The budget of top US universities is at least an order of magnitude higher than the top german universities. I doubt that tuition is the biggest factor though.

The budget of top US universities is at least an order of magnitude higher than the top german universities. I doubt that tuition is the biggest factor though. Donations from alumni is more important. In the US loyalty to your alma mater is cultural. In Germany it is not. The biggest donation ever was 200M€ from an SAP founder [0]. Even two digits are noteworthy in general. [0] http://spon.de/acq9Z http://spon.de/acq9Z