Thanks Mana for asking that question. I had been wondering the differences between the US and UK in terms of sports and colleges/universities.
In the UK and in other European countries, kids can leave school with qualifications around 13-16 yrs old. In Germany, you can become an apprentice or enter a trade school or vocational training at 13 to eke a living.
In the UK, there are NO televised local high (or college) school sports or reporting in the local newspapers, as far as I'm aware. So there isn't a sports infrastructure like there is in the US. It doesn't exist.
There are sports being played at UK colleges and universities but nowhere like in the US. There just isn't the scale and scope. Oxford and Cambridge have rowing crews, for instance, which are well known, but who goes to Oxford and Cambridge for it? Perhaps there's a few, but there are no comparisons with the US.
The UK started to implement tuition and fees about 15 yrs ago. There was a lot of protest at the time. There are scholarships and other ways students from poor backgrounds can afford to go to uni.
I'll also point out that while many (poor) people throughout the world have turned to sports to pick themselves up from the bootstraps so to speak - Pele and other football (soccer) players from the shanty towns of Brazil come to mind. The same argument, however, can be made for music, art, writing, etc. Pick up Glencoe's World Literature textbook and maybe a 1/3 or more of the writers/poets/etc. came from poor backgrounds. The difference is that many did not achieve or gain monetary success or fame within their lifetime while many sports players have.
