I have approximately $40,000 in student debt from my Master's degree. I have discussed this with several people on Italki; evidently higher education is free or almost free in many countries in the world. Where are you from and how much does higher education cost in your country?
I am from the USA and I think the cost of higher education here is pretty outrageous.
In Spain we have a public and obligatory education until you are 16 years old that is totally free. Then you can continue your studies doing "Bachillerato" (2 years) that is free as well. When you finish it, you can chose to do universitary studies and you have to pay them because they are not free.
The Spanish university is cheaper than USA university (I pay more or less 800 euros per year) because part of the price is covered by the goverment. Besides if you are a good student, you have scholarships that help you to pay the part of the studies that you must pay.
I'm shocked when I see the price the USA students have to pay in your country.
Hi Leslie, I took up my education up to my doctorate in the Philippines, but I live in the US. There are public universities and the best one is almost free. It's just very hard to get in. The private universities are also expensive (relative to the cost of living). However, getting scholarships for both college and post grad is a great way to make the cost manageable (which I did, really grateful for those). Some universities are generous with scholarships and students can apply to work under their respective schools (like library assistant, etc) and their tuition is almost free or about 50% off.
Here in Colombia, there are public universities where undergraduate programs are free, but you have to pass an admission exam that sometimes it's difficult and most people don't pass it, therefore they have to go to a private university, whose prices are variable since cheap to expensive, depending on the quality of the university.
In terms of graduate programs such as master degrees, the only way to access to a free program is to apply for a scholarship.
They could just give them more time to understand the material, but no - number of years and courses are the same;/ And when "everybody" is in an university this means average level is more or less the same as average level of schoolkids. For this reason most of universities function a bit like.... school. They have very advanced subjects but students don't udnerstand them and aren't expected to understand:/
The quality of education in such colelges can be low. Though, if a bright student wants that, she can always work at the level above university course and ask some professor for assistance and guidance... and have it. Only few people do that: initiative is not something school teaches.
Another problem is that Russia doesn't have hi-tech business and people studying in engineering faculties realize that they won't be able to use their knowlege . So boys simply don't study and the only people who DO study are girls and forieng students. Also such universities don't have very modern labs.
Also degrees aren't really valued in Russia and having a "prestigeous degree" is not really important. If you really need knowlege... You get it here. You can either go to a worse university and find a good professor there (a good professor will be HAPPY to meet a students who wants knowlege...), or you can pass an exam to a good university, or if you can't pass the exam you can work on it hard till you're able to pass the exam.
Actually in America you also have scholarships (comapable to our exams) and $40 000 are payable with American salaries. Not bad. But I prefer our system: if not "best unievrsities" then knowlege is more accesisble here.
