As a professor at a top institution I can say with certainty the entire US higher education system is fatally broken and the student loan bubble will burst to disastrous results. The situation as it stands is so bad that I welcome any other ideas, though returning to the state funding model is most preferable. The Cal state system is still amazing despite decades of attempts to do it damage, we need a real renaissance of public funding to save what we have.

The problem with Europe is with few exceptions the research output is a faint shadow of what US, and increasingly Chinese, institutions produce. Likewise, you see a lot of tech companies growing in US and China and while Europe lags further and further behind.