University Sues Student For Graduating Early 232
"A student who attended a private German economics and business university is being sued by the school because he finished his degree too quickly. Marcel Pohl finished 60 exams in 20 months, completing 11 semesters worth of work in only 3. The school says it is due an extra €3,000 for lost income because, "its fees are the total price for the studies, independent of how long the studies last." "When I got the lawsuit, I thought it couldn't be true. Performance is supposed to be worth something," Pohl said.
Re:A bit late methinks (Score:5, Informative)
Not sure about Germany, but around here they charge by the credit hour for part time (typically under 12 credit hours per semester), and anything considered "full time" (12+ credits/semester) is under a flat "full time" tuition rate. However, at least at my college, we had to get special permission to take more than 18 credits per semester (15 was considered normal, but I know this varies a lot from college to college). I wanted to get my degree is four semesters, but my advisor made me do it in six (eight is the "ideal" for a four-year degree).
No course work? (Score:5, Informative)
Seems odd to me that one could get both bachelors and masters degrees from a university solely by passing a set of exams. In other words, there was no course work required (though it sounds like he did have to complete an internship). A big part of university should be learning how research and think critically - then apply both to the world around you. Doesn't seem like much of that was happening here. This smells like a for-profit diploma mill.
I can't say that I feel sorry that a school that has likely been gaming the education world got gamed by a few students.
Re:Fee Structure (Score:5, Informative)
Re:A bit late methinks (Score:5, Informative)
He went to a private university, which can charge a lot more. How much you pay for education also depends on the state you're in. My state (NRW) was ruled by the anti-tuition SPD/Greens, then switched to a tuition model in 2005 under the new CDU/FDP government and then in 2010 abolished tuition again, when the SPD and the Greens returned. Still, there are some fees that are not considered tuition that you still have to pay, but that amounts to about 200 € per semester (e.g. a mandatory public transport ticket). Even tuition is usually only 250 €, 500 € or 1000 € per semester in publicly funded universities.
Healthcare isn't free at all, it's just that health insurance is mandatory and also part of the welfare here. There are some corner cases where you can end up without healthcare at all, e.g. when you're self-employed.
Re:why not go all the way and say for X cash you g (Score:4, Informative)
"Consider that in general private education regularly has better results at dramatically less cost "
That's not actually true. It's not even close to true if you remove the schools that are 25k+per year out of the equation.
AS it turns out, Home school 'success' are the minority; however home school institution remove many home schools from there number as 'religious schools' only keeping the success stories.
"Consider that home schooling, when successful, typically takes only a couple of hours per day instead of six or eight - dramatically better efficiency."
No one schooling for only 2 hours a day is actually learning what they should. under 4 is a red flag. What is happening is they are doing the bare min,. easy stuff and not being challenged.
"Consider that, according to an article I read yesterday, the average hourly pay of a teacher in the US is more than the average architect or nurse, with generally much better benefits."
That's simply not true.
I knwo teachers and Nurse, the starting rate for a nurse is 12-20K higher then teachers.
I don't know why your com[paring Africa teaching to america. There not even close to the same.
"Consider that poor parents in the inner city are the most vocal advocates of voucher systems"
ah yes, we should all listen to little educated loud people. That makes sense~
They don't want vouchers, they want better education. Fix the schools.
"What does that tell you about 'free' public education?"
Its also produces some of the best minds in the world.
Countries that have an actually country level education program do quite well.
What you post tells me is that you don't know how to think rationally.
It's incorrect information, anecdotes, fallacies,
Re:The Local (Score:4, Informative)
My German is a little rusty, but none of these articles seem to address at all how students typically pay, and whether the tuition/credit-hour distinction is all that relevant. On the other hand, since the Prorector they got to comment said something as stupid as, (loosely) - "If you drink a Coke twice as fast, you don't get to pay half price," and invokes the "not fair to other students" approach, it doesn't sound like the school has a particularly strong case.
Re:A bit late methinks (Score:4, Informative)
All depends upon what they cram into each of those credit hours. 18 hours as an undergraduate left all sorts of spare time, and I knew a few that were taking 21-24 credit hours. 13 hours of graduate classes damn near killed me. 60 hours of various basket and matt weaving courses a week might get a trifle boring. 60 hours of multi-variable partial differential equations, related topics, and applied physics/engineering courses will be slightly harder to pass, if not impossible, if the material is not already known to you.
2 things, I'm not trying to be insulting here - at my school, at least, every undergraduate hour was expected to require 1-2 hours per week of study for the target student to pass with a reasonable grade. Graduate level courses, on the other hand, required 5-8 hours each week. A slight difference, which is why an average full time graduate student usually only took 2 classes per semester with independent study time (ie, thesis/dissertation work) for the remaining hours to get to 9 hours.