Two centuries ago, Germany designed a university system that rewarded scientific discovery by aligning academic incentives with research and transformed the world. Today’s university system increasingly incentivises and rewards remaining a student instead of becoming a graduate. Institutions shape behaviour.
I landed my first full-time office job at twenty-one. Among my German peers, in both Frankfurt and Berlin, this made me an outlier. Many were enrolled at university but — maybe more surprisingly — many remain enrolled today, in their mid to late 20s, and still have no intention to graduate.