Boomers Once Led the World in Education. What Happened? (2024)
In the 1960s and 1970s, the United States had the best-educated young people in the world, or pretty close to it. But a disturbing new report from the Council on Foreign Relations says that the generations who've followed the boomers haven't been able to maintain that global edge - and that, as a result, America's ability to compete economically is suffering as well.
The council, a nonpartisan think tank whose 4,700 members include such luminaries asjournalist Fareed Zakaria and actress-activist Angelina Jolie, notes that among people ages 55 to 64, Americans rank first in the percentage who've earned high school degrees and third in those who've earned college and graduate degrees. But Americans ages 25 to 34 only rank 10th in the world in high school diplomas, and they've dropped to 13th in attaining post-secondary degrees.
It's not that 25-to-34-year-olds are less educated than boomers: 88 percent of them earned high school diplomas, compared with 90 percent of boomers, and they actually managed a tiny edge - 42 percent to 41 percent - in post-secondary degrees. The real problem is that they're slipping in relation to their global counterparts.
Paradoxically, younger Americans are entering college at a higher rate - 70 percent - than the boomer generation managed. In 1970, only 48.4 percent of high school graduates went on to higher education, according to a study published in 2010 in the American Journal of Applied Economics. But that edge is negated, because fewer than half of today's students manage to stay in school and earn degrees, a slightly lower completion rate than boomers. According to the CFR report, the United States has the highest dropout rate in the developed world. A likely reason is the astronomical rise in tuition costs during that time: from 1970 to 2007, tuition costs at colleges and universities rose by nearly 1000 percent, according to personal finance blogger and author Trent Hamm.
Paradoxically, younger Americans are entering college at a higher rate - 70 percent - than the boomer generation managed. In 1970, only 48.4 percent of high school graduates went on to higher education, according to a study published in 2010 in the American Journal of Applied Economics.
As recently as 20 years ago, the United States was ranked No. 1 in high school and college education. Much of the boom in American education during the second half of the 20th century was fueled by the Montgomery G.I.
In the 1830s, Horace Mann, a Massachusetts legislator and secretary of that state's board of education, began to advocate for the creation of public schools that would be universally available to all children, free of charge, and funded by the state.
According to the data, Massachusetts ranks as the most educated state in the country. The authors make note of the state's exceptional public and private school systems and its performance compared to other states in reading and math, per the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
1. United States of America. The United States has the best education system in the world. A significant number of international students, totalling 1,057,000, have been enrolled in universities in the USA last year.
Finland has been ranked as one of the countries with the most demanding education system in the world. The country's education system follows a 9-3-3 structure. In addition to Finland, several other countries, like South Korea, Singapore, and China have some of the toughest education systems.
The original Department of Education was created in 1867 to collect information on schools and teaching that would help the States establish effective school systems.
In the 1980s, economists puzzled by a decline in the growth of U.S. productivity realized that American schools had taken a dramatic turn for the worse. After rising every year for fifty years, student scores on a variety of achievement tests dropped sharply in 1967. They continued to decline through 1980.
The 1898 Treaty of Paris ending the war gave Cuba its independence and also ceded important Spanish possessions to the United States—notably Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and the small island of Guam. The United States was suddenly a colonial power with overseas dependencies.
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