Patty

You have my sympathy Lorna. My son should have 2 years left in the system and believe me......I am counting down the time left !! This morning there was a news item on the bbc and they were discussing that Uni in Germany is free. Alot of Americans go there and the courses are in English. So my next job is to convince son .....

Seriously though - like you I have no idea about the end of year report and the school calendar for the next year (slight splutter here - the words school +calendar+next year brings me out in a coughing fit )

37100

I read about that, too. Scottish uni's are also free.

Juvefan

Italian unis are free too.

MarkRD

eh???? NO!

Sancho

Some German universities are pretty good too.

QS World University Rankings® 2014/15 | Top Universities

Juvefan

I heard you only pay for text books, same as scotland, germany, finland, france,
government unis.. not private ones.

MarkRD

No, definitely not the case in Italy. There are of course grants, concessions etc. for low income families and such (cough, cough). Me & my wife are both earning and so we paid the full whack for fees for our (only) child.

Some unis also give small grants for merit, which I don't agree with at all.

37100

Why not? Son number 1 got through Uni on bursaries for merit. He work damned hard to qualify.

Turin Poly, where son 2 went certainly isn't free! But at least there where no books written by professors to buy.

MarkRD

Good for him, and I'm sure he deserved it, but hard work doesn't always mean top marks, and top marks don't always mean hard work, or even intelligence.

My opinion.

Juvefan

I have read that unis cost about 1000 euros a year in the public unis.

still WAYYY cheaper than usa or the UK.

so maybe not FREE, but less than 2000 euros a year.. is pretty much free.

Sancho

This is untrue.

37100

Turin cost us €3000 a year plus registration, exam, diploma fees etc. You name it and there was an extra fee for it. Cheaper than the UK, yes, but wages as way lower here.

Lorna at Vicenza

Chloe's only been at liceo for one year and I'm already sick of paying out.
When I had that row with the Head about her collecting everybody's money and paying it back to the school through the bank or PO and she said "we count a lot on parents' contributions", she seemed surprised and amazed at my indignant and disgruntled reply that she already has my parent contribution to the tune of 181.00 Euro just for so called registration fees.
I'm paying for her ECDL (European Computer Driving Licence) which is an obligatory part of her curriculum ..... obligatory but I'm paying. I knew this. What I didn't know and none of us were told, is that if she fails one of the exams, a resit is 25 Euro. She passed section one with flying colours - computer basics. So did most of her classmates. Section 2 was all about Excel which teens just don't use. The prick IT teacher only did one lesson
before the exam and left all the kids in a panic. I downloaded something similar to Excel for Dummies for Chloe. Students in the exam are allowed 9 mistakes. Any more than 9 and it's an immediate fail. Chloe made exactly 9 mistakes. She just scraped through but, a pass is a pass. A whole third of her class failed.

37100

You also have to take into account the length of time needed for a degree here - 5 yrs plus, for many UNIs, attack you least 6 months for the preparation of your thesis.

Lorna at Vicenza

Happy school holidays.

My kids' happiness could well depend on their school reports, but seeing as I still have no idea when I'll get them, they have a few days or weeks of pure relaxation.