There’s a lot of reason to be paying attention to Germany lately.
Never mind President Obama’s recent visit to the Bavaria region of the country for the G7 — and the scandalous revelation he drank non-alcoholic beer while he was there (#beerghazi?) — or Jeb Bush’s saber-rattling follow up in Berlin in front of an audience which sees the Iraq war as a striking American disaster.
The real reason is, as a growing number of American students have discovered, Germany wants to pay for your college degree. ?Seriously.
Last year, Germany eliminated all tuition fees throughout the country for German and international students alike. It’s estimated over 4,600 American students are currently enrolled at German universities where the most a student might directly pay for schooling is a student activity fee which rarely exceeds €150 and includes public transportation. Health insurance for students is €80 a month, while rent varies depending on the location.
These costs, even combined, still pale in comparison to the $10,388 Indiana charges its residents or the $33,240 price tag for those out of state, both of which, of course, are just for tuition.
The disparity should give one pause, especially when you put the $1.3 trillion in student debt saddled on our backs into perspective. It’s further mind boggling for-profit colleges are even allowed to exist in America, especially as we watch the Corinthian Colleges bankruptcy saga unfold, which is likely to cost taxpayers up to $3.5 billion. The Department of Education has pledged to forgive the loans of up to 350,000 students defrauded by schools owned by Corinthian Colleges. Still, it’s the tip of the iceberg of the larger problem of how we finance higher education in the ?United States.
At its core is the fact we have lawmakers in our country who would rather give tax cuts to the wealthy than fund those rat holes of liberal elitism Republicans sometimes call public universities.
Instead of cutting funding for public higher education, we should be expanding it. But that’s not the reality we’re living in; ours is one where universities are forced to operate like corporations and their bottom lines are financed through (attracting) student debt or made by its student athletes.
The cost of attending school in Germany versus the United States should be a wake up call, if not for legislators then at least for students to know there’s another path to reaching a college degree which doesn’t run through the $1.3 trillion student ?debt bubble.
American universities might be ‘the envy of the world.’ But this means little when what American students really envy is not starting behind, with tens of thousands of debt, for simply wanting an education.
edsalas@indiana.edu
