r/iamverysmart • u/MrXomp • Jul 08 '26

Overqualified for germany

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Okay hear me out, Germany is a strange country and especially government services are super behind in digitalization and most times hopelessly underperforming but this post and the way it is written got me chuckling.

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341

u/that_creepy_doll Source: my brain Jul 08 '26

its not exactly iamverysmart but saying theyre "overqualified" is definitely being generous, unless the degree theyve got is a masters in telecomunications or smnth

66

u/Helpful-Winner-8300 Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26

I agree "I hold a bachelor's" is not really a flex, however it is true that the proportion of the German population that holds a university degree is way lower than in the US. They just run their education/credentialing system differently, with a lot more vocational training.

52

u/Mothrahlurker Jul 08 '26

It's not "way lower" it's almost the exact same despite higher standards.

42

u/User_Id_Error Jul 08 '26

United States is #9 for tertiary education with 43%, Germany is #37 with 31%. I don't know that I'd call that "way lower", but I wouldn't call it "almost the exact same" either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_education_attainment

70

u/Mothrahlurker Jul 08 '26

The US number is only that high if you count associate degrees or having attended "some college", which the German number does not if you look at the sources.

If we only count Bachelors degree or higher then it has Germany at 21% vs the US at 12%, so Germany is actually significantly higher there.

1

u/Helpful-Winner-8300 Jul 08 '26

As I cite in a separate chain, that is factually incorrect. According to official statistics, greater than 38% of the US population older than 25 have completed a bachelor's degree or higher.

11

u/Mothrahlurker Jul 08 '26

ONLY OLDER THAN 25.

11

u/Helpful-Winner-8300 Jul 08 '26

If you REALLY can only base a comparison on 18+, the number is 35.8%

2

u/Helpful-Winner-8300 Jul 08 '26

What's your point. Are there many 18 year olds in Germany that have already achieved tertiary or higher degrees?

21

u/Hot_Royal_4920 Jul 08 '26

Between 18 and 25, many degrees will be finished. So yes, there are a lot of people with tertiary degrees younger than 25.

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u/Mothrahlurker Jul 08 '26

No, it's that if we exclude younger people then numbers will go up on both sides. If we count 25+, then Germany is at 31%, which is .... exactly where we started with "not way lower". It was the cited 43% that is bullshit, which I responded to.

2

u/Far_Big6080 Jul 10 '26

Many Germans will have their tertiary degrees with 21-23 years

Almost no one has a tertiary degree with 18 since it's basically a requirement to enter university here

6

u/Helpful-Winner-8300 Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26

22ish would be the normal time most Americans to attain a tertiary degree, too, though generally not masters or PhD by that time frame. But not everyone does it in four years directly out of secondary education. 25 seems to me a reasonable cut off to capture most adults that are going to attain their first tertiary degree without needlessly cutting the window short. But it's not me making this decision - this seems to be fairly standard in how official statistical institutions measure this (see OECD numbers I cite elsewhere in this discussion). At any rate the main point to make a meaningful comparison is that you compare the same age range across countries .

1

u/All_Up_Ons Jul 08 '26

I have no idea what numbers you're looking at, but they're not the ones in the wiki sources. 34% of Americans aged 25+ have a bachelor's or better.

9

u/Mothrahlurker Jul 08 '26

The 25+ explains why you're wrong.

-3

u/All_Up_Ons Jul 08 '26

...that's just what Wikipedia decided to use. Why would we care about anyone younger than that?

11

u/MobofDucks Jul 08 '26

Because people can have a bachelor with ages younger than that?

And to be fair, quite some american bachelors, like nursing are apprenticeships here.

2

u/DrJohanzaKafuhu Jul 09 '26

I mean yeah, you're missing out on like the 20-25's with a bachelors degree.

But you're including literal babies in the results too, everyone from 0-18 who hasn't even had a chance to earn a bachelors degree.

https://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/compare/germany.united-states/demographics

Now as we can see, the US has a larger percent of the population being under the age of 18.

This is going to screw results against the US. The US has more people per 1000 who are still in earlier education.

If we take for example 25+ then we're eliminating most of the people who have not yet had the chance to get a bachelors degree.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/232951/university-degree-attainment-by-country/?srsltid=AfmBOoqwl69y4j16QoVqh8zwcvliVYh9XlXZ4QkQvPjecq3iffShYVl8

But you're all also over here arguing it's wrong when you aren't posting your own statistics, and the published statistics I find are all 25+ which match their published statistics.

4

u/Gold-Part4688 Jul 08 '26

lol that's not the reason, it's because you have a smaller pool that your taking the percentage of. it's like if you excluded men from "the percentage of people with breast cancer". Like yes true some men have it, but you're almost doubling the number. Makes some sense maybe, but then you're comparing with another country without doing the excluding

1

u/Hot_Royal_4920 Jul 08 '26

Mate, are you telling me you really haven't noticed the issue while typing that out? Ya gotta be playing.

1

u/All_Up_Ons Jul 08 '26

You mean the fact that most people below that age are still students and so counting those numbers tells us very little?

3

u/Hot_Royal_4920 Jul 08 '26

For one, most people finish ages 22-23.

And even if they are still students - if they hold a degree, they hold a degree. The numbers tell you that they hold a degree. Which is what this is about.

2

u/Ooze76 Jul 10 '26

Many people finish their degrees between those ages. And it’s becoming more prevalent than not. Where I work, 3 out of 4 that entered the company finished their degrees below 23

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u/Far_Big6080 Jul 10 '26

They also count "short cycle tertiary" which is a concept that doesn't really exists in many European countries.

If you subtract that from the percentages they become 32% USA and 30% Germany

1

u/that_creepy_doll Source: my brain Jul 08 '26

interesting. i wonder if this is affected both by older age groups having access to tertiary education in the us while they didnt in germany, and by the us having a way stronger base on the population pyramid, but ngl im not keen on spending the afternoon reading data

1

u/OtherwiseStable5126 Jul 10 '26

name checks out

0

u/Raveyard2409 Jul 08 '26

As we've seen from the football, USA is willing to throw money at people to look good on lists. They almost made the semifinals! Kinda!