&gt;Can the German university system afford to expand and produce more graduates under the current taxpayer-funded &quot;free&quot; model?<p>It does not need to. Germany has a world-class apprenticeship system. Why would we want to copy the English&#x2F;American system, when our society is built on different foundations. I remember the times when Germany was laughed at for its big industrial sector and was urged to move into (financial) services like the UK did. One financial crisis later the German way all of a sudden is the way to go. So for gods sake, do not change a running system.<p>I would argue that someone, who has a Meister [0] (confusing, because we have the Master instead of the Diplom now, too) has much better career prospects than someone who has studied &quot;something with media&quot; as we call it here, just because he or she did not know what to do.<p>We lately came up with something new, called Duales Studium, where you work at a company while you are studying at a special school that grants Bachelors, similar to the apprenticeship system. The model is quite popular, but I am not sure if it increases the number of higher education degrees or if their students would have studied at universities of applied science anyway.<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Master_craftsman#Germany" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Master_craftsman#Germany</a>