[dbussone]

Originally Posted by memason

How is it that a country, like Germany can fully fund every student for either university or trade school education and we can't do it in this country.

Germany has the strongest economy in Europe and a huge exporter of manufactured goods of high quality. Taxes for workers are higher than in the US, to be sure, but there a lot more of them.

I worked in a manufacturing subsidiary of my company, in Germany and they had the highest skilled workforce I have ever seen. Every single employee was either a university graduate or tech school grad. ...and I do mean EVERY employee, right down to janitorial.

By the way, every one of those employees had free healthcare too...

I'm just astonished they can figure this out and we can't....

For one thing, Germany and the other European countries have not had to bear the full cost of their defense. We have borne the brunt of much of the cost since the end of World War II. Let's also not forget that we bore the cost of rebuilding Germany after WWII.

Don't get me wrong I'm not complaining and there is little I would change if I could. However I think it is only fair to note their ability to pay for other things. As an aside, several times over my career, I hosted German officials who felt their healthcare system was in a poor state and wanted to learn more about ours.