It's always going to be hard to charge the same as a competitor when your product is inferior.
Generally said, Germany does NOT do University research.
Universities become members of research organizations, where many universities cooperate on some kinds of research, but basically all the research is done within of these organizations. Which means it’s not counted in university ranking.
- mp3, developed at Fraunhofer Institute, does not count for the university ranking of any of the universities the researchers work at.
- Wendelstein 7-X, a milestone in Fusion research at the university of Greifswald, does not count for the University of Greifswald.
Neither do any papers published about them. That’s the big issue of the university rankings.
But what matters is how much of an improvement does an ivy league mean to a student compared to going to an average ranked university. Turns out it makes no difference. In some cases it actually makes your grades worse. E.g. if you are at the lower tier of a ivy, then it will kill your self esteem and motivation being around so many smart people, that studies show you will perform worse.
Ivy's are like useless luxury products, like a Gucci bag. It is for show off. No wonder asians are so obsessed with university rankings. They are also obsessed with luxury products. That is because those are societies obsessed about showing status and accomplishments.
If OTOH you don't care about superfluous things you don't need an ivy. I've seen how going for Ivy stuff can screw up people. Being around all these bright people, can create an insane expectation on yourself, and if you don't live up to that afterwards, it can haunt you for the rest of your life. Many people would have simply been happier individuals if they dropped the Ivy's altogether.
E.g. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankin... shows that 33% of the ranking are determined by reputation, which gives universities in English speaking countries an advantage by way of availability.
Hint: there isn't.
I went to a UK university that's in the global top 10. Asians I met after uni would often ask where I studied and had always heard of it.
You are wrong. In 2015, 30.000 Chinese students were studying at German higher education institutions [1]. That would obviously not be the case if they would never consider studying at a German university. It is true that the US (about 300.000 students [2]) and the UK (about 90.000 students [3]) are more popular.
[1] https://thepienews.com/news/germany-intl-students-up-7-chine...
[2] http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/11/16/china-us-colleges-educat...
[3] https://institutions.ukcisa.org.uk/Info-for-universities-col...
Germany doesn't have to make their schools to compete free because the schools they compete against are basically free to the type of students they are pursuing.
I've also have friends who have gone to top US universities, but who mainly can speak of the advantage being that, because they are big, they can offer more variation of course, but with respect to quality there was little difference.
This was for the normal universities. The technical schools are a different animal. Extrememly competitive to the point of mental breakdown. And if that happened? Tough luck, they don't care.