Indeed, auditorium lectures are a terrible way to teach humanities, that's why expensive and highly selective private schools have a claim to providing a higher

Indeed, auditorium lectures are a terrible way to teach humanities, that's why expensive and highly selective private schools have a claim to providing a higher quality education. Those classes are taught in discussions of 18 kids and a professor around a conference table. This is expensive, but there's no reason it should be restricted to the wealth or intellectual top-10% as it currently is. Just public opposition, driven in large part by the STEM crowd. Germany at least has a 13th grade. I expect the burden of general education is simply shifted to high schools. You can make a C average and graduate high school in the US while barely literate; I expect that's not the same in England and Australia. I know that in Germany, smart kids fail Gymnasium classes routinely: like college, to pass you have to have actually learned something. In my experience at a very good public high school in the US you had to be brain dead or not trying to make less than a C+ in most things.