[rbehrends]

With respect to Germany's vocational schools, note that Germany subsidizes all forms of tertiary education heavily, not just their vocational schools. Attending a university in Germany costs you at most a few hundred EUR per semester (and is free aside from administrative fees in several German states). Simply put, a highly skilled labor force is considered enough of a public good in Germany that the government is willing to invest in it (on top of accessible tertiary education being nice to have). And yes, there's actually high demand for computer scientists with a university degree in Germany, too.

Subsidizing tertiary education is in fact fairly typical in Europe; expensive college degrees are largely an American/English thing. For example, here in Scotland, there have been no tuition fees for Scottish students (as well as for non-British EU students) since the Graduate Endowment Abolition (Scotland) Bill. As another example, ETH Zürich charges, I think, around 600 CHF/semester in fees. Both the University of Edinburgh and ETHZ rank among the top 25 universities worldwide, so it's not as though quality is being sacrificed in the process.