For people aged from 25 to 34, Spain has a higher level of tertiary attainment than Germany. http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/factbook-2013-en/10/01/06/terti

For people aged from 25 to 34, Spain has a higher level of tertiary attainment than Germany. http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/factbook-2013-en/10/01/06/tertiary_g1.html?contentType=&itemId=/content/chapter/factbook-2013-77-en&containerItemId=/content/serial/18147364&accessItemIds=&mimeType=text/html http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/factbook-2013-en/10/01/06... Personally I think the current economic difficulties are mostly structural, rather than to do with individual attainment or character of the populous. You can have wealthy agricultural societies and you can have poor industrial ones.