Friday, May 4, 2012
Free education that costs too much Part 2 of 2
In almost all, well developed countries, education is not free of charge, but they have great scholarship programs. Let's take US for an example. A student who graduated from an American high school, can get many scholarships; from sports, to doing voluntary work in the community, having decent grades, simply by choosing to go to a university with in his or her state and more. Although education in the US is very expensive with this scholarship system students who are good enough to get a degree, usually does, of course their family will have to support them in someway. In Turkey we have free education, or do we? Lets think this through for a second, your family sends you and therefore pays for a private school (called 'DERSHANE' in Turkish) through almost 4 years of high school, than if your family really wants you to go to university they pay for private lessons, on the subjects that you are week for the university exam, which are extremely expensive. That is not it, after all that money and afford spend you go to university than you pay tuition for each semester, and when you add all these up, and also think about the quality of the education that is given, its a little rediciouls to think you are getting a free education. A few weeks ago a nano technology center, first ever in Turkey, was found in the Bilkent University. What is nano technology? That is not important what is important is that its expensive and the reason Bilkent University found the first nano technology center in Turkey is because its a non-profit private school just like all the other private school in Turkey that means the money collected from students are spend for the students. My point here is simple, theoric departments such as teaching, literature or political science can be free of charge depending on the need of the country. But it is not psychically possible to have engineering, medicine and technology departments all over the country free of charge and to give quality education at the same time.
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One single, but significant problem with that though... I will use UK as an example, which may also be relevant for the USA. All universities in the UK ask for tuition fees, no less than £9000 a year for an undergraduate student. So far, students who cannot afford this were able to cover this amount through bank loans, and they paid back upon graduation. Fair enough...
ReplyDeleteBut, recent crisis is forcing banks to limit their loans for people who cannot (potentially) afford paying back. If you come from a poor family, and if you are not 'intelligent' enough (it is again these institutions that define 'intelligence') than you are not eligible for a bank loan. Guess what, poor remains poor... For generations... From a historical viewpoint, this has always been the case after big crisis, and especially after and before the wars.
Have you ever investigated the system in Germany? The tuition fees in German universities are affordable, and the quality is okay as well. How do you think they managed this?