How US students get a university degree for free in Germany

While the cost of college education in the US has reached record highs, Germany has abandoned tuition fees altogether for German and international students alike. An increasing number of Americans are taking advantage and saving tens of thousands of dollars to get their degrees.

In a kitchen in rural South Carolina one night, Hunter Bliss told his mother he wanted to apply to university in Germany. Amy Hall chuckled, dismissed it, and told him he could go if he got in.

“When he got accepted I burst into tears,” says Amy, a single mother. “I was happy but also scared to let him go that far away from home.”

Across the US parents are preparing for their children to leave the nest this summer, but not many send them 4,800 miles (7,700km) away – or to a continent that no family member has ever set foot in.

Yet the appeal of a good education, and one that doesn’t cost anything, was hard for Hunter and Amy to ignore.

“For him to stay here in the US was going to be very costly,” says Amy. “We would have had to get federal loans and student loans because he has a very fit mind and great goals.”

More than 4,600 US students are fully enrolled at Germany universities, an increase of 20% over three years. At the same time, the total student debt in the US has reached $1.3 trillion (£850 billion).

Each semester, Hunter pays a fee of €111 ($120) to the Technical University of Munich (TUM), one of the most highly regarded universities in Europe, to get his degree in physics.

Included in that fee is a public transportation ticket that enables Hunter to travel freely around Munich.

Health insurance for students in Germany is €80 ($87) a month, much less than what Amy would have had to pay in the US to add him to her plan.

“The healthcare gives her peace of mind,” says Hunter. “Saving money of course is fantastic for her because she can actually afford this without any loans.”

To cover rent, mandatory health insurance and other expenses, Hunter’s mother sends him between $6,000-7,000 each year.

At his nearest school back home, the University of South Carolina, that amount would not have covered the tuition fees. Even with scholarships, that would have totalled about $10,000 a year. Housing, books and living expenses would make that number much higher.

The simple maths made Hunter’s job of convincing his mother easy.

“You have to pay for my college, mom – do you want to pay this much or this much?”

5 countries where Americans can study at universities

Explaining the change, Dorothee Stapelfeldt, a senator in the northern city of Hamburg, said tuition fees “discourage young people who do not have a traditional academic family background from taking up study.  It is a core task of politics to ensure that young women and men can study with a high quality standard free of charge in Germany.”

What might interest potential university students in the United States is that Germany offers some programs in English — and it’s not the only country. Let’s take a look at the surprising — and very cheap — alternatives to pricey American college degrees.

Germany

People lounge on the lawn in front of the Reichstag on Oct. 3, 2014 in Berlin. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Germany’s higher education landscape primarily consists of internationally well-ranked public universities, some of which receive special funding because the government deems them “excellent institutions.” What’s more, Americans can earn a German undergraduate or graduate degree without speaking a word of German and without having to pay a single dollar of tuition fees: About 900 undergraduate or graduate degrees are offered exclusively in English, with courses ranging from engineering to social sciences. For some German degrees, you don’t even have to formally apply.

In fact, the German government would be happy if you decided to make use of its higher education system. The vast degree offerings in English are intended to prepare German students to communicate in a foreign language, but also to attract foreign students, because the country needs more skilled workers.

Finland

This northern European country charges no tuition fees, and it offers a large number of university programs in English. However, the Finnish government amiably reminds interested foreigners that they “are expected to independently cover all everyday living expenses.” In other words: Finland will finance your education, but not your afternoon coffee break.

France

Fireworks burst around the Eiffel Tower as part of Bastille Day celebrations on July 14, 2014, in Paris. (Photo by Thierry Chesnot/Getty Images)

There are at least 76 English-language undergraduate programs in France, but many are offered by private universities and are expensive. Many more graduate-level courses, however, are designed for English-speaking students, and one out of every three French doctoral degrees is awarded to a foreign student.

“It is no longer needed to be fluent in French to study in France,” according to the government agency Campus France. The website studyportals.eu provides a comprehensive list of the available courses in France and other European countries.

Public university programs charge only a small tuition fee of about 200 dollars for most programs. Other, more elite institutions have adopted a model that requires students to pay fees that are based on the income of their parents. Children of unemployed parents can study for free, while more privileged families have to pay more. This rule is only valid for citizens of the European Union, but even the maximum fees (about $14,000 per year) are often much lower than U.S. tuition fees. Some universities, such as Sciences Po Paris, offer dual degrees with U.S. colleges.

Sweden

A tram crosses at Kungsportsavenyn, the main street in Gothenburg, Sweden (Casper Hedberg/Bloomberg News).

This Scandinavian country is among the world’s wealthiest, and its beautiful landscape beckons. It also offers some of the world’s most cost-efficient college degrees. More than 900 listed programs in 35 universities are taught in English. However, only Ph.D programs are tuition-free.

