> Education in Europe is not free. You pay with your qualifications. If your university grades are not good enough, you go out fast.
While Universities in the UK (and probably the US as well?) boast with their retention rates that seem to approach SLA levels of nine nines, it is the exact opposite in Germany. Some of our universities are proud of their drop-out rates >50%, partly because only good students will get a degree at a good university. But you also have to keep in mind that quite a few courses don't have any entry requirements in many universities (others require a minimum score that consists of your GPA, optional test scores, and other metrics). You just fill out a form, attach a copy of your Abiturzeugnis (A-levels / high-school diploma), and voilà, you're now a student of computer science at one of Germany's top universities. It should not come as a surprise that not everyone finishes their course. In fact, tough exams after a year of study serve to weed out the weaker students. This gives everyone the chance to prove themselves in the subject, not some random test. It is also perfectly normal to change studies in Germany, so being kicked out isn't a disaster by any means (although you should reflect back and see where you went wrong ;))
I went to undergrad in the US, and there's a similar, but disguised, phenomenon. The difficult majors (ie: faculties/degree paths) would have very high "drop-out rates", in terms of people changing tracks after the first year or two. So indeed, less than half the people who entered with a declared intention of completing a degree in Physics, Engineering, Computer Science, or Mathematics would actually do so.
Quite a few could be found in the social-sciences and humanities departments after they were "weeded out" of the hard sciences. Personally, I think this is a crappy way to run things, since it means social-science and humanities professors have to deal with lots of students who are only there for a generic degree they can manage to obtain rather than for the specific degree path.
On the other hand, I put scare-quotes on the "weeded out", because often the precise method of weeding out weaker students is to simply not even try to teach well in the first year or two of math, science, programming, and engineering courses. So for instance, my fiancee actually cleared all her differential and integral calculus requirements via Advanced Placement (exams high-schoolers can take that grant university credits), with perfect scores, but when she tried to take Linear Algebra in our undergrad math department, she found the teaching so bad that she struggled to understand anything at all. Despite this, she pulled an A- in the course and was one of the top three students in her class/section -- but insists she barely understood anything at all.
It really makes me wonder what kind of pedagogical wonders we'd see if university professors were actually trying to teach well in courses below the third year.
Or, you know, if professors were taught how to teach introductory courses. As far as I am aware there is no pedagogical training for professors in Germany. There certainly isn't any for TAs (who are simplay the professor's PhD students).
It's a lot easier for professor to teach a subject they are enthusiastic about to advanced students than it is to get students interested in an introductory course.
While Universities in the UK (and probably the US as well?) boast with their retention rates that seem to approach SLA levels of nine nines, it is the exact opposite in Germany. Some of our universities are proud of their drop-out rates >50%, partly because only good students will get a degree at a good university. But you also have to keep in mind that quite a few courses don't have any entry requirements in many universities (others require a minimum score that consists of your GPA, optional test scores, and other metrics). You just fill out a form, attach a copy of your Abiturzeugnis (A-levels / high-school diploma), and voilà, you're now a student of computer science at one of Germany's top universities. It should not come as a surprise that not everyone finishes their course. In fact, tough exams after a year of study serve to weed out the weaker students. This gives everyone the chance to prove themselves in the subject, not some random test. It is also perfectly normal to change studies in Germany, so being kicked out isn't a disaster by any means (although you should reflect back and see where you went wrong ;))
On the whole, I think it's a lot fairer.