Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 1, 2015 22:03:35 GMT -5
While a German college might not charge tuition, I would not consider it "free" if you actually move to Germany and are working there given German tax rates. The income tax is progressive but by $100,000 euro a year or so, the tax rate is 42% and can get up to 45% for really high incomes. In addition you basically multiply your total tax by 1.055 to get the actual tax due to a "solidarity surcharge". In addition, you pay about 12% of your income for what is somewhat comparable to Social Security in the US and 7.3-8.2% for health insurance. Capital gains are taxed about 25%. So on that dollar of income over about 100,000 euro, the taxes and other fees could amount to 64% of your income. This is why my friends that work in Europe really value a company car over a raise because, at least in the past, the car value wasn't taxed but if they receive the equivalent in income, the government would take most of it. Then there is a VAT tax similar to sales tax of either 7% or 19% depending on what it is. In addition, property transfer taxes are also pretty high and can be 3.5 to 6% of the selling price if I understand it correctly.
So, as we all know, there is no free ride - you can call it tuition or you can just roll it into the tax base. Then to control your costs, you limit the students that actually get access to the colleges. I also expect that if Germany were to see thousands of Americans showing up at their colleges' door steps for a "free" education, things would change quickly. I also would not assume that all college classes are taught in English. That simply is not the case. While some programs may be English, many are not. While young germans do usually have a better handle on English than most americans do on german, a student would need to be very careful to determine the language that the program they are interested in will use.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2015 12:30:15 GMT -5
So, DS is back from vacation and we talked about it last night. Instead of getting all pumped up and excited he sort of tuned me out. When I asked, "So, what do you think?" He said "I think that sounds like it would be a lot of pressure and I wouldn't like being that far away for that long." Followed by, "but I still want to learn German, will you get the Rosetta Stone for me?"
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milee
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Post by milee on Aug 4, 2015 14:01:17 GMT -5
The boys returned from England last night. Turns out oldest son isn't necessarily interested in going to college in Germany. He's just always "wanted to learn German" and came across a sale on used textbooks so bought them for $1. In true YM fashion, he seemed most excited about the bargain books.
He's a weird kid, but I love him.
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Wisconsin Beth
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No, we don't walk away. But when we're holding on to something precious, we run.
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Post by Wisconsin Beth on Aug 4, 2015 14:23:09 GMT -5
I'm a bit late to the discussion but appreciated reading it.
My kids are enrolled in a German Immersion School. It's K4 to 5th grade. And about 75% of my kids' K4 class was in German and the percentage goes up with the grade level.
And I can send them to a nearby Language School for 6th-8th and HS. All the Immersion School kids (German, French, Spanish and apparently Mandarin) go there as they're all part of the local Public Schools.
I've been told that Germany will accept graduation from the HS as a sort of automatic pass into their college system but I've done NOTHING to look into it and/or find out if it's true. We're not even sure if the kids will go to the Language School yet so it seems a long time off.
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on Aug 4, 2015 15:49:19 GMT -5
The boys returned from England last night. Turns out oldest son isn't necessarily interested in going to college in Germany. He's just always "wanted to learn German" and came across a sale on used textbooks so bought them for $1. In true YM fashion, he seemed most excited about the bargain books.
He's a weird kid, but I love him. Ok, I have to ask - what website did he find the textbooks on...
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milee
Senior Associate
Joined: Jan 17, 2012 13:20:00 GMT -5
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Post by milee on Aug 4, 2015 18:10:35 GMT -5
The boys returned from England last night. Turns out oldest son isn't necessarily interested in going to college in Germany. He's just always "wanted to learn German" and came across a sale on used textbooks so bought them for $1. In true YM fashion, he seemed most excited about the bargain books.
He's a weird kid, but I love him. Ok, I have to ask - what website did he find the textbooks on... He says Amazon - was using up a gift certificate from his birthday.
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