Polish or American Education?

To answer your original question, it's 36.

I never said that America has ALL the top unis - I said that America has more top schools than any other country and the EU, according to various rankings,


No employer interviewing a candidate cares or asks how many nobels their uni won, how many rhodes scholars attended, etc. And University of Chicago has the most nobel prize winners even though its a tiny school of around 2k students. It also has the highest suicide rate which some correlate with the extremely competitive nature and elite standards.

Only if you count unofficial ones, that is people who had already won the Nobel prize before attending the University. Officially, they come in at around number 4 - still pretty impressive. But there are apparently 16,000 students, not 2,000.

...and almost all of them are unaffordable for regular folks. You either have to be very rich, know a few important people, or have landed one of the increasingly rare scholarships. I visited Stanford the other day and there were hardly any locals on the campus. Mostly Asians, and pretty much all of them from China. They seem to be the only ones nowadays who can afford the $60K+ per year undergraduate student cost. Although Stanford oftentimes gives generous financial aid, I have to admit.

Every college campus is like that from the top schools like Stanford and the ivies to even average ones like DePaul and Loyola around me. The better the school the bigger the percent of Asian kids esp from China esp at schools in urban areas

Not true. Depends who you are and how hard you try. If you're black or Latino you can safely assume you're getting a scholarship even with mediocre grades and test scores. It use to be for Asians too but as with Stanford, theyre now making up a bigger and bigger chunk of the student population. It's the same in my mba program. I dont know how these kids got in. Last semester I had the misfortune of having a Chinese kid in my group. He barely spoke any English and couldn't contribute at all. I literally had to write out his presentation for him. If i didn't do that, my grade would suffer and if my grade suffers I can lose my grant.. I'm willing to bet that the kids family likely gave the uni a huge donation so he could get in. I dont see any other way a kid couldve scored high enough on the gmat or gre to get into a top school if he reads and writes English at a 4th grade level. And unlike the majority of mba students, he doesn't work. Not part time or full time, yet he still contributed next to nothing.

Which brings me to my next point. If i was poor id still get a grant. My mba program costs me way less than the 'sticker price and it was because of merit not skin color or bc my family have them a fat donation or is famous.

And if you're from a household with a low income I believe around 80k you can get government assistance i.e. fafsa and thats open to everyone for both undergrad and graduate level. There's also pell grants and tons of other scholarships and grants. You can get a couple grand for writing a stupid essay on the civil war or tons of other topics. It's just some kids are too lazy to even try

So no, even if you come from a poor white family you can still attend a top.uni. It's much harder than if you were black, Indian, or Latino but there's still plenty of opportunities and scholarships. But if you're ambitious and hard working youll.make it regardless of your skin color and your families earnings.

If i managed to get a scholarship and pay the rest of my undergrad by waiting tables, delivering pizzas, and later becoming a commodity broker - so can anyone. Granted it took me almost 6 years but I graduated with ZERO student debt which is almost unheard of. And I'm not some genius. My act composite was a 31 putting me in the top 7% or whatever it was but that's actually on the low end for people applying to ivy leagues and other top schools. On my gmat I got a 690 which isnt even at or above the 700 'magic number' yet I not only got into one of the best mba programs in the country but I got a fat grant where the only stipulation is I maintain a 3.0 gpa.

I'm not so sure about that. If I recall correctly grants and scholarship recipients are mostly white; around 70%. Here, found an older source...

npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=134623124

How can a university be good if it lets in students who don't even understand the language?

@TheOther

That's because it's mostly white people who attend college. Blacks and Latinos are a minority in colleges hence numerically they get less scholarships

@kaprys
Money. I doubt trump was Wharton business school material but his name and money got him in. Same with all the celebrity kids attending brown

Yeah, so people buy their degrees.
How does it make it a good university?

Latino/ Hispanic numbers have been growing quickly in recent years, so the statistics for scholarships and grants should reflect that. Do they?


I assume you mean that this is due to the fact that whites are still the majority in the US. Because in 2014 the rate of college enrollment directly out of high school was 68% for white students, 63% for black students and 62% for Hispanic students.

Yes but blacks are 13% of us population. So that 60% of whites is going to have 3x 4x as many people as 60% of blacks. Scholarships, financial aid, grants are all tracked separately.

