No it's not that Ronald McDonald Hamburger U, it's a new idea coming out of Germany. Sorry that the article is in German but it's easy enough to translate if you're interested. http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/hamburg-open-online-university-wir-wollen-die-hochschule.680.de.html?dram:article_id=326597
Well, I have read a couple of articles recently about American kids moving to Germany to take advantage of the free higher education. They get their degree, a pretty cool living experience and probably also pick up a fair amount of German language skills. I can think of worse things that someone might do.
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.deutschlandfunk.de%2Fhamburg-open-online-university-wir-wollen-die-hochschule.680.de.html%3Fdram%3Aarticle_id%3D326597&edit-text=&act=url
Indeed, not a bad way to spend some of that excess youth we all find ourselves suffering with in our early 20s. I have an uncle whose favorite higher ed catchphrase is "you'll never get a job with that." Uncle Victor has, at varying points in his life, declared that the universities of every nation except the United States are worthless. Oxford? No way, fancy pants. Have fun eating your Yorkshire pudding because post-graduation you're digging a ditch with your funny talk degree. As a matter of fact, in his opinion there are really only three universities in the US that are worth anything; Penn State, Columbia and Harvard (possibly in that order). I bring this up only because I can imagine him dismissively uttering his favorite phrase had I the audacity to have thought of studying overseas. Let alone in Germany, a place he affectionately refers to as "Hitlerville." I'd tell you what he calls Greece but I don't want to get banned. Ahh, family.
Having taught/tutored some North American students in German, I have encouraged a number of young minds to do just this! Only two have seriously considered doing so and continued to study the German language so as to be adequately prepare to do (at least) their BAs in Germany. Oh, if only a few more students would consider this option!
Well, German taxpayers (like myself) hope of course that many of these American students stay in Germany for at least a few years after graduation. Here is a short report from BBC News (partly) about that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCtqHwjCPOQ The idea is that these people "replace" a German who never was born to begin with. However, Americans are one of the smaller groups of foreign students in Germany. The largest group are Chinese, followed by Russians. By the way, Europe as a whole may have a very high youth unemployment rate, but Germany has a low one. And it's of course even lower for college graduates. Therefore, graduates have a good chance to find a job here. Open universities are nothing new, of course, but it seems that project will be something else. A bit like MOOCs but with two important differences: 1) There will be no real MOOCs, but rather something like "massively open project based learning". And 2) There will be a way to get credits for that project based learning at one of the six public universities in Hamburg. Especially the second point is quite important, in my opinion. But the whole project still is in a very early stage. We will see how it develops. mintaru
