One example is Germany. I was talking with a German friend of mine at lunch and he noted that they are "tracked" after grade 8. Some go to trade school. Then (IIRC) there are two university tracks - one more prestigious (and more stressful) than the other. The egalitarians in the US would never stand for this.
That said, we cannot continue to fund the system we have which according to R. Arum's Academically Adrift, leaves many students with a mountain of debt and few marketable skills. As the authors of "Paying for the Party" note, these students had a great time but learned little. Both books (and Arum's follow up book tracking graduates) are sobering reads...