I don't know what the answers are. But let's at least ask the right questions.
(I realize that Germany and some other European countries do an excellent job of vocational training.)
Not only that, but is vocational training adequate to create citizens equipped with the skills and knowledge to make them capable of analyzing the policy decisions voters in a modern democracy must consider? Some people will claim the traditional college system has failed in this regard, but they are confusing failure with lack of perfection. I'm sure not every citizen needs to go to college to have these skills, but I think most do, and this is especially important in regressive regions of the country.
That is probably one of the biggest problems with skipping the traditional college track.
Maybe there is a middle ground that would provide a useful general education at a reasonable price as well as practical up-to-date training with leading edge skillsets and knowledge.
Maybe one way to improve education would be to start by incorporating more individualized (probably largely computer-assisted) instruction starting with young children, so that people could advance both their broader as well as more specialized skills and knowledge at their own pace. That would help many who are held back at times by group instruction as well as people who need to slow down for certain subjects.
Maybe there is also room to tune curriculum to provide less depth in certain areas that aren't related to one's chosen specialty. For example, I only completed about two years of college, but I remember getting through what seemed to be quite an enormous amount of chemistry knowledge and exercises. I feel that I may not have understood some of the fundamentals quite as well as I wished and that I went into much more depth in some areas of chemistry than was necessary. I also think that I spent too much time memorizing facts and practicing techniques because the field and curriculum hadn't fully incorporated modern computer tools.
Another idea for changing educational institutions: institutionalize life-long learning. I feel that even though things change on the leading edge of science and technology so quickly that vocational training and apprenticeships are much more effective and realistic approaches to gaining the most practical skills and knowledge, there is so much information available in so many fields, and new information being generated every day, that it makes no sense for an education to be "completed" at any set point. And now that we have so many internet-based tools for education and communication there is no reason for it to stop when people leave the campus.
If it's not doing that, we probably need more of it. Maybe move all the "general liberal-arts undergrad education" into just being grades 13-16?
One must be careful with this type of reasoning. It leads to all kinds of madness. I'll leave coming up with examples as an exercise for the reader; there are too many to list.
Edit: I will give one example: a homeowner is disappointed that the lawn he or she fertilizes once a month is turning brown and growing poorly. Fertilizer is supposed to make plants grow, right? So if the plants aren't growing, add more? Now, after being fertilized once per week, the lawn dies.
Specifically, my original statement was going to be:
> If high school isn't accomplishing its goals (of giving citizens the tools to participate in democracy) -- and we see the need to supplement that education with years of additional university education to achieve the originally-intended effect -- then we probably just need to make those years of university education part of high school, mandatory, and free.