When the news came in early October that Germany had abolished its remaining tuition fees, responses ranged from jubilant to cautionary. Those familiar with German higher education were quick to point out that this hardly altered the status quo: tuition has long been cheap, and university fees had dwindled further still over the past decade. Lower Saxony was the lone holdout, and now it too would join the ranks of the tuition-less states.

The fact that tuition would be free to international students wasn’t quite news either: non-Germans had already been taking advantage of the system in droves.

Still, this proud statement from a nation that had supposedly shown itself to value higher education over profit prompted some hand-wringing and self-examination in places where students carry debt loads years after graduating. If Germany can offer all its students a free university education, left-leaning outlets like Slate and the Guardian wondered, why can’t the US?