With my research, I found out that European universities are going through budgetary problems just like American universities did before the privatization and higher tuition costs. Especially now, the financial crisis in Europe is pushing governments to adopt budget cuts, of which education is an apparent victim. I am curious as to how European institutions will deal with lack of public funding. These two cultures, European and American, are different in that American culture promotes individualism further than Europeans do; this is most apparent in education where students are to fend for themselves in the US while European students benefit from publicly funded education. In Seeking New Resources for European Universities, it is argued that increasing tuition costs is out of the question for most European universities because of egalitarian reasons. It brings up fundraising as an alternate way to make up for loss of public funding. In Comparing the German and American Systems, Robert Locke talks about the evolution of American education system, citing lack of state guidance, which he claims was new to Americans. My research seems to have shifted my topic to the evolution of American higher education system. I am curious about the reasons for how it turned out.

1) Mora, Jose-Gines, and Michael Nugent. "Seeking New Resources For European Universities: The Example Of Fund-Raising In The US." European Journal Of Education 33.1 (1998): 113. Academic Search Premier. Web. 30 Sept. 2012. http://ehis.ebscohost.com.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/ehost/detail?vid=4&hid=103&sid=bfc072b5-c525-4960-b39b-07c7b59adebf%40sessionmgr114&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=373137

2)Locke, Robert R. "Comparing The German And American Systems." Business History Review 82.2 (2008): 336-342. Academic Search Premier. Web. 30 Sept. 2012.
http://ehis.ebscohost.com.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=bfc072b5-c525-4960-b39b-07c7b59adebf%40sessionmgr114&vid=8&hid=103

American and European Higher Education

I am interested in the structural and cultural differences between European and American higher education. After finding out about American higher education system with its ever-increasing tuition rates and its perks that only benefit the ones owning the capital, investors, the difference between the two systems struck me. Europe endorsed an education system based on government funding while the federal government have been encouraging privatization in America for decades now. What is striking is that the culture of individualism of the New World and the state centered system of the Old World led to two distinct cultures of higher education. Even though they can both be termed as western, they are significantly different than each other. Public funded education is still the norm in Europe while we are made to pay loans that take a lifetime to payback. I feel (just feel because I haven't done the necessary research to know yet), the individualistic culture of America corrupted the very concept of higher education by letting the corporate world creep into the education system. With their 'profit at all costs' attitude, banks are turning universities into diploma mills where quality of education is secondary to the revenue. The belief that private capital should take over the burden of education from the state, turned schools into companies that fraud both the students and the state they claim to be helping out. Another thing to note is the matter of lobbying; the fact that it is illegal in the EU explains why the corporate world could not take over the universities there. I don't know if this will be my topic for my paper yet but the contrast between the two western cultures is intriguing.