50.000 US $.

[whyBish]

Interesting question! I've ment to make a comparison of costs for quite some while.

Well, over here I was able to earn enough each ten-twelve summer week break to cover my entire expenses for the year (living/fees/textbooks etc)

Uni costs were:
Tuition ~$400 per paper (~8 papers per year)=$3,200 ~=$US2300
Living (Full board=rent +electricity etc. + meals) $50-60 per week = $2,600-$3,000 ~= $US2000

All up it cost me $8-10kpa~= $US6-7k

Perhaps you lot should send your kids down this way for some education? ;) (You'd have to become citizens to pay this price for tuition though, multiply the tuition part by 6-10x for foreign student fees)

The amusing thing is that everyone complains when fees rise (but I just laugh and continue my extramural studies while working fulltime... I consider it my value from taxes, since I don't use the roads/public health system/accident compensation/ government super schemes)

[Occhidiangela]

Simple: There is a quality cut after high school. Even as lax as entry may seem, you have to compete to get into university. Also, it aint cheap to run a university.

The min requirements are provided for by the State. The rest boils down to "How bad do you want it?" If you don't want it, for sure don't pay for it and waste everyone's time.

Higher education is not an entitlement. It's more like a sewer: You get out of it depends a great deal on what you put into it.

Occhi

£1150 per year, of which potenetially all of it can be payed by your LEA (Local Education Authority) it's means-tested.

oh, and ~ £3000 a year in student loan, which you have to pay back with an effective 0 interest rate (interest rate is the same as inflation, so assuming the job that you end up in increases it's wages in line with inflation...)

Add to that all the living costs, which are obscene if you don't live at home like I do.

Of course, there's talk of 'top-up fees', which would be up to another £3000 per year, but would be collected with the loan after you graduate.

Of course, the tuition fees at the moment are somewhat ridiculous, you have to pay them upfront by the mid autumn term. You only get £1000 of your loan by then (although due to a minor fiasco this year, some people hadn't recieved their loans). So if you have to pay the full whack of £1150 you have to find £150 somewhere else, and find money for acommodation (about £60 - £70 /week), food, books, paper & pens, printing, photocopying, etc.

Clever plan, really.
So, I sympathise with my fellow British students who have to cope with that sort of thing (I've not spent any of my loan yet [like I say, I live at home, and my parents very kindly covered the portion of the tuition fees that I owed], and don't intend to if I can help it). And (look, if Roald Dahl can start a sentence with 'and' so can I) the US students, it seems a whole lot worse, and the fact that the 'good' universities charge more - nothing like only rich people getting into the top universities to bring the cream to the top...

How come education is free and optional from ages 16-18, but from 18+ you have to pay?

-Bob
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[yangman]

Up here in BC, Canada, its ~400$ per 3 credit hours per week (At least at the lower level courses, at the university I attend).

I think you mean "~$400 per 3 credit hours, with courses averaging at 3 credit hours and runs for ~13 weeks". :ph34r:

For those who are confused:
"Credit hours" are used to roughtly measure a student's pregress in his/her study, is part of the graduation requirement (120 for BSc, 130 with Honours, etc) and also supposedly represent how much workload a student is to expect from a course -- it does so very, very poorly. Also, although class costs are tied to credit hours, the cost can vary depending on the department. For example, computing science and engineering students pay much more for the same number of credit hours compared to an arts student.

[Swiss Mercenary]

Ah, my bad here...

The amount of credit hours also represents the number of lecture/tutorial hours per week.

[[wcip]Angel]

Living (Full board=rent +electricity etc. + meals) $50-60 per week
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That can't be right. I use twice that whenever I go out drinking after a rehearsal with my brass band.

Speaking of College, guess who got a B on his presentation today... :whistling: (Considering I haven't been anywhere near the syllabus this term, this is not that bad a grade ;))
Christmas break! Weeee 1 month off. Hello games, how I've missed you! (Not really, I've completed Half life 2 three times already since its release :P)

[Drasca]

Me, it'd be time to expand my wardrobe. Time to pimp out Dr. Seuss style! Maybe some parachute pants too. Everyone else has the investment/pay bills already, give me some new rags!

[Guest]

If i had 50.000 US dollars i would buy a honda civic EK9 and JDM tune it.
But thats just me.

What would you do?
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If I had that money and nothing else,and living in the USA,I would save it to pay the college.Buying a sports car is ludicrous if you only have that money;it's like gambing or throwing the money away.
And by the way,I wouldn't make another account if I were already banned,but that's just me,of course.

[Munkay]

Christmas break! Weeee 1 month off. Hello games, how I've missed you!
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My break will be spent hitting the books... all the great books I've wanted to read but haven't had time to this semester!

