[guitarbill]

I'm not sure for how much this accounts, but the UK allowed polytechnics to call themselves universities. Of course, this then increases the number of people going to uni... but this might've been a bad idea. While there was a prestige issue with the name, they now have to compete on a similar playing field.

Germany's interesting here, since they had/have Fachhochschulen (apparently translated to University of Applied Sciences). Some of which were very highly regarded, and offered a different focus that suited some people. Although after the Bologna Process, this difference is less clear, too.