alt Hacker NewsDid Europe find a cheat code that gets free $$$ for education?
Nothing is free - once you graduate you are hit with 50% tax that gets back all you "free" tuition costs many, many times over.
Not saying education should not be subsidized via taxes (I think it's good overall), but it's not free at all - the price is just hidden and spread out over many years (similar to student loans but less visible).
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When used in a social context, "free" has a different meaning than in many other contexts. It does not mean, for example, "there is no cost for this thing". Rather, it means "the person receiving this thing is not responsible for paying the costs associated with it (at least not at the time)".
Free health care doesn't mean "nobody gets paid to provide health care", it means "patients do not pay for health at the point of service".
If you'd prefer that we use some other term to describe this, please suggest it. I do find it interesting that the Scottish NHS uses "No fees at point of service" as part of their branding (or did, back in 2019).
From what I understand European education and degree programs are typically much more structured and narrow, and thus finish a lot faster. A student who finishes K-Ph.D. in the US will have a lot more breadth of exposure than such a student in most of Europe, if I recall what I read on the topic a while ago correctly.
The taxation is conditional on earning enough income though, which aligns incentives better.
> once you graduate you are hit with 50% tax that gets back all you "free" tuition costs many, many times over.
This is plain false.
Was it much more subsidized in the US when it was much cheaper, though?
That's what taxes are for. Subsidizing public good.
Affordable access to good education is a good outcome from the heavy taxation I pay.
Europe has a much lower expenditure per student compared to the US.
https://www.aei.org/articles/the-crazy-amount-america-spends...