Universities don’t ask for ID when going into individual classes, what classes are at what hours can be found online in their semester coursebook, and all textbooks are available on annas-archive.
So can any dedicated person with enough time, at the cost of school supplies and maybe a parking pass, just go complete a degree plan?
It’s called auditing a class, pretty much every university has a mechanism for this. Otherwise though you’d get caught pretty quick when it turns out I don’t have a record of you. In some 600+ person weedout class you wouldn’t, but any smaller group lecture you’d get noticed on the 1st day when taking roll for waitlist placement.
In Germany, university is basically free and at least when I went, expensive textbooks weren’t a thing at all. But you still have to have a way to pay for your living expenses, good luck trying to finish a degree when you’re working 20+ hours a week. Of course it can be done (depending on the workload in your specific degree), but once any kind of issue arises (e.g. mental health issues, or even just breaking a leg) there’s a very high risk that you’re going to drop out.
I actually want someone to test this scenario:
Universities don’t ask for ID when going into individual classes, what classes are at what hours can be found online in their semester coursebook, and all textbooks are available on annas-archive.
So can any dedicated person with enough time, at the cost of school supplies and maybe a parking pass, just go complete a degree plan?
It’s called auditing a class, pretty much every university has a mechanism for this. Otherwise though you’d get caught pretty quick when it turns out I don’t have a record of you. In some 600+ person weedout class you wouldn’t, but any smaller group lecture you’d get noticed on the 1st day when taking roll for waitlist placement.
Yeah, I think it could definitely be done, but unfortunately it would be completely not worth the time since you wouldn’t have any degree.
In Germany, university is basically free and at least when I went, expensive textbooks weren’t a thing at all. But you still have to have a way to pay for your living expenses, good luck trying to finish a degree when you’re working 20+ hours a week. Of course it can be done (depending on the workload in your specific degree), but once any kind of issue arises (e.g. mental health issues, or even just breaking a leg) there’s a very high risk that you’re going to drop out.