Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Protest! Violence! Chaos!

Okay, no. But there was a protest. Coming out from lunch with Helmut at the MENSA (a kind of student union/cafeteria), I heard cadenced yelling and whistles. Hoping to see how they do it over here, I scampered (waddled, actually; lunch had been a really nice schnitzel with spargel and hollandaise and big boiled potatoes) over to demonstration. You know, to get my....fair share...of abuse.

I was hoping for the classic U.S. protest. A nearly complete lack of logic, no clear focus, no actual demand. Short haired women. Long haired men. And indignation, probably based on the fact there is no real offense or demand.

But no, this was an actual protest, I have to give the kids credit. They were protesting a specific thing, and had a specific "demand." The "thing" was that the students are now being charged about 500 euros per semester toward the cost of their education. And the demand is to get rid of that thing.

The university system is doing a pretty slick thing. They are NOT charging tuition, or Schulgeld. They are, instead, charging "fees," or Gebühren. Many, many state schools in the U.S. are doing this, and there are plenty of protests and upset people. Here is some background on the situation in Germany.

A quote from the above cited article, portion written a young Mr. Beard:

STEPHEN BEARD: The first day of term at Ludwig-Maximilian University. Sebastian Urqs and his friends are staging a symbolic protest.

They've put up a series of steel hurdles by the university cafeteria, and they're inviting their fellow students to jump over them.

SEBASTIAN URQS: We're trying to say: "You're here at the university. And there are guys that actually don't want to have you here so they're putting hurdles in your way.

Tuition here costs $1,300 a year, the legal limit in Germany. Not much of a hurdle by American standards. But many of the students emphatically reject the American model. Stefan Liebl, who's studying politics.

STEFAN LIEBL: I don't think American universities are better. Some very famous like Harvard or Yale, only better for very rich people. The system in America, I don't like it.

The protesters claim that tuition fees deter thousands of young Germans from coming to university. There is not the same range of scholarships available here as in the U.S. And unlike American students, Germans are very reluctant to take out loans. Maria Dangwerra has to work two days a week to help pay for her studies.

MARIA DANGWERRA: It's kind of annoying that other persons who don't have to work because their parents are rich, they can sit in library and study. And I have to go to work and sometimes I feel that I should study more, but I don't have the time to.

BEARD: But education has to be paid for. Who do you think should pay for your university education if you do not pay it yourself?

DANGWERRA: I will pay. I mean I will pay in the future when I earn money, and I will pay my taxes. And I think it's the state who has to pay for education.


The state? What is this "state" thing you speak of? The French economist Frederic Bastiat said that the state is the conceit that each of us should endeavor to live at the expense of ALL of us. In these quotes above you hear that conceit, in full force.

Education is expensive. It is not free.
The question is, who should pay?
Should the people receiving the education be paying ANY PART of the cost?
If German Universities were MORE efficient than U.S. universities, about 50% more cost effective (they are NOT, by the way), then the cost per student at German universities is about 8,000 euros per year, or 4,000 per semester.

So, the question is this: Should students pay 1/8 the cost of their education, with taxpayers who do NOT have kids in school picking up 88.5% of the total? Or should taxpayers pay 100%, with the people making the decision, the students, bearing NONE of the costs of the consequences of the decision.

I was intrigued by the "I'll pay later" answer. The way to do that, if your education is actually WORTH something, is loans. Then you borrow the money, in effect, against your own future improved earnings. "I'll pay later" as a taxpayer, on the other hands, means I expect thousands of people who get no benefit from increased earnings to pay for most of my education costs, and I'll pay for a tiny portion.

There is no state. THERE .... IS..... NO ..... STATE. There are only people who have money taken by the state, at gunpoint, and people who received money from the state, as a way of buying votes, and obedience. The money received is the money taken. Do you students really think you have the right to make other people pay for your tuition, at gunpoint?

The demonstration, I have to say. Was pretty fun. I walked along. There were flags, loudspeakers, whistles. The police were very helpful, directing traffic, and making sure that the righteous indignation of the masses didn't spill over into delaying traffic unnecessarily. Cops were smiling, talking to the students (particularly the young women, I thought, but that may be uncharitable). It was quite a day.

Of course, it was during prime class time. But while "I was smoking dope and playing Wii" is not a good reason to miss class," it is likely that "I was trying to save free education as a basic right for all humanity in the future, but mostly for me, mostly now" is much more acceptable.

7 comments:

MaxSpeak said...

(Dons 'Kick Me' sign) I thought her statement was pretty reasonable. By financing education out of future earnings, the amount paid a) bears some relation to the value of what is imparted, b) is spread over time in a manageable way, and c) can reflect some of the external social benefit of a populace with access to higher education.

Mungowitz said...

Max, dude. That's an argument for why the amount paid by government is greater than zero.

It is NOT an argument that the government should pay 100%.

