Europe's University Challenge

The university systems in the US and Continental Europe couldn't be more different. Which works better? The answer is clear: America's by a long shot.

European universities are generally based on three misguided principles:

• taxpayers rather than students pay for university education;
• faculty appointments are governed by public sector contracts and university procedures are often centralized and almost always inflexible;
• salaries amongst teachers tend to be equalized as well as teaching quality amongst universities.

This system is supposedly more egalitarian than America's system of higher education, which many Europeans look down on as elitist. In reality, Europe's system typically produces less research, worse students (especially at the doctoral level), and is probably less egalitarian than the US system.