Norway

Norwegian universities do not charge tuition fees for international students. The Norwegian higher education system is similar to the one in the United States: Class sizes are small and professors are easily approachable. Many Norwegian universities offer programs taught in English. American students, for example, could choose “Advanced Studies for Solo Instrumentalists or Chamber Music Ensembles” or “Development Geography.”

7 Myths About Online Education

Online education is becoming commonplace. About 5.3 million U.S. students took at least one online course in fall 2013, according to a recent study. Yet, while online education is growing in popularity, myths and misconceptions abound. Below, experts separate the fact from fiction.

Myth 1: Online education is easy. It’s not easier to earn a degree online than in a traditional brick-and-mortar setting – just different, says Lynn Atanasoff, a career counselor at Pennsylvania State University—World Campus. Students may have flexibility regarding when they study, but it also comes with challenges.

“At reputable institutions, students have to complete the same material as in-person, except they also have to really manage their time because online no one is reminding them when assignments or projects are due,” she says.

Marci Grant, director of the Center for Distance and eLearning at Southwestern Oklahoma State University, agrees. “Online courses require more self-direction than a traditional course where face-to-face instructors are available,” she said in an email.

Online education can also be quite labor intensive, requiring at least as much time as an on-campus course, Grant adds.

[See how to tell a good online program from a bad one.]

Myth 2: The quality is lower. While academic standards for online courses may vary from school to school, Grant says the online faculty and online courses at her institution go through a rigorous certification process to ensure they understand the academic standard that all online courses must meet.

In some cases, the instruction in an online class might be even better than in an on-campus course, says Ramin Sedehi, the director of Higher Education Consulting at the Berkeley Research Group. ​

“It requires the teachers to communicate differently,” he says. “Some teachers suggest it forces them to think about effectiveness and engagement far more actively and makes them better teachers.”

Myth 3: Online credits will not transfer to another school. Some students may have problems transferring credits regardless of whether they complete their study online or on campus, says professor Michael Bitter, chairman of the M.E. Rinker, Sr. Institute of Tax and Accountancy at Stetson University. ​

“You sometimes see transferability issues with certain for-profit institutions or with certain types of courses/programs,” he wrote in an email.

In many cases, Bitter says, an institution would have no way of knowing whether a course they are considering for transfer credit was taken in a classroom, online or some combination of the two.

Overall, though, he says credits from online programs are not any harder to transfer than on-campus credits.

Myth 4: Online courses are not accredited. As with traditional courses, accreditation may vary from school to school. But a fair number of online programs are accredited. “If a student attends an unaccredited school, credits may not transfer, federal and state financial aid may not be available and employers may not recognize their credentials,” says Christine Broeker, interim executive director of eLearning at Seminole State College​ of Florida.

[Understand how to tell if an online program has the right accreditation.]

She says students can turn to the Council of Higher Education Accreditation, which publishes a list of recognized accrediting bodies ​that evaluate colleges and universities.

Myth 5: Cheating is more common in online courses. Cheating can occur with online courses, but experts say that is not more likely to happen with online courses than with traditional courses.

“There are websites that any student can use to have papers written for them,” says Dani Babb, an online instructor and founder and CEO of The Babb Group. ​“Since online professors have tools to help them spot plagiarism, in some ways we have more defenses against this than traditional education where a student hands in a paper.”

In addition to plagiarism detection software, some online programs require students to take a test at a physical location, or to use a webcam while completing an exam. In both cases, students need to show proof of identification.

Myth 6: Online students can’t meet with the instructor. Although it might be impossible for students to physically be in the same place as their instructors, there are opportunities for meaningful interactions.

[Find out how to tell if you have a bad online instructor.]

“While students may not meet faculty in person, they do have the opportunity to interact with them, whether it be by phone, by e-mail, by Skype or during on-line chat sessions,” Bitter says.

One way Bitter interacts with students is through online chat sessions, which are held twice a week when his course is in session. He also says that some online faculty have online office hours each week.

Online Education Evolves as It Draws More Students

Cynthia Stebbins loved her first two years at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, but after she got married in May of 2013, she found herself in a bind. Her husband, Cody, who is in the Air Force, was transferred to Scott Air Force Base in Illinois.

Stebbins, 21, didn’t want to have a long-distance marriage, so she decided to finish her bachelor’s degree the 21st-century way: online. She’ll graduate next spring from CSU with a degree in psychology.

Although Stebbins sometimes misses the campus social life, she’s confident she’s getting just as rich an academic experience as when she was trekking from one classroom to another.

[Learn how to succeed in an online course.]

“The experience is similar to what it is on campus, and I appreciate that,” she says. “I don’t want my education to be different just because I’ve chosen this program.”

Whether you’re an undergrad like Stebbins who faces logistical challenges or a working student who wants a degree without giving up that salary, attending class virtually is an increasingly viable and popular option. Some universities allow students to earn their degrees entirely online; a growing number are dabbling by letting students earn a handful of credits virtually.

