<p>These sort of rankings are generally silly, and this one is no exception. The United States is handicapped by its rapidly expanding Hispanic migrant population. The Hispanic migrants either cannot or do not get college degrees, probably for matters of financial exigency. Just look at the census report:
<a href=“http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/p20-550.pdf[/url]”>http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/p20-550.pdf</a>
Hispanic higher educational achievement rates are less than half those of non-Hispanic whites. Not that there’s anything wrong with having a robust, rapidly expanding, hard-working migrant population. To the contrary, it’s good fuel for the American economy and they’ll catch up in educational attainment as they assimilate. It’s just unreasonable to compare our dynamic nation to the demographic dinosaurs of Old Europe and Japan in these sorts of things. I’m sure the 2010 census will show that calculating for whites, black, and Asians, we’ll still be top tier.</p>
<p>What is quantity without quality ?</p>
<p>This is a very dangerous article and statistic. We have to consider the changing demographics in America and the huge increase in the cost of a college education and increasing admission requirements by colleges. </p>
<p>Higher intelligence and higher income families have fewer children on average. Fact. Lower intelligence and lower income families have more children on average. There are all sorts of statistics to examine here.</p>
<p>Canada has 10 percent of the population that we do. They have much higher taxes and different laws regarding healthcare and education. </p>
<p>So while a greater percentage of Americans have a college degree than 50 years ago, other nations have increased their percentage of citizens with college degrees by a larger percentage of their population. </p>
<p>And yet still we have a huge number of unemployed PhD’s and M.A.'s and MBA’s and JD’s, let alone BA’s and BS’s. </p>
<p>The only jobs created in the last two years were in the federal government. We are losing jobs to overseas and not just low wage manufacturing jobs either. </p>
<p>While the greatest business opportunities are in China for the time being, the Chinese also cant find jobs for tens of millions of educated chinese as they leave rural/agricultural areas and all seek jobs in the big cities. They are sitting on a time bomb.</p>
<p>Our population is 10 times the size of canada’s of course were going to be behind them, and Japan</p>
<p>The US population is also culturally heterogeneous.</p>
<p>
Exhibit ‘A’, that ‘education’ in the US is an oxymoron.</p>
<p>further enlighten us eric, on how education in the us in an oxymoron, but without being a d-bag this time</p>
<p>Well… in South Korea, a high percentage of the population go on to higher education but they can’t get jobs because of the over-saturation in qualified workers. A higher rate of post-secondary degrees just means that’ll be the new job standard. The job market’s not getting bigger anyhow. </p>
<p>And so what? There are already so many degree mills in this country that the statistic actually seems to be a good thing. </p>
<p>[Burnt</a> Chefs - Page 1 - Dining - San Francisco - SF Weekly](<a href=“http://www.sfweekly.com/2007-06-06/news/burnt-chefs/]Burnt”>http://www.sfweekly.com/2007-06-06/news/burnt-chefs/)</p>
<p>It’s funny how the argument went from discussing the rankings to quality/quantity to population size. America is going down ( if only temporarily…). Suck it up! I’m surprised no one pulled the “Asian students work too hard to compare to American students” excuse yet. Like AvisMath said: " If the U.S.A plans to maintain or increase it’s education, it cannot just be satisfied by improving, it has to improve more than the other nations improve."</p>
<p>( But no matter how hard you guys try, I am still getting a job overseas) :P</p>
<p>this is a good thing, maybe the federal govt, state govts, and universities will start to realize that they are complete idiots when it comes to helping students finance their educations.</p>
<p>Yay Canada. Enough said.</p>
<p>So what.</p>
<p>Even though fewer americans get college degrees, we STILL earn more than they do. That means we, as a society, are more productive than Canadians on an individual to individual basis.</p>
<p>Americans are STILL on average more productive (the more you produce, the more you get to consume). That is the basis of income.</p>
<p>^^You think that a person who moves to NY or CA magically becomes more productive when their salary increases in these high cost of living states ?</p>
<p>Actually, the most favorable comparison between American and European incomes is the comparison of per capita income purchasing power parity. That is to say while we earn more nominally than many European nations, we vastly outperform almost all of them in terms of real income.</p>
<p>With specific reference to Canada, Japan, and South Korea (which seem to be the hot topic nations here), America has a per-capita income of $46,400 while Canada, Japan, and South Korea have per capita incomes of $38,4000, $32,600, and $28,000 respectively. Here is the complete list:
<a href=“https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html[/url]”>https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html</a></p>
<p>The United States is still, and for the foreseeable future will be, by far the most productive major power.</p>
