Also, if you look at Germany, there are "Universität", "Hochschule" - but also "Fachhochschule".
Enrollment is at almost 60% - according to the text on the right that's the share of those who begin a study on the entire population born in the respective year: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/72005/umfrage...
These statistics are from an Economist article, which I can try and track down if I have the time.
Edit: Didn't track down the economist article, but here are sources on US and German enrollment rates:
https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372 reports 19.9 million students. About 6 to 6.2% of the US population.
https://www.uni-bonn.de/studying/international-students/coun... reports 2.8 million germany university students. About 3.4% of the population.
Not to mention that Germany has an extensive professional education system ("Facharbeiter" to "Meister") that he US does not have, so what's the point of only looking at one part of the education system?
I would not even be sure if we are actually counting the same thing on both sides. When the US means "higher education", not all institutions are MIT and Harvard grade. Is all that you counted in your number actually comparable to what Germans mean when we count higher (university) education? See my 2nd paragraph, is some of that kind of education possibly counted in your US number, while in German it is a whole extra branch?
The figures given are for all postsecondary education. I'm not sure why this is a controversial statistic. The younger US population would mean that even if the same percentage of graduating secondary school students go on to university, the US enrollment percentages would still by higher. Coupled with a higher percentage of students that seek university degrees after finishing secondary education (~70% for the US as compared to ~50% for Germany as per some quick Google searches) and a total enrollment figure of twice the rate of Germany is about what one would expect.
Did anybody here dispute the statistics? I must have missed that.
I think you ignored about 2/3 of what I wrote (yes, I edited my comment, if you used a notification service you may have missed it)...
Ultimately I think the crux of the problem is that in the United States a lack of a college education is seen as a serious character flaw. A lot of Americans understand this, but I think it's important to illustrate this for non-Americans. A lack of a college education is seen a such a flaw that it automatically invalidates the prospect of marriage for many people [1]. Democrats (and I count myself among them) often tout the fact that they regularly win most of the vote among college educated voters - how this is supposed to be a positive unless one views the opinions of non-college educated as lesser is a mystery to me. Outside of low-class neighborhoods, a child failing to get admitted to university is an embarrassment. I personally don't agree with these things, and they're likely far from universal, but I do think they illustrate
The result, I think, is a large segment of the population taking on debt to get an education that won't actually yield much of a return in the labor market. And the messed up thing is that in a way they are making a sound choice because the stigma of being uneducated is so strong. Whereas in many places like the aforementioned Germany getting an apprenticeship and becoming a skilled worker is respected. I've heard stories about this shifting and the requirements to attending gymnasium (the college-bound educational track) are loosening, but it's still probably nowhere near the level as in America.
1. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/nov/10/dating-...