@kaprys
Because the ones that dont buy their degrees, the majority, balance if out

Sorry, I don't buy it.
How do I tell the difference?
I bet the diploma doesn't show it.
I have a friend who graduated from an Ivy League university (or whatever it's called) but that's one of the most hard working people I know. I just can't imagine that person studied with people who basically paid to get enrolled or that all American universities let people in just because they pay.

Well they do. And actually that was very common in prl especially for degrees in philosophy. It's still very common in Ukraine.

And no the degree wont show it. It won't even show their GPA as thats on the transcript and generally jobs dont even ask for them only other colleges do like if you go from undergrad to grad.

It's mainly limited to famous, connected and wealthy people and also legacy. So if your mom or.dad went to an ivy your chances of getting in are far higher, even when compared to someone who has better grades and test scores. So if my son or daughter isnt that booksmart but still want to go to a good college, they have a very high chance of getting into the schools I went to.

Are you sure what you're saying confirms your statement that American universities are so good?
Think it over.

In my experience,at the very high end,American university's are very good.
On a par with the best European universities.
But for education in general,it is very poor in The USA.
Miles behind Europe.
We Europeans are very aware of the lack of education and backwardness of many Americans.
In a nutshell,American education is much more elitist than in Europe.
We do it too
But try to give the masses a half decent education as well.
For whatever reason,many American children are not getting a proper education.

@kaprys
Yes, because they are ranked as such. You think Oxford or Cambridge or LSE or other top european schools are any different? Some MPs kid whos dad also went there is going to have a much better chance to get in thanks to his or her last name and the prestige it brings.

Money talks, bullsh1t walks

@Miroslaw
The education system in the US namely for grade school and high school is ranked very low, poland is eben ranked higher. Us ranks somewhere in the 30s last time I chrcked. The reason why is because there's so many kids who don't care about education especially in the inner cities. You have tons of kids who don't graduate, drop out, get pregnant, etc. Also the large amount of Hispanic migrants will of course bring down average English scores. It's the huge amount of kids that dont care about school that bring the average way down.

In Europe eben in poor countries and amongst immigrants the kids care about education. Unlike the US, theyre not dropping out, getting pregnant at 16 17, etc. Even kids fron poorer families plan on going to college whereas many kids in us have no intention on going, with many not even planning to graduate high school.

To be fair, although there is a degree of nepotism in Oxbridge, it's far less than you might assume. The fact that your parent is an MP wouldn't be enough to swing it. It's a bit more subtle than that. These are universities that are so well established, each of them being almost nine hundred years old and have such a reputation, that they really don't need to court that kind of prestige. Back in the 19th century it was certainly the case that families were associated with either Oxford or Cambridge and entrance was almost guaranteed regardless of your academic ability. You were awarded third class Honours and it was known as 'a gentleman's degree'. But even that had less to with prestige than with maintaining the social order.

But nowadays there are a lot of students at Oxford and Cambridge who have come through the state schools and are there through a combination of their academic merits and suitability for the course. Oxford and Cambridge interview all applicants to see if they have the degree of critical thinking and intellectual potential preferred, as exam results alone are not considered enough to determine whether they are real Oxbridge material.

Here's a very interesting (but be warned, lengthy) article on the admissions process for Oxford:

timeshighereducation.com/blog/alan-rusbridger-lifting-lid-oxford-admissions

(Sorry had to edit the quote because of the word limit).

All that talk about which university is better is a waste of time. On the world scale and specifically in the US where does Politechnika Warszawska stand? How does Liceum 37 in Warsaw stack up against 40-grand-a-year private schools? I came from both and was employed three days after my arrival here in 1967. My first salary was exactly $10.6k. In today's money and adjusting for inflation that would be over 70 grand. Not bad for a foreigner from a commie country with a diploma that nobody even bothered to read and hardly any English. Add to this the use-by shelf life of any diploma of about 5 years, and the futility of spending big bucks on the super expensive prestigious universities becomes clear - with some notable exceptions like MIT, if you can get in.

Comparing education in the US and Eastern Europe makes no sense without separating the statistics for the whites from the blacks and the Latinos. Take any white country like Poland, drop 5 million blacks on it and you will have the US instantly. Did you know that the murder rate in New Hamphire with all those guns under every bed is actaully lower than in Canada, France, and the UK? It is so because the state is 90% white.

