Americans Think They Have The Best Colleges

but it seems that we don't.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/29/upshot/americans-think-we-have-the-worlds-best-colleges-we-dont.html

and the follow up story

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/08/upshot/more-on-american-colleges-standing-in-the-world.html?ref=education&_r=0

 

This. The whole premise of the study is flawed. One cannot compare a country like Sweden with a country like the USA no more than it fair to compare it with China or India. My brother and I recently had an argument on this exact topic. He argues that the push to broaden educational opportunities has been financially dilutive to degree holders. In essence, he argues that in any society there is a limited quantity demanded for workers with a post-secondary education and that by increasing supply of degree holders in the face of this limited demand wages have been driven down--and he points to people with BA degrees working at Starbucks.

My counter argument was that this assumes that the only purpose of a higher education is improved financial prospects and that it has no other value or even any intrinsic value. I'd argue that the primary impetus behind expanding educational opportunities hasn't been to improve capitalism but to improve democracy, especially democracy in a multicultural country--an issue that doesn't even appear in a country like Sweden. So to be blunt I think it is a red herring to ask whether America has the best education on a worldwide basis. Who cares if the elephant can climb a tree?! The right question is do we have the best education for America's needs? And I think the answer is--at least tentatively--yes.