<p>mathmom, I do not know anything about Fins and their school system. I am familiar with school system abroad and it is very possible to prepare every person for college at the much higher level than it is done here in the USA, at the level that students in engineering programs do not groan and moan about college math / science, real college math / scinence, not the lower level classes that American colleges are forced to teach becuase otherwise nobody would be in engineering, all will have to be imported from abroad. I tend to think that it is done on purpose for many reasons and parents are the ones to blame the first, they are payers, they had the power to force the academic level down in k - 12 and THEY ACCOMPLISHED that.<br>
There is no way to resolve the college dilemma without correcting the real problem - one of the lowest academic level in k - 12 in a world, shamefully enough even lower than some countries in Africa. </p>