How Europe is Failing

The Economist has a fabulous article, not only of personal interest to me, as someone who’s enrolled in Germany’s eccentric education system, but also to others for a peek at another reason, not just economics or birth rate related, that Europe is quickly sliding into irrelevance:

How Europe fails its young

THOSE Europeans who are tempted, in the light of the dismal scenes in New Orleans this fortnight, to downgrade the American challenge should meditate on one word: universities. Five years ago in Lisbon European officials proclaimed their intention to become the world’s premier “knowledge economy”Â? by 2010. The thinking behind this grand declaration made sense of a sort: Europe’s only chance of preserving its living standards lies in working smarter than its competitors rather than harder or cheaper. But Europe’s failing higher-education system poses a lethal threat to this ambition.

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But, as our survey of higher education explains, since the second world war Europe has progressively surrendered its lead in higher education to the United States. America boasts 17 of the world’s top 20 universities, according to a widely used global ranking by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. American universities currently employ 70% of the world’s Nobel prize-winners, 30% of the world’s output of articles on science and engineering, and 44% of the most frequently cited articles. No wonder developing countries now look to America rather than Europe for a model for higher education.

And in what has to be the most fabulous response to an argument Chirol has heard about 10 million times:

The standard European retort is that if people have to pay for higher education, it will become the monopoly of the rich. But spending on higher education in Europe is highly regressive (more middle-class students go to university than working-class ones). And higher education is hardly a monopoly of the rich in America: a third of undergraduates come from racial minorities, and about a quarter come from families with incomes below the poverty line. The government certainly has a responsibility to help students to borrow against their future incomes. But student fees offer the best chance of pumping more resources into higher education. They also offer the best chance of combining equity with excellence

A few years ago, the EU held a summit in Italy and agreed to harmonize their education systems so that they all offer the same degrees, i.e. a bachelors, then masters, then Phd. Since then they have all been working on it. In Germany, the Universities have already begun implementing it with some further along than others. Many of the biggest programs have already switched with the smaller one not yet changed over. Additionally, the system has to be phased out so most programs aren’t accepting people into the “old degrees” anymore, though Chirol was an exception.

However, at least in Germany, this token change of system doesn’t quite mean as much as one would think., The Germans, those who qualify for University as their system divides up students at various young ages, go to high school for 5 years and then apply to University. They then, under hte old system, get a Magister which is a relic of the middle ages and is essentially a ~4 to ~5 year degree equivalent to our Masters. That degree is broken up into the Grundstudium (first two years of study) and the Hauptstudium (last two years). Unlike in the American system, you study only your majors. There are no core classes. You must either have 2 majors or 1 major and 2 minors. Thus the Grundstudium magically becomes a Bachelors and the Hauptstudium the Masters. This in essence accomplishes little because one can’t get a Bachelors in X and a Masters in Y, it’s virtually impossible, thus sending Chirol for example, back to square 1.

Additionally, Germany has been ammending its immigration laws to more easily allow for foreign professors and researches to stay longer, even after their teaching or studying is up, i.e. to allow them to stay and contribute to Germany. This has been an issue in the past insofar as Germany’s attracting the lower middle class and working class of other countries. There are programs whereby foreign students come and study things such as Water Resource Management, Waste management etc. Thus, they come only in order to leave again, essentially taking advantage of the system and contributing nothing. Germany’s schools are also spartan by American standards, all being composed of aging blocks of concrete, not so dissimilar from Soviet style concrete squares. They offer little technology to their students (comparitively), and little service. Offices are only open a few hours a day a few days a week for example. Much of this all derives from the problem of being state funded. But at the end of the day, as the Economist article points out, the best and the brightest will continue going to the United States, Europe will continue to get the b-team and there aren’t many signs of this changing anytime soon.