I have a friend who is the head of the Modern History Department at a major German University. He and I have discussed this topic at length. His firm opinion is that the U.S. University system is superior in almost every respect except perhaps training university research professors. He formed this opinion while performing a sabbatical at an American East Coast private university. After he returned, he noted that he had never worked so hard in his life. American students demanded that he be prepared and challenged what he said, something that never happens in a German University. I could go on, but I consider his views to be the best word on the subject that I have come across.
Higher education - That’s a different story all together.
Ultimately it is the consumer that places demands and has power through purchase decisions while under enormous pressure to finish as quickly as possible in the US system that makes it work.
In a socialist system there is little incentive to get through quickly and indeed the concept of the career-student is foreign in the US because you’re paying for the fun. A school like the THD, now TUD in Darmstadt receives their money from the state and the students are happy if they get in because you have a government that sets caps on how many will go to school each year with specific degrees and there is a shortage of slots. Forget any concept of competition or free market setting how many will enter a specific field, forget a consumer that is paying for a service and is looking at price-value, forget a school that is looking to sell themselves because students equate to revenue. In the German system the school will get its money, no matter what. The professors will keep their jobs, no matter what. The student hardly pays and is less concerned with getting through it as fast as possible.
It is not without reason why the Germans are far behind in non-traditional education online. Why should a school offer something like this in the German system, and thinking the way bureaucrats do? Why did German Universities not even offer degrees in computer programming or information’s systems management when in the early 80s US schools were pumping them out by the thousands every semester? Capitalism works!
Our higher education system is marked with a high degree of free market activity, while the Germans retain a much greater state and non-competitive system in their higher education. Neither the students nor the schools are under performance pressure as in the US. -IMHO