Because that addresses the post-secondary, and mine was in reference to the comment about secondary.
What comment was that?
There are many problems with the "successful" American University system, too, namely based on its business model.
Let me address those points:
1. American universities are very expensive. Unjustifiably high costs practically bankrupt people or puts them into permanent debt slavery. The value of the degree, often, is not worth the paper its printed on, because of other problems.
I think it depends. There are some excellent public schools that offer a great education at a reasonable price. And for "needy" kids or kids at the lower margin of the middle class even an "expensive " private college with a great reputation can be more affordable than a less-selective state school, thanks to endowment and scholarship money. As I said, the people who are really having a hard time are the kids from families that don't quality for much financial aid but who aren't wealthy, either. State U is still an option for them. Or they can go to a community college and transfer to a four-year school. Or they can work their butts off, get good grades, and apply for scholarship money.
Or they can join the military and get the taxpayer to foot the bill.
2. American universities are much easier to get into than other countries (such as Germany), which is one reason why they are popular. The problem is that this allows a glut of degrees that depresses the market wage for those jobs. Also, it waters down the curriculum and allows for nonsense degrees to become dominant to fill the demand, which is all colleges nowadays care about: money. American schools will teach anything for money, no matter how useless. THis is very popular.
Again, I think it depends and you make generalizations at your peril. Top-tier universities and colleges with national reputations are extremely selective. Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, MIT, Caltech--not easy to enter. Are their undergraduate programs better than other schools with lesser reps? Perhaps not. (One of the worst professors I had was a math professor who had an Ivy League pedigree, including a PhD from Harvard.) But I think companies recruit at those schools because they know the students who went there are motivated and have elevators that reach the penthouse and not necessarily because they're better educated than kids who might have gone to a less-selective school.
And if you're a late bloomer but live in a country like Germany, good luck getting a university education. At least in the U.S. a kid can get a second chance by attending a community college and then transferring to a four-year school.
3. In the past, a lot of chinese came here because of the comparative opportunities to their own country, but now, China is actually siphoning off huge numbers of high talent from U.S. Universities with large grants, comfy positions, and more science/math opportunities. AMericans have been spending less on science and math education compared to China, so China is now becoming popular relative to the United States for math and science talent.
I'll give it to you that we need more emphasis on math and science in this country. American universities, however, still manage to attract considerable research dollars, hold many patents, and challenge students to think for themselves and innovate. I wonder how much students in China find their critical thinking skills challenged, or do they just regurgitate politically-correct facts they're spoon-fed by professors who've received the Communist Party Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval?
In the meantime, I'll still put our top schools against those of any other country.
QS World University Rankings Results 2010 | Top Universities
