Germany also has a “class” system. Since the government pays for advanced education, everyone does NOT have an opportunity to attend university. It’s extremely selective and if you come from a poor background, good luck passing those exams. If your parents didn’t attend college you probably won’t as well.
Going back to school or changing your career field is also very difficult. I’ve had several Germans tell me very bluntly that my DW never would have gotten to university under their system, much less become a doctor.
I swore I was not going to trot out my experience with Germany's education system, but you're going to make me do it.
My experience is dated, and it's fair to point out that when I was stationed there, every man who was then as old as I am now had been a Nazi soldier, and Germany was still building its economy.
1. For the love of Jesus, can we please stop using terms like "free education" or "government paid" education. TAXPAYERS PAY FOR EVERYTHING. In Germany, when I lived there (half my AF career, btw), you could forget roughly half your paycheck. FREE HEALTHCARE, FREE EDUCATION, and a plethora of taxes, including a church tax, ate up most of your salary.
2. When I lived there, Germany was a very large majority Caucasian, Christian (mostly Catholic) population. They didn't have a lot of the social inequality issues we have (unless you want to count the numerous generations of Turks whose ancestors were invited there to rebuild after WWII, but that's another discussion) . I usually prepped any of my black friends, before bringing them into my German circles, with "yes, as a matter of fact, you are going to be the first black person they have met".
3. Tracking, or the class system, starts very early. IIRC in Germany a decision was made in the 6th year of school as to whether you would be a laborer or work in some sort of service industry, or go on to a trade school, or go the university preparedness route. By the age of 16, in the first two tracks, you were working and making a wage. College prep people continued on to get the Abitur (high school diploma) to enter college. At 18, all the men took a break to do their national service, either in the military, or one of the other routes available to conscientious objectors. Some university students managed to defer this service or get out of it completely.
4. Beating fate. If you did not like the role chosen for you before you were old enough to shave, you could hit the books and attend adult education (taxpayer funded), and become an engineer or whatever you showed the aptitude for. My landlord (don't use the term landlord in Europe - it is a term from their Feudal days they don't like) was assigned watchmaker training after the 3rd Reich fell and the war ended. He got into the night school program with no issues even though he was a -gasp- Pole, and became anengineer. His son, although very good with electronics, music, and computer programming, was assigned to telephone maintenance school. After a bit of apprenticeship, and his national service as an ambulance driver, Son went to night school and received his engineer certification. Night school isn't difficult to get into politically or socially, but you have to meet standards and show aptitude.
5. A lot of Germans are just plain arrogant, and forget they are where they are because of the investment in their country from NATO (oops, I mean the U.S.A.). I think would have b****-slapped someone who told me my daughter was too dumb to be a doctor in Germany.
6. It's not just Germany. I once dated an nurse from the former USSR. Very similarly, she was a trade school route kid, and was an RN, making a living wage at 16. At 19 she had used her taxpayer funded education benefits to get her anesthesiologist certification and was living large. Many of her contemporaries didn't take full advantage of things available and were cleaning bedpans their whole careers. Oh, and her particular Soviet Republic had zero diversity, ethnic or religious.
7. Other countries' systems simply won't work in the U.S.A. because we are a diverse culture, and promoting divisiveness seems to be our new national pastime.