Basically, yeah, most students go to Realschule and then dive into a job. General school (Hauptschule) however is the easiest. During Realschule I did take the

Basically, yeah, most students go to Realschule and then dive into a job. General school (Hauptschule) however is the easiest. During Realschule I did take the general school exam (basically, I got a diploma for the general school graduation without going there) and it was relatively easy despite never going there. And obviously general school won't enable many job options. Job related school is 50/50 some just go directly into a mentorship or similar where they are taught on location from a senior in the same job. >That's rationing! Of course it is. Universities don't have infinite amount of seats and I'd rather have people who are willing and capable of being there than people who can pay for the privilege of being there. >Hochbegabtenstudium That is very very rare, I haven't met anyone who qualified for it. It also requires having finished 10th grade, which means you're 17 or 18 old at that point. From the Realschule you'd take a tertiary school (there is two choices I went with College of Further Education) with or without tertiary language. Having a tertiary language enables university, without you can only go to universities for applied sciences. From the Gymnasium you can go either. Off that tangent, the goal of the hochbegabtenstudium is to enable people who are smart to finish their education early so they can be more productive for longer in society (and don't sit around in the classroom being bored) >When Sanders talks about education, he's talking about the equivalent of Gymnasiam followed by university. It's probably the result of german education but I don't think everyone should need or want to go to University. Normal school should be sufficient to earn you basically any job and from Realschule I know several people who went directly into the banking business or mechanical engineering. Of course, not all jobs are enabled by the average education but you can usually get a job in the field you want if you show enough elbow grease and have a Realschule diploma. I think Germans also lack some of the ambition to always want to get the highest degree of education even if they don't need it. People I know from school generally tended to be very realistic about which job they wanted, what options they had and usually picked the lowest one that would get them the job with good probability. >edit I didn't spot Those numbers would align with what I know, people who do the Abitur usually want to go to higher education (though not all)