The reality is that you can get a really good college education for rather cheap in the U.S. if you are smart about it. I could of gone to a local state college for 1/10th the tuition of a private school and received an education at a very similar level.
I just feel that a free for all education system (ala Bernie Sanders) would be detrimental. Having things be somewhat exclusive and require some amount of effort is not necessarily a bad thing. Germany itself imposes exams for example (although I don't know how difficult they actually are personally).