sure, believe what you want.
> Tuition at that time was 500 per semester for me
This is the number people talk about when they're talking about tuition costs for Americans. Everyone needs shelter and to eat, whether they're a student or an engineer at a FAANG.
It's $5-10k fo r community college depending on in or out of state. It's $10-$20k per year for a university for most, and if you look at a "top" university, it's significantly more.
University of Boulder which is a top-50-USA-university is just shy of $40k per year for tuition. Stanford is $55k, and UPenn (Which was the most expensive I could find) is $61k per year.
That may be true in theory. In practice, many parents are in an income range which makes the child not eligible for educational support (Bafög), but which also does not allow supporting the child with 1000 EUR/month. The thought of telling my parents "you are required by law to send me more money, do it!" never occurred to me. They had a house to pay off. Both my mother and father worked more hours per week then I did for university (around 4-5 hours per day, at most, and only during the semester - I did nothing for university for around 4 months during the semester vacations). When my father was the same age as I when I started university, he had already worked for 7 years and paid rent and food money to his parents. So I think paying at least the rent, tuition, and food myself was the least I could do.
The fact that some of the best US universities have outrageous tuition is neither new nor surprising nor does it invalidate my claim. I drew no comparison to the US, you are drawing that comparison.
You are basically saying that living in Europe in a university city cost anything between 6000 and 20000 euros each year.
Maybe a bit high, but I think I can agree.
But living is a cost all around the world, and universities in Europe add a very low overhead on top of it, while universities in US can easily triple your cost of living, so I still don't see your point
In Germany students receive no grant (other than the regular Kindergeld for children) unless their parents together earn less than 40k before taxes.
My point is that the statement that salaries can be low because university has no cost is wrong. The cost is significant even without tuition and therefore salaries absolutely matter.
And without even a shred of doubt, a US tech salary of supposedly around 150k compared to perhaps 80k in Germany more than balances the extra costs for university over a time of 20 years that the kids grow up.
I studied at university and my parents paid nothing. Even as an adult student could I go back and get the grant part. In Sweden the state pays for you to study.
[1] https://www.csn.se/languages/english/student-grants-and-loan...
Uh, no, France follows the European-wide bachelor's master's doctorate system when it comes to granting european credits. Which means that, yes, you can follow the normal cycle of 3 years (license/bachelor's), 5 years (masters), 7 years (doctorage), and these will basically count if you're looking to study abroad.
Some of my coworkers have 2 years of studies (IUT/BTS). Some have 4 (M1). Some of the PhDs in my company have 9 years, other 11, others are both working and researching at the same time. There's no mandatory 3 years.
Before that, 70 euros? Where were you living, Freising?
Two external rings were around 50 euros at the time, and many students rent inside the (old) 4 inner rings, or the first external one if you study in Garching
Munich is the most expensive Germany city, just saying...
Well, 30k-100k is about right for the annual cost of undergrad in the US and school costs are much more commonly discussed as per year than in total around here.
>My point is that the statement that salaries can be low because university has no cost is wrong. The cost is significant even without tuition and therefore salaries absolutely matter.
That seems a bit misleading as well. Almost all of that cost is unrelated to university attendance. People incur costs for food and rent regardless of whether they're university students.
It absolutely did:
> Tuition was 500 EUR per semester, so around 80 EUR/month.
Possibly it was edited in after you wrote your comment, but it's there clear as day.
The American obsession with making children pay their own way for everything is counterproductive at a social level and frankly revealing (and sickening) in terms of what it says about us as a people. God forbid someone (a literal child!) “gets something for nothing”.
This is really the core problem with America: a significant chunk of the population is literally mean and cruel and antisocial, in the sense that they oppose the idea of helping others as a concept in itself. People will search for reasons to justify their inherent belief that it should not be done. In fact in many cases they will actively promote cruel and counterproductive policies because it makes them feel better!
And as a result there's really not a single social system in america that is not rotted to the core even if it exists. Social Security is an insane mess to be on. Programs like food stamps are thrown to the states who underfund them in the best of cases, and in many times actually sabotage or deliberately shrink them, even when it results in receiving less money for the programs. That's the goal!