Robert J Carpenter wrote:
"Gregory Morrow" wrote July 29, 2005

French Family Values

By PAUL KRUGMAN

"Americans tend to believe that we do everything better than anyone
else.
That belief makes it hard for us to learn from others.

I hope I have these details correct.

One thing left out of the list is that higher education in France is
much less expensive than the USA ... if you succeed at the entrance
exams. It doesn't threaten to bankrupt parents. Entrance to the
Grande Ecole system is VERY much a meritocracy. One takes two or
three years of post-high-school courses before sitting for the
entrance exams (2 days) for the Grandes Ecoles of one's choice. These
preparitory courses roughly correspond to the lower division in US
universities. The G.E. course itself typically lasts three years so
graduation is 5 or 6 years after high school graduation. Once in a
G.E., there seems to be a high likelyhood of graduation (sorta like
Harvard or MIT).

Isn't there a lot of "tracking" of students early in their school
career (say, from the early teens on) in Europe? The best students are
encouraged to take the harder classes, sit for the exams, etc., while
other students are encouraged to do "vocational/technical" things
instead?

While that's true in the US as well, here there's an undercurrent of
"everyone should go to college", even if it's a two-year community
college, and career paths not involving the academic system are
looked down upon, sometimes.

Here in the US (Canada too), we also provide other inducements (some
controversial) to encourage students into higher education: grants,
low-interest loans, affirmative action, etc. I rarely hear about these
things in the context of the European educational system; perhaps
someone
can fill me in.


There is an alternative "easy in, easy to flunk out" system. I don't
know anyone who went that route.

Higher education in France is not a form of respectable unemployment
as we find in some lesser US liberal arts colleges.

I don't know about France, but I did read a news story about certain
German students who stayed in school (at a low cost to them), taking
classes for years, but not really making progress to a degree....