I don't believe I have talked about the school system here. I am, in school though and it may be interesting to explain how the Dutch school system differs a bit from a typical American university.

For most classes you only have one assignment, a ten to twelve page paper at the end of a class. I am in the midst of writing my three right now. They want you to be comprehensive, I mean you have been preparing and learning the whole semester for it. The professors grade you on a scale from 1 to 10. 1 is the lowest and 10 is the highest. I have heard that it is very atypical to get a 10 and that shooting for a 6 (passing) or above is a common goal. I believe that an 8 transfers back to the States as an A, though there has been debate about this, so I can not say for sure.

The Dutch pay right around 1500 to 2000 euros, I believe, for school each year and most Dutch students that I took class with were upset about paying for 60 euro readers... Back in the states some spend up to 30,000 dollars a year on their universities and probably anywhere from 300 to 500 dollars on books. I don't know, I think that the Dutch have something going for them as far as access to the university goes. The only contested idea that I have heard was from my sexuality and culture teacher and that was that American students don't take school for granted because they are paying so much whereas Dutch students may have less of an appreciation for it. I haven't personally seen this mainly because most of the Dutch students in my classes are very intelligent and seem hardworking.