It turns out that the United States may be losing out on yet another international education comparison. Hans Bader [1], writing in the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Open Markets blog, asserts that “college graduates in England and France have less student loan debt.”
“Tuition is lower there,” he claims. “Per capita expenditures are lower at their elite schools.”
“France and England spend much less on physical plant for colleges and universities. Faculty salaries don’t get as high there.” Maybe they’re onto something.
“The buildings at my French-born wife’s alma mater don’t look very impressive, although she studied and learned a lot there. If a French university outwardly looks more like a high school than a Harvard, that’s OK with them. What matters to them is the learning that takes place within, not whether it looks like a college marketer’s movie-set image of what a university should look like. French students also study a lot more than American students, so they may be more accustomed to not having spare time (something that may help prepare them to have kids after they graduate, since parents of young children have little free time).”
Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia [2].
If you would like to comment on this article, e-mail mal.kline@academia.org [3].