:D

Maybe I'll be able to find some time for diablo II somewhere in there :whistling:

Cheers,

Munk

[whyBish]

That can't be right. I use twice that whenever I go out drinking after a rehearsal with my brass band.

It's the truth. When you live in a backwater, it is cheap to live. That, and we live in a Nanny state that pays for most our education, pays people to *not* work (I know many people (from secondarry education days) that are the third generation of living entirely off unemployment benefit), pays for all* health care, superannuation etc etc.

People here know little of personal responsibility. The first comment made when something is not to someones liking, is to ask why the government isn't fixing it. No wonder all our hard working, educated people head offshore in droves - to stop funding the ... how do you say parasites of the system without sounding negative? :P

I wonder how many of our U.S. audience can even conceive of a society that doesn't need health insurance, or for parents to save for university?

[Minionman]

Where exactly do you live?

[Jeunemaitre]

If i had 50.000 US dollars i would buy a honda civic EK9 and JDM tune it.
But thats just me.

What would you do?

I'm going to fall in line with many of you who've already responded and say that the 50 grand would be turned against the student loan debt that my wife just finished accruing (3 yrs at law school = $56K in debt + JD). That's only the federal loans. It doesn't take into account the additional 2-3 hundred for books (which are now crowding our bookshelves), and the additional tuition that we, her parents and grandparents put up. Education does seem to be overpriced, but I'm not looking to get into the "undervalued public good" argument with social economists. That's another subject entirely.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Simple:  There is a quality cut after high school.  Even as lax as entry may seem, you have to compete to get into university.  Also, it aint cheap to run a university.

The min requirements are provided for by the State.  The rest boils down to "How bad do you want it?"  If you don't want it, for sure don't pay for it and waste everyone's time.

Higher education is not an entitlement.  It's more like a sewer:  You get out of it depends a great deal on what you put into it.

Occhi
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I think that that mostly misses the point. The way education is handled in the USA is a disgrace. K-12 education in many places is little more than a glorified baby-sitting service. 'Relevance' and the desires of the business community have removed much, if not most, of the material which would actually educate (as in 'expose to thought provoking material') the students.

So, the high school diploma, usually obtained at great great taxpayer expense but with little effort from the students, is a worthless bit of paper that will not even get one into a mail clerk position. Much less having inspired the student to a lifetime of persuing knowledge. Thus, having pissed away the cost of twelve potential years of education, the state then refuses to provide a chance at a real education at a reasonable (or, prefferably, no) cost.

Now, it is to the state's benefit to have an educated population. It increases productivity, it gives a more informed voter base capable of making better decisions, it drives innovation and creativity benefitting both the economic and the intellectual life. It gives us leaders in government, in industry, in science, in the arts, that would make this the paridise it should be. Indeed, the only drawback of an educated citizenry would be to the present generation of politicians who could no longer persuade 90% of the population with their lies.

The solution? Perhaps the first thing that needs to be done is to reexamine the purpose of an education. Is the cost of sports programs for a few select athletes worth it? Are extra-curricular activities more important than core studies? Should there be a minimum requirment for each grade and for the diploma? And should that bar be *above* ground level, or should anyone be able to crawl over it? Is 'an education' an entitelment that everyone should be given, or should the right be to a chance at an education for everyone?

If the money presently spent on K-12 education were actually used to 'educate' in a competitive environment where not all could make it but all would have an equal chance, then there would be little need for junior colleges, for most of the so-called 'universities' that are nothing but glorified trade schools, not even for many of the present four year colleges. The high school diploma would be a sufficient preperation for life, as it once was, for those not interested in some rarefied specialization.

With the savings from not trying to run a baby-sitting service, the state would have more than enough to completely fund capable students through an advanced degree. The funding, of course, would be contingent on acceptable progress, both in quantity and in quality. The value recieved for this expense would be educated people at the advanced levels who wouldn't be leaving the country when their student visa experied.

--Pete

PS As to the original question, it brings to mind, "for Athos this is too much; for the Comte de la Fère it is too little." Unlike a few hundred, which I'd just play away, or a few million, which would seriously change my lifestyle, $50,000 would have little impact. It's too much to blow but not enough to seriously do anything with (it isn't even enough to pay for flight training through multi and get a decent plane). I'd probably just toss it into my investment account, where it would make a small but noticable difference.

[whyBish]

New Zealand. The prices I listed were for Massey University (Palmerston North). I currently live in the Capital (Wellington), where rent is twice the price.
There is an initiative down the far south for free tertiary education (and the rents there, last I checked were about $30 a week, buy a house for $30-60k or so :D ), just a pity about the ice.

(Would include a link but the DNS here is playing up :angry: )