In recent years, higher education systems worldwide have been marked by a considerable expansion of work-based higher education (WBHE), with the institutional spheres of academia, industry and state increasingly coming together. We take the case of WBHE to analyse institutional arrangements in the different skill formation systems of France, Germany and the United States. We ask: Which factors drive the development of WBHE programmes and how does their governance compare across the three distinct country settings? The study finds that the growth of WBHE in all three countries indicates a reconfiguration of education and training governance of high skills. Nonetheless, actor constellations, organizational interests and especially the degree of state intervention surrounding WBHE remain anchored in long-standing national skill formation patterns.