<p>^ My Principles of Economics textbook says that GDPs are not a good measure for the standard of living because it only captures productivity and neglects other factors. One of the examples it cited was leisure time: The average US worker spends 1777 hours at work each year, compared to 1362 hours in Germany. While Germany might produce less, Germans get to enjoy vastly more free time.</p>
<p>[Working</a> time - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“Working time - Wikipedia”>Working time - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Talking about productivity, the US also happens to have the largest trade deficit (imports minus exports) per capita of any country world wide. We have a large per capita productivity because we import many cheap products and services that are not worth our time. In other words, the US is rich because it exploits poorer countries. Not sure that that’s something to be proud of…</p>
<p>wrt immigrants - while that might explain some of the stagnation in our degree stats, I don’t know it explains our numbers relative to Canada. They have lots of immigrants also, mainly asians and africans (including lots of Somalis). Are their immigrants that much more educated than our immigrants?</p>
<p>I also dont know I would determine optimal numbers of folks with given degrees based on the situation at this point in the business cycle. Lots of unemployed folks with degrees of all kinds. Even MORE unemployed without degrees. Thats a business cycle problem, not an education employment mismatch problem.</p>
<p>wow mostly off topic in three pages…haha :D</p>
<p>
Gross or net income ?</p>
<p>Good time to be Canadian ;)</p>
<p>Anyone complaining that the US level is artificially low because of immigrants or a heterogeneous society obviously knows NOTHING about the demographic makeup of Canada. We may not have the same issues with illegal immigrants, but the immigrant population is HUGE.</p>
<p>In my hometown of Vancouver, for instance, 51% of the population is a visible minority (and obviously that does not not many European and Hispanic immigrants) and more than 50% of the population speaks a language other than English at home. In other words, white English-speakers are actually in the minority. And Toronto and Montreal, I believe, are even more diverse.</p>
<p>So, good luck with that “heterogeneous society” excuse.</p>
<p>@b@r!um: I don’t really see how our culture of strong work ethic, at least if it is measured by number of hours actually present at work, in any way speaks poorly of us or our education system. Who cares if the Germans have more free time? Obviously Americans don’t. I think Americans should be proud that we are willing to put in so many hours at work, producing more for the general welfare.</p>
<p>Also, to preempt where I think you’re going, your textbook should also mention the law of diminishing returns. The Germans and French will have relatively high output per hour since they are working fewer hours, and will only have time for the most important and profitable tasks. Americans, on the other hand, will have time to do the less profitable (but perhaps still important) tasks, and will therefore reflect a lower output per hour.</p>
<p>GDP per capita, the measure of productivity we are using, is derived from GDP. Your economics textbook should give the formula GDP = Consumption + Investment + Government Expenditures + Net Exports. Our trade deficit is actually a drain on our GDP (and thereby our calculated productivity), although it improves our standard of living. And the importation of cheap goods is hardly the “exploitation” of poorer countries. What are we supposed to do? Demand they start doing our banking and advertising services for us, even though they do not have sufficiently skilled labor to provide those services? In buying their industrial output, we’re promoting their development from agrarian to industrial societies and helping them to progress. I don’t know what your solution is.</p>
<p>@EricLG/Brooklyndad:
If you look at the link I provided, it’s gross. Since the goal of education from a taxpayer’s perspective (if we ignore its civic functions, which have yet to be raised in this thread) is to improve the overall productivity of a society, the overall production of the society is a fair measure of the education system’s effectiveness.</p>
<p>@gypsyblue:
Looking at Vancouver’s visible minorities, we see that they are overwhelmingly Asian. Remember, I attributed our deficit to Hispanic migrants. 61% of American Asians have a bachelor’s degree or better, well above our national average. If the American trend holds true for our Canadian neighbor, it’s relatively large Asian contingent is an asset. Moreover, Canada has the luxury of a relatively secure border, and is able to prune its immigrants carefully. It will of course select for the most educated immigrants. For example, 56% of migrants to Canada hold college degrees. The United States, with its unsecured border, lacks that luxury. So immigration in Canada is a net positive for education (which many Canadians are unhappy with, because it depresses the wages for highly skilled labor) while immigration in the United States lowers our overall education levels but uses its immigrant labor to fill in lower cost jobs and thereby improve the standard of living for the natives.</p>
<p>EDIT: Wow, this is an extraordinarily long post.</p>