Germany should just get flagged for taunting the US

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

This Country Just Abolished College Tuition Fees

Prospective students in the United States who can’t afford to pay for college or don’t want to rack up tens of thousands in student debt should try their luck in Germany. Higher education is now free throughout the country, even for international students. Yesterday, Lower Saxony became the last of seven German states to abolish tuition fees, which were already extremely low compared to those paid in the United States.

German universities only began charging for tuition in 2006, when the German Constitutional Court ruled that limited fees, combined with loans, were not in conflict the country’s commitment to universal education. The measure proved unpopular, however, and German states that had instituted fees began dropping them one by one.

“We got rid of tuition fees because we do not want higher education which depends on the wealth of the parents,” Gabrielle Heinen-Kjajic, the minister for science and culture in Lower Saxony, said in a statement. Her words were echoed by many in the German government. “Tuition fees are unjust,” said Hamburg’s senator for science Dorothee Stapelfeldt. “They discourage young people who do not have a traditional academic family background from taking up study. It is a core task of politics to ensure that young women and men can study with a high quality standard free of charge in Germany.”

Compared to American students, Germans barely had to pay for undergraduate study even before tuition fees were abolished. Semester fees averaged around €500 ($630) and students were entitled to many perks, such as cheap (often free) transportation within and between cities.

http://thinkprogress.org/education/2014/10/01/3574551/germany-free-college-tuition/

[Scuba]

1. Sounds like something to mention on the campaign trail. Anybody using this?

[Doctor_J]

2. No one running for office wants to piss off the "education" profiteers

Nothing in the US will ever be free again. We now have mandatory for-profit health insurance (under a Dem president and Congress), will soon have mandatory for-profit education, and before 2020 social security will be gone (privatized). No one can stop our descent to 3rd world status

[Kalidurga]

3. We are already there

only with lots of electronic gadgets.