... and France's first university on the Shanghai Jiao Tong list: about 40. And it goes down from there, probably in large part because its universities are underfunded, like most of Europe's.
Free from the students perspective is actually a net gain for society because a better educated general public benefits everybody, not just the students.
The question is what happens on the margins and whether there are enough university slots for everyone who wants to go. In the U.S., there basically are, especially when one takes into the community college -> four year path. From what I understand, in most of Europe this is a continual problem.
I think your example does more to prove my point than disprove it.
There are plenty of American Universities below position 40 on that list. I also doubt that if France would suddenly start to charge its students a huge tuition fee that the scores would go up dramatically.
Given the size of the respective economies of France and the US it is actually surprising to see them in the top 40, I would never have expected that, if tuition were the secret then they should have been near position 100 or lower.
The first 39 slots are divided between the US, Japan, England, Canada and Switzerland.
... and France's first university on the Shanghai Jiao Tong list: about 40. And it goes down from there, probably in large part because its universities are underfunded, like most of Europe's.
Free from the students perspective is actually a net gain for society because a better educated general public benefits everybody, not just the students.
The question is what happens on the margins and whether there are enough university slots for everyone who wants to go. In the U.S., there basically are, especially when one takes into the community college -> four year path. From what I understand, in most of Europe this is a continual problem.
I think your example does more to prove my point than disprove it.