And even if we could, all education is still useful. A university experience should be a lot more important than vocational training, shouldn't it?

Actually, that's one of the reasons I prefer the American system. Here, it typically takes 4 years to earn a degree, as opposed to the 3 years in the UK. The reason is that university students here —even if they're studying math, science or medicine — have to study the humanities too: art, history, philosophy, etc.

Sometimes those requirements are pro forma, and some universities do a better job than others, but the ideal still exists that a university education is supposed to enrich a person's understanding of human culture.

(Before anybody objects that American universities take longer because American high school students don't receive good educations, stop and consider that students who get admitted to good universities have invariably taken many AP (advance placement) classes in high school. AP classes are rigorous and quite comparable to A Levels work. Unfortunately, the availability and successful completion of AP classes is tightly linked to socioeconomic status, but that's another story.)