Nearly 460 schools offered online bachelor’s courses in 2013, according to the latest annual survey by Babson College in Massachusetts, which has been tracking the spread of online education for 11 years. And the proportion of all students, undergraduate and graduate, taking at least one online course hit a high of 33.5 percent in 2013, Babson reports.

Moving the lecture hall onto the Web isn’t always a smooth process. In April, the high-profile pilot program Semester Online was discontinued; a consortium of 10 universities – Boston College,Northwestern University and Washington University in St. Louis among them – had tried offering for-credit virtual classes to their own students and to attendees of other colleges interested in transferring the credits.

[Understand the common terms used in online education.]

The organizer, Maryland-based 2U, declined to comment but said in a written statement that it found “significant challenges related to the complexities of a consortium structure.” The firm continues to provide software solutions to individual schools developing online offerings, and in October will be working on its first online undergraduate degree program with Simmons College School of Nursing and Health Sciences in Boston.

But the end of Semester Online shouldn’t be viewed as a sign that digitally enhanced learning is a bad idea, argues Elliott Visconsi, an English and law professor and chief academic digital officer at consortium member University of Notre Dame, which offered four undergrad courses online during the pilot.

Instructors found the teaching “to be exciting and interesting, but new and unfamiliar,” he says. While there were problems associated with students moving in and out of classes and seeking credits from other participating schools, he says, Notre Dame is now pursuing a variety of digital initiatives.

[Decide if online education is right for you.]

“Our primary goal is to give our students a world-class undergraduate experience,” he says, “and certainly digital tools and strategies are part of that puzzle.”

Arizona State University associate professor Dawn Gilpin, who teaches an online course in social media, says Web-based teaching platforms have become so sophisticated that students can easily be as engaged as they are in physical classes, if not more so.

Prospective online students are drawn to local schools and are skewing younger, one report discovers.

Prospective online students are drawn to local schools and are skewing younger, one report discovers.

Prospective online students are skewing younger, tend to enroll in local institutions and put a program’s cost and reputation at the top of their priority list, according to a recent survey.

Those and other findings are outlined in “Online College Students,” a July report by Aslanian Market Research and the Learning House, a company that helps colleges ​and universities improve their online degree programs. The report, in its fourth year, surveyed about​ 1,500 graduate and undergraduate students enrolled, recently enrolled or about to be enrolled in online programs in spring 2015.

Among the most surprising findings in the report, authors say, is the shifting age of online students. While distance education students are often assumed to be older, the report found the popularity of online undergraduate programs is growing among those under 25.

 Thirty-four percent of undergraduate online students were under the age of 25 this spring,​ up from 25 percent in 2012, according to the report.

The percentage of online graduate students under 25 also grew, jumping from 13 percent in 2012 to 19 percent this year.​ Authors say these changes could be due to two factors: the economic pressure to work while going to school and increasing familiarity with online courses.

Students “have had online courses in their background because many high schools now require an online course,” says study author Carol Aslanian, senior vice president of Aslanian Market Research. “If they have started college and are going back, many colleges have them. They are going to be groomed to appreciate it.”

While online students can in theory enroll in any institution, most are drawn to local programs offered by​ schools they know. Half of online students live within 50 miles of their campus and 65 percent live within 100 miles, the report found.

That’s not too surprising to Joel Hartman, vice provost for​ ​information technologies and resources at the University of Central Florida, who says most universities successfully recruit online students within the geographic areas they serve.

“We do very well,” says Hartman, who also serves as chief information officer. ​”It’s how we got to have 38 percent of our credit hours generated online.”

When it comes to choosing an online program, the report found that prospective students put cost at the top of their priority list. Forty-five percent of respondents said they selected the most inexpensive institution out of their options, up from 30 percent the year before.

Two-thirds of students did not receive a scholarship when they enrolled in their online program.

[Find out how to decipher the true cost of your online degree.]

Cost “seems to be an increasing concern,” says Dave Clinefelter, ​report author and chief academic officer at Learning House.

Reputation was the second most important decision-making factor after cost, although a significant percentage of students also considered whether the institution was recognized as high quality, the number of hours required for study each week and whether ​there were set ​class meeting times.

Once again, the report found women to be more highly represented in online programs than men. At the undergraduate level, 70 percent of students were women. Among graduate students, 72 percent of students were female.

But more women are in higher education in general, ​Aslanian says. Women represented ​56 percent of undergraduates in fall 2013 and 59 percent of graduate students, according to a May 2016 report ​by the National Center for Education Statistics. ​

The percentage of female online students could also be the result of the kind of careers women pursue, Aslanian says.

“A lot of the professions for which you need further education – health, social services, education – they are dominated by women,” she says. “Many men may go into business and on their own. The women-oriented employment fields require more education.”

While the report highlights various trends in student preferences, Clinefelter is quick to point out that online students are split on many issues, from how often they would like to engage with a faculty member to their tolerance for synchronous, or live, courses.

[Determine whether your online program is accredited.]

While it’s easy to stereotype, he says, “these students are not all alike in a variety of ways.”