New Report Makes US Education Slide Crystal Clear

“Measuring Up 2008, The National Report Card On Higher Education” from The National Center For Public Policy And Higher Education in San Jose, California, provides some really disturbing evidence about the slide in the relative competitiveness of US education compared to the rest of the world.

Figure 1 from Measuring Up shows we lag behind a number of countries in the percentage of our young people who are enrolled in college.


Next, Figure 2 shows that our rate of students completing college ranks much worse internationally.


Finally, Figures 3 and 4 make it clear that the overall the US postsecondary education level is coasting along on the backs of our older citizens, aged 35 to 64. Those older citizens’ education levels rank second in the world.


Things are not nearly so good for our younger citizens aged 25 to 34. They rank only 10th for educational level.


Note: All figures are from “Measuring Up 2008, The National Report Card On Higher Education.”

Measuring Up does indicate that Kentucky is making some progress relative to the rest of the country in some areas, but after digesting Figures 1 to 4, that may only be because the rest of the country isn’t making much progress at all, so we are shooting at a low target while the country as a whole is clearly falling behind.