You misunderstand. Way more than 5% go to college, but for some highly sought after educations and institutions, only a select few get accepted. But most people wouldn't apply to these programs to begin with. And those that do, and do not get accepted, can study different subjects, or even the same subject but at a different school.
Sure, but it's still a number of people that is significantly less than everyone. And everyone in Denmark is again significantly less than everyone in the US.
So saying "Hey if we can pay for a few hundred thousand people to go to college, why can't you pay for tens of millions of people to go college?" is not really a fair comparison.
@imgabe: Why would you suggest that Denmark's model can't be scaled up to US size? Or even take Germany's model, and you'll start off from a platform some 15x the size of Denmark.
As others mention below, Germany and other countries end up with about the same percentage of college graduates as the US. So what is the advantage of switching to a different model if it produces the same result? It doesn't mean any additional people would be able to go to college.
We could go a long way to ending that by not subsidizing loans and making them dischargeable in bankruptcy. We could also better educate kids about cost/benefits of college and making sure they choose a degree that will be able to repay any loans they take out. Hopefully people are already catching on to that.
We did at one point in history have college that was affordable without having the government pay for it. It should be possible to do that again.
Well, for one, when economy isn't a factor, then academic prowess is a stronger predictor for who goes to college. Which seems more fair, and to garner more utility.
It would also mean less horrific student loan situations.
> when economy isn't a factor, then academic prowess is a stronger predictor for who goes to college
I'd be interested in seeing data on that. Family income and "academic prowess" are often highly correlated, since higher income families tend to have better educated parents to begin with and are more able to pay for tutors and additional help.
