Just to add to that: I'm studying in Germany and pay 140 Euros per Semester, so 280 Euros or a bit more than 300$ per year. So another order of magnitude less than your estimate :)
in austria the tuition fee for foreigners was (or is if they haven't changed it) dependent on how much an austrian student would pay for tuition in that foreign country.
It is not about it being completely free. The whole point is how 235€ or even 1000€ per semester is nothing compared to tens of thousands americans pay in tuiton. Top universities in the US like MIT and Stanford charge over $40000 per year. With half of that you could comfortably live as a student in Germany for a year with all expenses paid. I live as a student in Germany on 650€/mo. That's less than $10000 a year.
I'm currently studying at the EPFL (one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology) and fees are actually almost half the amount you state -- I pay around 1250$ a year.
"free university tuition" ->
Not true anymore, it's more like 300-600 Euros per semester. Still not much compared to the US but enough for german students to protest and public banks to create state-sponsored student loans. This type of loan for students was unknown before in Germany.
Places like the Netherlands and Switzerland generally pay around €2k a year for all students. The only place I know of anywhere near that price is the UK.
I'm a student at a German university, and I don't pay tuition fees, but I do pay about 400€ a year in "semester fees", of which the two largest components are "student services" and a compulsory season ticket for regional transport; student union membership and some kind of insurance contribution are also included.
Free in Germany. It used to cost 500 euros per semester. but you still get your bachelors and masters here for cheaper than a quarter at some schools. Our bachelors are 3 years masters are 2.
Well, it is true for at least some of the states.
For the other ones (I'm in Baden-Württemberg), it's usually 500 Euros + 1xx Euros of fees per semester.
Also: I recently read an article (sorry, no link) about student loans in Germany. Apparently, there are about 20-30 banks that offer "student loans". Only 3-4 actually offer something that is limited to students and apparently most of the banks want to move away from keeping those "special" deals arround
Which is still about twice of what I paid for my entire bachelors and masters education in germany and it included a ticket for the entire public transport system in my city for the entire 5 years and full access to _very_ comprehensive library (of both physical books and e-books so there was no need to buy even a single book during my studies).
I may speak from a perspective of ignorance here but I believe 6000$ a year is still prohibitively expensive for a lot of people, especially if they don't want to accrue debt.
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