The actual cost per student in Germany is more like 8,000 EURO per semester. Why does asking students to pay less than 10% of the actual cost cause a problem?

Now, if you want to argue that students should pay HALF the cost of their own educations, and that the revenues should be used to pay for scholarships for POOR people, that is a different argument.

But the argument here is that childless poor people should have to pay for the college educations of wealthy people who could easily afford tuition. Why?

There is a huge difference between saying education "should be" free, and saying that poverty should not prevent anyone from getting an education.

You don't seriously believe that I am going to deny my own kids college if I receive no subsidy? As Buchanan and Stubblebine showed, the fact of positive externalities does not imply a need for subsidy. Many such externalities are inframarginal.

Anonymous said...

Hate to say this, but the old saying "you pay for what you get" is beginning to ring true for me. Now that I have just finished a Masters in Germany and can compare that experience with a Bachelor Degree in England, I can only say the Masters was pure chaos. Different credit systems in faculties and the apparently "typical" situation of (life-long) professors who act irresponsibly towards their students. No guidelines on thesis preparation is provided. The professor and lecturer were too busy for thesis meetings - but still demanded "high standards" at the defence.

For anyone considering coming to Germany for university education - I strongly urge you to reconsider. While it may state in print form that it's a BA/MA structure - forget it - there is no structure. It is also very old-fashioned in ways that are not necessarily positive.

Fork out the pounds and go to the UK. Universities do not have good reputations for nothing. There is an existing system in place to check up on people and courses.

MaxSpeak said...

So you don't quibble with the fact of a subsidy, just the amount? Sounds like a dangerous invitation to compromise and split the difference. Democracy lives.

Regarding the burden on the poor, I'd respond that it depends on the overall post-fisc versus pre-fisc level of well-being among the poor. They might not benefit much from higher ed, but more from other stuff. I don't know how that shakes out in Germany. If you could show it's a negative, that would be a persuasive criticism of social-democracy, abstracting from the dynamics of movement across income levels.

ardyanovich said...

So I'm walking down the streets of Berzerkely and I caught a piece of an interesting conversation I'd like to share:

guy1: "So, yeah, life's been pretty tough lately, with the economy and all."

guy2: "Aw, that's too bad..."

guy1: "Yeah, I'm mentally disabled and the government doesn't take care of me..."

I stopped listening at that point to look over and see what poor sap just uttered those lines. What did my eyes behold? Some dude pushing a guy in wheelchair. Then I thought,"Man, well, the guy is handicapped, so I guess I can deal with that."

But then I realized that guy1 wasn't the one in the wheelchair.

Now, I know a true KPCer would have been disgusted at even the cripple bitching about Nanna, but for me, it was only when the true identity of guy1 was revealed that I truly felt like a German. God help us.

Hannah said...

(Prior notice: Sorry for the rant and being slightly off-topic. It just turned out a little long.)

Well, maybe if the German government made it as easy to take out (and as easy to repay) tuition and maintenance loans as the English system, instead of having half of us entirely dependent on out parents and leaving the other half with that big mess that is BAföG (kind of a state-loan system), then maybe tuition fees wouldn't be such a bad idea… if only, well, if only they really went to the universities! Or, better still, to my faculty. To be invested in our education. And not to fuel the pension fund, or go towards building roads or maybe a new stainless-steel glass-fronted residency for the dean (while we often enough haven't got the teaching staff, let alone adequately sized rooms for our classes).

Alas, the whole scheme hasn't been thought out too well (same for the shift to a BA/MA system). And as long as education doesn't benefit accordingly from us contributing to it and as long as we can't seem to find a way to ensure that socio-economically disadvantaged students (whose entry-rates into university are ridiculously low as it is) don't have to work full-time in order to barely make ends meet, well… until then, I oppose tuition fees.

And frankly speaking: I like the thought of solidarity. (I would love to have something as the NHS, and not our completely scattered insurance mess. I dread the day someone seriously suggests it be privatised.) And I have no problem paying my taxes or my health insurance fees or social security (I have to admit, though, it doesn't amount to much. Yet. Because I don't earn much.)

If you want an education, if your child has special needs, if you're sick, unemployed, unfit to work… you might have a hard time, but you won't end up on the streets or in debt for the rest of your days. I cannot, for the life of me, see what is so bad about that. It doesn't make me want to be healthy or get a job any less than if I had the 'incentive' of finding myself without a roof and a bed just cause I had the luck to land in hospital for a few months. And stuff like that does happen. As it is, I am able to continue my studies. I consider this a good thing, for myself and also the society to which I will contribute and in which I take an interest.

Ok. Sorry for the rant and being slightly off-topic, it just seems inconceivable to me sometimes – though, as I said, I do get the thing about tuition fees. Up to a point.

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Violence and chaos is just the way to express ourselves in my country, we need make a big chaos if we want to change somethings !