Probably o/t for the article: My own experience is very dated, but in the late 80's and early 90's I attended public university in both countries. Back then i

Probably o/t for the article: My own experience is very dated, but in the late 80's and early 90's I attended public university in both countries. Back then it really struck me how infantilized the student experience in the US was; but also how much more we actually worked, because a little arbitrary structure is pretty helpful for manic 19-year-olds. For the self-motivated, academically serious student it was a kind of paradise with slightly shabby institutions, some of them very very old. Most professors, even the famous ones, were accessible, but in lieue of "homework" you were expected to keep up on the reading, for which at best you got a list of books (at worst: go figure it out). Nobody seemed to care at all about grades. Even then, when public universities in the US were cheap, it was remarkable how much cheaper studying in Germany was, from the minimal fees to the ubiquitous subsidies. Student housing in California was a racket - the dorm cost way more than a shared apartment - but in Germany it was so laughably cheap you never really minded the bad parts. We even had a semi-official student bar with 1DM (50c) beers. I think partly because of the freedom, partly because of the low cost, and partly because working-class kids mostly didn't go to university, there was basically no attention paid to the need to one day make a living. I didn't stay long enough to find out if that was a good or a bad thing; I did my best to avoid that question in the US anyway, and paid the usual price for it.