We have several top universities and plenty of international students at universities across the country. Why are American universities so well known and highly ranked but our secondary education program is not? What things are universities doing that high schools aren’t?
This question came up in my government class and we could not decide on a single answer. What’s your opinion?
They’re not as renowned as you think they are. (Of course their research output is phenomenal, but I mean in educational terms).
Foreign undergraduate students are usually those who couldn’t get into the very top universities in their home countries.
Top US universities can choose the best students, professors, etc. Only a few secondary schools (mostly but not all private ones) can also do that. Access to high school is guaranteed for all, in fact required of all to a point (age 16).
The top private schools, like Andover and Exeter, are world-renowned. There are many international students at most American boarding schools. The most elite public schools are just that; they are only available for local students, but a disproportionate number of their students are from immigrant households, in many cases.
Because our K-12 system, in general, is abysmal.
Because we are not a homogenous country like Norway. It is faulty logic to compare our public education system to the Nordic countries that do not have millions of young people in their country who attend public schools who may my even speak the language. Not saying my opinions on this, but just saying we are a very diverse country.
Competition: because college students choose the college they attend, but for the most part K-12 students cannot. Nothing like having a guaranteed market and a teachers pool you can neither reward for individual excellence nor fire for individual incompetence to make public K-12 teaching quality stagnate.
“public K-12 teaching quality stagnate”
Is it the same, better or worse than in the past?
In terms of performance, we actually have very similar high school and university systems. Both have a tremendous range of quality, from world class to remedial at best. The difference is that people concentrate on the many high schools that are utter failures and largely ignore the many competent high schools we have around the country. At the college level, most of the attention is paid to the top 20 or so colleges in terms of prestige, with little interest in the community colleges, directional state schools or bankrupt LACs that serve a much larger population.
Because we aim to educate all children, no matter where they live, from 5-18yrs old.
The number of languages addressed is also a very good point, not unusual to have ESL learners from 20-30 different countries.
@ChuoShinkansen, that depends on the country, but in general, that’s not true. You think that if Chinese students could choose any university and paying was not an issue that they would choose Beida or Tsinghua over Harvard or MIT? I doubt it. Kenyans would choose U of Nairobi over any of the top 50 American universities (however you define them)? Um, no.
@OHmomof2 but England,Canada and France have compulsory education yet they are ranked higher than us.
Here is the link to rankings that I’m referring to: http://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/pisa-2012-results-overview.pdf
@PurpleTitan I can’t speak for Kenya, but yes in general the Chinese universities would be preferred to those American ones.
@ChuoShinkansen, not the Chinese that I know.
@Chuo, BTW, I can’t wait to ride the brand new Hokuriku shinkansen in less than 3 weeks! I am counting the days… 
Well, in Latin America top U.S. Universities are constantly considered the best ones
Let me correct that for you:
Because our public K-12 system, in general, is abysmal. It works as long as parents can help the students and plug the holes left by public educators. After the wheels fall off, parents are again able to choose where their children will get their tertiary education and weigh the value of private education against its cost. That choice has been taken away for most families during the K-12 years as departing from the monopolistic system comes at a high price.
The US population has the system it deserves as it allowed politicians to make poor choices for them.
And a country that is long on excuses and self-esteem. When will we start to realize that the richest country on earth is trying to obfuscate its limitations by playing the poor card. We are no longer that “exceptional” and hardly the country that is so diverse it cannot educate its minorities.
Many of the kids who started school without being able to speak English end up with the highest marks. How does that work? If the immigration is an issue, how come we have done so poorly with our native americans and former slaves? And how come we do so poorly after spending more per capita than a few notable countries such as Luxemburg?
Again, we are the world leaders in looking for excuses and not accepting that we opted for a system that is an abject failure.
Along the way, we rely on utter fallacies such as “Because we aim to educate all children, no matter where they live, from 5-18yrs old.” Please tell that to the massive dropouts in schools districts in Detroit! How many of the 12 years old does our system that educates all children graduate them before they turn 20? Is your guess above 25 percent? And how does our national average look? It required overly inflated and manipulated data to arrive at 75%.
@xiggi, that’s still too broad. There are terrific public schools around.
@Zinhead nailed it. In terms of range of quality and disparity of results, the US has a huge range at all levels of education. However, the impression is different because attention tends to be concentrated on the worst high schools but the best colleges (instead, of, say, the best high schools and worst colleges). Possiblly because there is a matching process for college but generally not for HS.