Education Week - September 17, 2014 - 7

U.S. Found Dropping
Behind Other Nations
In College Graduation
Lag also cited in preschool enrollment
By Madeline Will
The United States has fallen behind
many of the world's leading
economies in the rate of college
completion, new data from the Organization
for Economic Cooperation
and Development show.
According to the Paris-based OECD's
"Education at a Glance 2014," an annual
report that came out last week
and compares education data for the
34 OECD member nations as well as
some additional countries, the United
States has the fifth-largest proportion
of adults, ages 25 to 64, with a
college degree: 43 percent.
But in other countries, the higher
education attainment rate is growing
much faster, and in some countries,
surpasses the United States'.
For example, 44 percent of 25- to
34-year-old Americans have a college
degree-the 12th-highest proportion
and 5 percentage points
higher than the overall OECD average.
Meanwhile, 42 percent of 55- to
64-year-old Americans have a college
degree, topped only by Canada,
Israel, and the Russian Federation.
State and federal policymakers
are focusing increasing attention
on the rising cost of-and access
to-higher education in the United
States. The direct costs of college,
such as tuition, to students in
the United States are the highest
among all OECD countries, the study
found.
Only 30 percent of Americans ages
25-64 who are no longer students
have attained a higher education
status than their parents. Just three
other countries surveyed-Austria,
the Czech Republic, and Germany-
had a smaller percentage, according
to the study data.
Andreas Schleicher, the OECD's
director for education and skills
and the special adviser on education
policy to the secretary-general
of the OECD, noted in a briefing last
week that one reason fewer U.S. students
attain more education than
their parents is that more parents
already have a college degree. Still,
almost 20 percent of U.S. adults attained
less education than their parents
did.
Early Education
Across the OECD-member countries,
early-childhood-education
enrollment has increased, partly because
of increases in the numbers of
women who work outside the home
and who bear children later in life.
But the study shows that the
United States continues to lag behind
other countries in early-childhood
education, despite the fact that
it ranks fifth among OECD countries
in spending per pupil at that level.
Only 66 percent of American
4-year-olds were enrolled in early
education in 2012; the OECD average
was 84 percent. For OECD countries
in the European Union, the average
was 89 percent.
France and the Netherlands led
the world in early-childhood participation
rates for 4-year-olds, with
100 percent enrollment. Despite
state and federal policymakers'
focus in the United States on increasing
access to high-quality early
education for 3- and 4-year-olds, the
2012 data show a slight decrease
from 2005, when 68 percent of
American 4-year-olds were enrolled.
In comparison, the OECD average in
2005 was 79 percent.
Melanie Anderson, the director of
government affairs at Opportunity
Nation, a national campaign of the
nonprofit Be the Change Inc., with
offices in Washington and Boston,
that aims to expand economic mobility
and close opportunity gaps
among children, said high-quality
early-childhood education improves
the chances for children to succeed
later in life. American society, as a
whole, values preschool more than
it did in previous decades, she said.
While preschool enrollment has
significantly increased in the United
States since the 1970s, Ms. Anderson
said the recent small decline
may be due to a decrease in public
funding.
Other Findings
The United States was one of only
six countries to cut public spending
for education from 2008 to 2011.
The United States cut spending by
3 percent, lower than the other five,
which are Iceland, the Russian Federation,
Estonia, Italy, and Hungary.
The United States spent 6.9 percent
of its gross domestic product in
2011 on all levels of education combined,
higher than the OECD average
of 6.1 percent.
Mr. Schleicher said that, overall,
it is a good sign for education that
most of the 33 countries with available
data increased or kept the level
of public spending the same during
the global financial crisis.
Another key finding that has
remained consistent with previous
years' reports: Teachers in the
United States spent more time
teaching than their peers in almost
any other country (with available
data)-amounting to more than
1,000 hours teaching in the classroom.
Still, U.S. teachers' salaries
are not competitive and, for primary
and lower-secondary teachers, have
not increased since 2005, the study
found, unlike the salaries for many
of their international peers.
Scan this tag with your
smartphone for a link to
"Education at a Glance 2014."
www.edweek.org/links
EDUCATION WEEK | September 17, 2014 | www.edweek.org | 7
A CHANGING WORLD
Since 1995, higher education in the United States has become
increasingly more expensive. The nation's college-graduation rate has
not grown at the same speed, and as that slowed, other countries
have caught up and even surpassed the United States in their supply
of college graduates.
1995
30,000
25,000
20,000
15,000
10,000
5,000
0
0
2011
30,000
25,000
20,000
15,000
10,000
5,000
0
0
10
20
30
U.S.
10
20
KEY
Austria
Canada
U.S.
U.S.
30
40
50
Percentage earning postsecondary degree
Netherlands
United Kingdom
United States
60
70
Czech Republic
Finland
Germany
Hungary
Iceland
Israel
Italy
40
50
Percentage earning postsecondary degree
Note: Not all countries listed SOURCE: OECD presentation
60
70
Expenditures per student
Expenditures per student
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Education Week - September 17, 2014

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