Although globalization is leading to a decrease in diversity across the globe, there are still many differences between countries and cultures. This is certainly the case between American and European Universities, whose educational systems vary significantly. In the present paper, we show differences and similarities between the aforementioned educational systems. To illustrate this idea, we analyze several factors that influence educational systems, such us financial support, research activities and students' mobility. For example, those factors influence the provision of quality higher education to more students and the acquirement of employable skills to meet the needs of industry. Even more, European ministers have stated that Higher education is an important part of the solution to the current European difficulties related to the economic and financial crisis, which highlights the importance of analyzing the educational systems characteristics in order to establish the bases to improve them. Based on the data collected, the main characteristics of each educational system are identified and displayed. The key idea is to assess the implications of globalization in higher education by means of showing American and European systems characteristics, and finding out convergent and divergent trends in education.