The Vocational Path
In a crowd of 2,000 German adults, 860 completed vocational training (Ausbildung) — apprenticeships that lead nowhere else but straight to work. 540 finished secondary school. Only 600 hold a university degree. Germany is one of the world's richest countries. Yet it has fewer university graduates than South Korea. The crowd makes you ask: what is a degree actually for?
Did you know
Germany routes students into three separate educational tracks at age 10 — academic (Gymnasium), technical (Realschule), or vocational (Hauptschule). In a crowd of 2,000 Germans, only about 420 end up with a university degree — one of the lowest rates in the developed world. This isn't a failure: Germany's vocational system produces highly skilled tradespeople whose certifications are internationally respected and whose wages often rival university graduates'. The credential isn't the only path because it was never designed to be.
See also: What This Crowd Does for a Living