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To: Seeker of Truth who wrote (51527)	7/12/2004 7:29:57 AM
From: energyplay	Respond to of 74559

Easier way to view it is the spread or standard deviation in educational quality the US is much higher than rest of the world. Also, the US pushes a much larger % of the population through college, with both good and bad effects, mostly net good for society. However, it is pretty obvious that the point of dimminishing returns has been reached with % of population sent to college. Part of the hidden strength are the schools which have top ranked specialties, outside of the usual big names - some of the better known- Texas A&M for petroleum engineering - Aggie mafia are like Harvard MBAs - they control most of the industry. Colorado School of Mines for hard rock mining Univ.of Arizona, Arizona State, Univ. of Rochester for Optics University of Illinois at Urbana for computing. There are many others - lots of medium rank schools with pretty good football teams have one or two departments which are near world class in some specialty, and can usually maintain this for a generation or two. Multiply this by about 100+ middle level colleges, and it adds up. I think some of the arguments about the average miss the point - in the US, the average college graduate is likely tobe working for a better educated college graduate, not running the show. This is a result of having a high % of graduates in the work force. For countries that have chosen to educate a smaller fraction of their population (UK and some Europeans come to mind), thier graduates may be smarter, but can they get 10,000+ a year for a computer industry, pharmecueticals, aerospace, or defense ? China and India have picked the mass education path. Russia at one time too.

To: Seeker of Truth who wrote (51527)	7/12/2004 11:55:32 AM
From: AC Flyer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

>>US education is peculiar among nations in the proliferation of poor tertiary institutions. For most "colleges", i.e. institutions without a graduate school connected, you would not be far off to say all of the 4 years are spent teaching what should have been learned in high school.<< You are addressing a topic that I have thought about a great deal, Malcolm. My educational experience was high school and an undergraduate degree in the UK and a graduate degree in the US. I confess that in my early years in the US I carried the same kind of prejudice that you carry now regarding the quality of US education. Having attended a "good" English high school, I had studied 11 or 12 subjects in some depth and three in great depth. I think it is true to say that at age 18 I knew more history, geography, english literature, biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics than first or second year undergraduates in each of those subjects, even at "good" US universities, hence my initial prejudice. However, after living in the US for a while, I was able to put my experience into context, in the following ways: 1. First, the UK and most other European countries provide a university education to a much smaller percentage of their populations. Ignoring differences in educational quality, this is bad in and of itself as it fosters elitism and the continuance of social stratification that prevent many Europeans from participating in the workforce up to their true potential. 2. The quality of UK education was judged without reference to its social utility. In fact, the more generally useless and inapplicable the material was, the higher that learning was regarded in academic circles. (I am describing my experience in the early 1980s - I wonder how much this has changed). Clive Sinclair used to tell a great story about one of the Cambridge University College libraries that refused to release lending materials to him because he intended to use them for "commercial" purposes. That anti-business bias was a deeply ingrained part of upper class English culture and negated much of the quality of English education - at least as it translated into aggregate economic performance. 3. Social and cultural values are ultimately far more important as drivers of a country's economic performance than is the aggregate quality of a country's educational system. The US has a system that educates a relative minority to be world-class primary researchers, inventors and innovators and endows them with a business culture that encourages and enables their efforts to create wealth. The US system also educates the majority to a point where they can read, write and operate a calculator sufficiently to function in the business systems created by the minority. As it does this, the US system does not constrain anyone within a cultural matrix that confines them to their allotted roles. Everyone has a shot at the brass ring, and that is why rumors of the demise of US economic supremacy are greatly exaggerated.