SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Günther, you were in the last year of your studies and during your doctoral thesis at the university in Berkeley. How much did you have to pay there?
Oliver Gunther:
Nothing at all - but only because I was a scholarship holder of the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes and the foundation has paid the fees. As a student I did an internship at Hewlett Packard in Silicon Valley. For me as a young computer scientist, of course, the stay in the US was the greatest. That's why I applied for the final year at Stanford and Berkeley and could have started at both universities.
Stanford took around $ 16,000 for a year back in the 1980s, and Berkeley was a bit cheaper at $ 10,000. Then there was a cost of living of about $ 12,000 - as I said, in my case, all the Studienstiftung paid. Otherwise I would not have been able to stay there.
MIRROR ONLINE:
Compared to today's tuition fees that was still a real bargain.
Günther:
That's right, meanwhile, the price-performance ratio at some US universities is completely out of control. I'm wondering if a Master of Engineering at MIT is really worth $ 50,000 or an MBA even $ 80,000. In my opinion, the American friends have lost their fortunes in some places. What does that help me with, if I end up with a nice degree and a huge mountain of debt, which I can never pay anymore?
MIRROR ONLINE:
Nevertheless, many cases have now flown up, in which rich parents should have bought their children with a lot of money a place at elite colleges. Why did the parents do that?
Günther:
Oh, humanely I can understand that in part already. As a father or mother, one usually has the goal of enabling one's own children to live as well as possible. A prestigious education may be part of this, and if you then have money without end, that may even be understandable. However, I have no sympathy for breaking laws, using bribery and corruption. The authorities now have to take action, also in the interests of the universities.
more on the subject
MIRROR ONLINE:
In what way?
Günther:
The universities themselves have an interest in finding good students and not just to train the people with the most money. In the past, for example, it was often the case that graduates preferred children to study. That has become a little less, even if the alumni associations still play a big role. In fact, this should be part of the motivation of such parents: that their children as students and graduates later also among the influential networks of the respective universities.
MIRROR ONLINE:
Does such a development threaten us in Germany as well?
Günther:
No, I do not see that. We have rather the opposite situation: that there is a very good education with master and doctorate without tuition fees. I think that's right. In the US, we have seen blatant aberrations, in England a similar trend is emerging. In Germany, we can actually serve as a model for another university policy - and fill a gap in the market with study programs in English. In Potsdam, we have converted a quarter of the Master's programs to English. We are targeting international students who do not want to borrow tens of thousands of dollars to study in the USA. And then the parents do not have to turn crooked things to get a place to study.