Yet most blacks probably know how to use an ATM - something you were unable to do despite your degree and extensive education.

if you are a troll then its a pretty weird way to spend a sunny Saturday.

@Atch

Yea I know it's a long process. I was going to apply to LSE because around the time I was looking at mba programs my job wanted to relocate me to London. It was an insanely kind application process - nothing like even Stanford or the ivies here. I'm sure Oxford and Cambridge are the same. The cost is what was most attractive though - 9k pounds a year is very cheap compares to the 150k tuition for an mba program. Basically two months at a top us mba would cost the same as a year at a top british school. However, the cost of living is drastically higher and although I love the northern parts of England, I'd go crazy if i had to live in London. Still though I'm happy with my decision. What I worry about though is how my degree will be regarded in poland though. Lse Oxford etc and even sgh will probably be regarded higher than northwestern or even some of the not so famous ivies like Cornell Dartmouth brown etc. I could be wrong but I guess I'll find out. To an American Corp itll be recognized but probably not as much to a polish one. I did my mba as a sort of backup/just in case in the event my businesses fail and I have to return to some corporate consulting or sales management job.

@Rich Mazur
Pretty much... Plus the diversity quotas mean that smart white and asian students will lose their spot and not have the same access to scholarships and grants which will go to a less qualified black, native American or Latino.

You have to understand though too in 1967 the job market was totally different. Back then a person could graduate from high school amd have a good job let alone college. Now the average college grad is happy when they land a 45 to 50k job and many settle for even 38 to 42k jobs. But the students who graduate and have significant work experience, a good network, and actuslly took the time to develop themselves and their careers during college instead of drinking every night will end up getting those higher salary entry level jobs. I had a similar experience for my first job like you and landed a position that was double of what my friends that just graduated were making. A few couldn't even land a decent job even after 6 months of applying. They tended to have no or very limited work experience so employers were hesitant

It's unfortunate it is this way but the students share a lot of the blame. I see all these kids spending time playing frisbee, drinking or protesting trump or whatever instead of studying or working or networking. Then they wonder why they cant get a high paying job and have a hundred grand in debt before theyve even gotten to grad school.

...or study garbage like Black or Women's studies. The latter being especially useful if you want to be a receptionist at a Planned Parenthood murder chamber.

Rich, I can't go along entirely with your dismissal of gender studies at US colleges. While that disagreement may indeed by my particular abnormality, it is a fact that women, women of color in particular, have to be sure been marginalized throughout our history.

Where I do agree with your argument, is that any cause taken to an extreme, invites trouble and can easily morph into a disaster, whereby a job candidate or the like is selected solely because of their gender, color, and ethnicity, rather than their skills.

@Rich Mazur

True... honestly though I dont feel like i learned a whole lot of practical things as an undergrad, with a few exceptions. The most useful stuff was learned working.

I remember I was debating between two schools for mba and I couldn't make a decision so I basically signed up for both, went to the orientations, etc. Well, I went to the first orientation and instead of talking about concentrations, the different classes available, the resources for students, etc the speaker spent almost hour talking about how we should use our mba to help migrants in Europe and build whole foods in the ghettos because there isnt access to quality organic food and how we should attend protests and demonstrations.... I couldn't believe what I was hearing. If the indoctrination already began at orientation I could only imagine what sort of nonsense id have to deal with in class. Thankfully the uni I ended up attending wasnt as bad but like just about every uni in the US, theres virtue signaling snowflakes. Luckily theres very few in my unis graduate level programs

When I look at what is happening in the US and, more specifically, at the universities, I have this queasy feeling that communism, like a monster in a horror movie with no end, is catching up with me and I have no place to run.

And same here in Australia. If a want a commie homosexual i would hire someone from sydney uni.

Yeah, but who would want to work for a bogan in Bankstown? :)

No bogans in bankstown only muslims. I don't live in sydney so who cares, hate the place.

Interesting. When I was in the area last, many people were white catholics. Things must've changed significantly. Haven't been in Oz for a long time though.

Bankstown and surrounding areas are middle east complete with their gangs and so on. They were culturally enriched a long time ago by government policy in that area. You have been away a long time indeed.

Merged:

Polish or American Education?

what do you think?