Even during a crisis, colleges abuse their economic and reputational privileges

People that were not placed into Gymnasium at age 8 are set on a course where, once they turn 18, do not get to go free Uni; they simply are not allowed to go to Uni at all!

Also the problem of cost of living while studying isn't exactly trivial. Accommodation, food and participating in general student life all are things that cost a lot of money. You will need at least 1k-1.5k EUR net per month, which means earning 2k or more gross. That's not exactly easy to do on the side, since most degree programmes are full-time only; you are expected to put your 40 hours a week towards the degree and not some other job to finance yourself.

When polled, 87% of students answered that they were dependent on financial support from their parents and 12% received state-sponsored loans [1].

So let's not kid ourselves. The question of whether you will go to Uni or not, in Germany, also depends to a very large degree on who and how wealthy your parents are.

Statistically speaking, your chance to go to Uni is 27% if your parents are blue collar workers. It is 79% if your parents also hold academic degrees. If your parents have no professional training at all, the probability is 12%. [2]

So maybe we should focus on our own issues first ;)

[1] https://www.sueddeutsche.de/bildung/studienfinanzierung-so-k...

[2] https://www.forschung-und-lehre.de/lehre/nichtakademiker-kna...

I think it's due to the deeply individualist mentality you see in America.

What you described is called the "Just World" fallacy - you get what you deserve. Or a more modern term, "I got mine."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

The US founders, the Pilgrims, were (religious) puritans, and that mindset carries on until today.

> you milk your youth

Politicians and the oligarchy are very concerned about personal moral hazard, not so much about corporate moral hazard. So youth get non-dischargeable student debt, and companies get bailouts. (Since most bills are written by lobbyists, not elected officials, it would be very interesting to see who wrote that education bill.)

How deep is the fear of personal moral hazard? There were bread riots and Washington, DC was occupied by rioters in the Great Depression after Washington refused to provide aid in case, "everybody would just stop farming."

As Warren Buffett said, "[The war between the poor and rich in America is over. You lost.]" (Note that he is one of the few billionaires who has gone on record about this, because he knows there's a problem with 15% capital gains tax rate for investors like him, when employees like his secretary pay around 40%.)

> you come out of your education and have 100k in debt.

Oh, and it's 200k in school debt, and no health care. And buy a car if you want to get around. Rock on!

More seriously, the US lacks a coherent policy on anything (healthcare, education, infrastructure, etc.) So it's an Oliver Twist-style existence for the bottom 99%.

You can probably use this search filter to find intelligent discussion about US politics, "no policy" plus "US" and your favorite topic. This isn't a Trump problem, it's a "too many lawyers in Washington" problem.

If you want to read astonishing truthfulness by politicians today, read anything by top Malaysian leader, Dr. Mahathir, or the investor Tan Teng Boo:

https://www.thesundaily.my/business/foreigners-exremely-caut...

How's that for transparency and honesty? Every conversation with those two is a roadmap for progress for their country. So it is possible.

E.g. the EU has been critising Germany's early 'tracking' on one or the other path for decades, some changes have taken place with a new school type introduced a few years ago, but getting schools/cities/.. to switch to this has been an uphill battle. While German students are expected to finance themselves, those from low income families get financial support (a loan with very favourable terms that only has to be paid back if the student reaches a certain income threshold after their studies). The problem that low socio-economic background youth don't study is not primarily a financial issue; much more a matter of aspirations and the tracking you mention. There are ways to switch tracks but it's not the most obvious choice for students.

But it's also a matter of what is prioritised: in Germany (and Austria, Denmark, ...) vocational education is much more important and also much more respectable than in most other countries. What is on each track also differs, e.g. in Germany you could study IT/software development etc or you could do most of these also on a vocational track and most often right away have a job afterwards. Nursing is in Germany a vocational profession, in the UK you'd pursue a bachelor's at a university for it. In Spain many youth go to university because they don't have any other real options to choose from; and graduates leave university there often with zero practical skills (improving in past years but not easy). Lithuania has a higher education rate that is above 80% and they are actively trying to reduce it as you just can't use that many higher education graduated and need the vocational professionals as well.

So, complex issue. Not everyone needs to have a higher education degree (and much less does everyone want one). Too few or too many tertiary graduates is both not ideal. But do students need to end up with debt around 100k (US) or even just 30k (UK) if they choose tertiary studies? I don't think so.