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ajashdkjhasjkdtoday at 5:34 AM8 repliesview on HN

> Most of the world has severed the two

Yes, and the US system is the envy of the world and is responsible for the overwhelming majority of wealth generated in the US over the past few decades.

I'm not sure how that's an argument against the US Higher Ed system.

Edit: The real issue you seem to be pointing to is the cost of attending universities in the US. There are 2 parts to this. 1 is the costs of running a university, and the other is the cost that is paid by the student.

Most of the rest of the world subsidizes student tuition so students dont pay much out of pocket. The US, OTOH, has been consistently reducing govt support for student tuition. Even worse, it's been pushing students into taking loans that unlike most other loans cannot be discharged during bankruptcy. And even though students aren't required to start paying back those loans until they graduate, they do start collecting interest from day 1, which means a student has picked up a significant burden simply from the interest on the loans they received to pay for their freshman tuition, when they graduate.

These are all issues with the US system of financing education as opposed to the actual liberal arts education system.


Replies

Ekarostoday at 9:26 AM

From European perspective US system is a joke. All built on even bigger joke of high school. Which fails to teach students what they need in general education. And thus you get some weird "general" education irrelevancy being part of degree. Not to even mention how Master's level is not the standard most aim towards.

jswelkertoday at 5:41 AM

Envy of the world due to network effects and inertia, not due to any inherent superiority of our model. There are some good parts of our model, don't get me wrong, but they do not explain the status of the US system at all.

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rayinertoday at 5:56 AM

> Yes, and the US system is the envy of the world and is responsible for the overwhelming majority of wealth generated in the US over the past few decades

The benefits of the U.S. university system aren’t generated by average people taking a debt-financed 4 year vacation. They are generated by the same subset of people who would still be attending university even in a scaled down system that sent far fewer people to college.

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nothrabannosirtoday at 6:28 AM

> Yes, and the US system is the envy of the world

Where in the world have you polled?? because this is categorically opposite to my experience discussing the US college system

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hackinthebochstoday at 7:46 AM

>Most of the rest of the world subsidizes student tuition so students dont pay much out of pocket.

And they also severely restrict who can attend university. Of course this is a non-starter in the current US political environment.

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vee-kaytoday at 6:50 AM

The education system to be envied by the rest of the world is Norway's model.

59nadirtoday at 7:44 AM

> Yes, and the US system is the envy of the world and is responsible for the overwhelming majority of wealth generated in the US over the past few decades.

Can you elaborate on this a bit? It's very easy to read uncharitably without further elaboration and reads pretty delusional as is.

terminalshorttoday at 8:54 AM

> Yes, and the US system is the envy of the world and is responsible for the overwhelming majority of wealth generated in the US over the past few decades

Citation needed on both counts