Why the US Has the World’s Best Universities

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#university #college #school

[lilischaarschmidt]

You should mention also the student debt problem, it's becoming harder and harder for the ridiculously expensive education to pay off in the US.

[glennnielsen]

I have had the pleasure of studying in both Europe and the USA. One difference is that in the US you are exposed to practical cases and learn to solve problems. Europe is pure theory.

[Toto-]

One problem that wasn't mentionned here is that culturally, almost every "normal" student is expected to register in a univercity at 17-18 (i live in Belgium). You will very rarely see people who tried a few years "to work in the real world" only to come back to university. It just doesn't happen (almost never)

So basically even if we have no idea what to do we still have to follow the fixed curriculum to get the degree. That + the cheapness of studies makes a LOT of drop offs.

Also yeah 80-90% of teachers at an engineering school comes from the "frat" of that school (not a US frat, more responsable but still). That's just how it is. If you don't you're an outsider

[drewmalhotra]

The total student debtload of the U.S. is 1.77 trillion. This is a drag on the young (and even older) people who cannot buy homes, have children, or start a future. This is all because of the massive amount of tuitions these universities charge. the U.S. Might have the "best" universities, but there are tradeoffs

[nicolasgrinberg]

I am a Canadian researcher who did his undergraduate and master's in Canada and now doing PhD in Europe. I consider to have experienced both cultures. In my view, it's true in general that Europe is seriously lagging behind but the video contains a lot of cliches on european culture they just projected on european academic culture and missed some key weaknesses. For starters, it's not true lazy european academics can simply get a job here by asking the right person. There are no handouts here. Also, salaries is not really a factor in motivating academics. Why would we sacrifice 10+ years of our prime working years living in the poverty line working 60 hours per week doing PhDs and post-docs if in the end we were interested in making the highest salary? Finding any position is extremely difficult so we really don't have the luxury in picking the university offering the highest salary. Believe me I wish that were the case. Most people just take whatever job they are lucky enough to find same as in the US. There's also a problem in definitions. Europe gives more weight to research institutes than universities for the research aspect of academia. The German Max Planck Society and French CNRS are both in Nature's 2023 top 5 research institutes (above stanford) but are not technically universities so don't show up in any university rankings. Other institutes such as the CEA, Pasteur or Francis Crick Institute are incredible but highly specialized so don't show up in many rankings either. I think the biggest weakness is language and funding. US spends 3.5% of GDP in R&D while the EU spends 2.3% with of course some huge regional disparities as northern Europe forming the bulk of R&D spending. The US also has a vast military-industrial complex that invests lots of money in research. Save for France, no EU country really has this type of partnership and it's in only a very limited extent. American universities have a huge advantage in that they get a lot of foreign undergraduate students paying bank to study there in english, the world's lingua franca. Some truly outstanding european universities like KUL, TUM or USaclay will never have this source of revenue since classes aren't taught in english unfortunately.

[richdobbs]

There is a big part where the best universities are the best is because they are ranked as the best. They get the best students because they have the most applicants. They get the best professors because they are the most desirable. They get the largest donations because the best universities There students go on to do great things because they are from the best universities. There is little in the system that actually measures whether these universities actually do good job at teaching students. I would expect that this trend will continue as AI will allow actually education of students to be done without universities, so the value of going to a mediocre or poor university continues to fall.

[texanplayer]

Title should be: Why the US has the world's most expensive universities.
There is no such thing a "better" university. 1+1 is always equal to 2, and wether you learn that at MIT or in the most remote backwater countryside of Siberia makes no difference. The knowledge you acquire will always be the same, wether you spend $80, 000 per year on tuition or not.

The only things that do change are campus benefits (universities may offer more comfortable accomodation, better food at the cafeteria, more sport clubs, class trip options...) and prestige, as well as connections for future careers.

But in no way do the "best" universities in the world offer more knowledge to the degree you are pursuing. Sometimes they even teach you less! I know that because I study astrophysics, and the astrophysics taught at Harvard that I saw online is Kindergarden knowledge compared to what we study in our classes in Germany where we pay less than $300 yearly tuition. No, not $300k, only 300 quid.

If you think you will become some brilliant brain by joining these elite universities, think again. Yeah you will get connections to the elite of society and it will help you a lot in climbing the social ladder to make your access to wealth much easier, no doubt, but you will not be any smarter than others who studied the same things as you at any other university.

[ravichanana]

Choosing which courses one wants to study is a good facility of US universities.

[Ninvisibl]

6:24 Hi, I am from Germany. This happened during my high school ("Oberstufe") years: Our biology teacher was making dangerous claims about masks that weren't true and just wasting the whole lesson (90 mins) ranting about having to wear a mask. I wish I was joking but I am not. And not just one lesson. Every lesson. This was especially a problem because a lot of us students needed those lessons to prepare for our finals! He did make some more strange comments about other topics but mostly him wasting our study time was the problem. I reported him and he only got suspended for a day. A day. Bruh, it did nothing. I was so pissed. I am glad I am in university now and can more or less choose my teachers. Thank goodness!

[Gmx]

I graduated from a bottom tier state university. I could google every answer to my online classes and most of the in person courses gave everyone an a for whatever reason

[samudra_dasgupta]

There is something to be said about the innate "freedom" in US... the very individualistic culture... which makes people work hard and get rewarded... most countries with significant cultural baggage do not have the "freedom" mindset.... this is something nebulous and might also play a role why the US is such an innovation powerhouse

[UmaU-pgmx]

It's so much easier to follow and focus without music

[alongfortheride]

MIT, Stanford, and Caltech are the best. The research and innovation being done there is incredible.

[herbalhealing]

According the Shanghai index Sweden is remarkable high ranked, twice as high as US with half of the resources. Would be interesting to hear your opinion why this is the case.

[c.simmons]

There might be inequality, but not in the traditional sense. Thanks to those large endowments and universities competing for the best students, poor but highly academically qualified students are often able to attend great universities at an extremely low price. From my own experience, there was almost a direct correlation between the ranking of the university and how much I was expected to pay. My parents made me apply to average-at-best local universities while I knew the best opportunity came from big national universities and it ended up that all of my elite picks I got into offered much better deals then the local universities and even slightly better than my still pretty highly ranked flagship in-state university.

[rolfw]

Great commentary, Josh! Admittedly, one drawback of the US system is the cost.. these top schools have yearly tuitions that can exceed $50k.. of course there can be aid and loans but it's still a crazy amount for the non-affluent.

[timnicholls]

Problems also come in how they rank universities. American universities are tailored towards research and development the students are just the income stream to facilitate this and keeping the centre of the crop in there post graduateprograms. Where European universities are more dependent on student outcomes, getting there best students into private sector allowing wider networking for the postgraduates.

[TobiasStarling]

Fundamentally they have the most money. It means they can buy the most advanced equipment but also buy there way into the best science journals and boost there metrics. It cost >£10, 000 to publish your work in the best journals. So the richest will always do better

[ArcaneCannonChey]

Too poor to afford a degree, and not smart enough for a scholarship is where I sit. Thankfully trade schools have really picked recently so I have that going for me.

[mr.normalguy]

But the question is for how long will this be the case?