you are conflating the avg. with the top tranche

No, not really.

There are lots of excellent US colleges that aren't in the top 20 or 25. Hundreds of them, graduating hundreds of thousands of students every year. This country has more educational opportunity than any other in the world. We have, overall, the best and most prestigious colleges and universities in the world, at the top, and also the best and broadest in the middle, too.

Of course, it's just educational opportunity. It does take some hard work to earn.

yes, really

do you know what fraction of Americans even go to college? much less graduate?

No, what is the percentage?

And what countries are higher?

(And do we need a higher percentage? What is the optimal %? 100%?)

It seems to me that America is fairly unique in the "everyone needs to go to college" attitude. From what I recall in European and Japanese educational systems, historically they don't really believe that and tend to "separate the wheat from the chaff" fairly early on (13 or 14 years old).

Those are academically inclined (determined by evil and undoubtedly culturally and economically biased standardized testing) get on the university track, those that aren't, well, sayonara/auf weidesen. No university for you.

Finally, even if America has a significantly lower % of students who go to college and/or graduate, whose fault is that? Why is the "educational system" always automatically blamed?

He spreads it on thick, verrry thick.

Call it sour grapes,

but we're now in a stew;

we're in a pickle.

What a fine kettle of fish.

And this is no time to flounder.

We've ignored the stew

and kept it on the back burner,

while the pot calls the kettle black.

We have fallen behind.

And, we have fallen behinds,

due, in large part,

to excess mayonnaise.

So now we have to

play ketchup.

Or we are toast.

I can see a LOT of money went into our educational system so that you would be capable of producing that...

The US higher education system is excellent. As you go up to graduate, doctoral, post-doc, research, etc it is even better.

The US elementary and high school system, as a whole, is average/mediocre - based on global rankings. But it is very uneven - a lot of it is top notch, a lot of it is very bad, it is all over the board.

I'm getting exceptionally hungry

Less than 30% of US kids graduate from a 4-year college.

Anyone who thinks that US colleges have been turning out well-schooled Americans over the past 20 years has not read as many resumes and cover letters as I have.

American exceptionalism was based on optimism about building a better country and the drive to take it there. In any mature society, some begin to think that sliding down the right birth canal --in and of itself -- makes them special and deserving. Many of those stop trying to improve themselves and their neighborhood/state/country/world. When the latter becomes the majority, it's the end of "exceptionalism." That the US has crossed that tipping point is pretty much beyond debate. Whether we can rediscover our purpose as a nation is in question.

Maybe time to throw out the mayonnaise and grab the mustard.

Relax, every country thinks they are exceptional. Australia think they are exceptionally exceptional.

at least you guys have part of ocean around you to ward off the Aussies

here in Orygun, 33 million furriners can just drive over the state line

I hear they have been dressing up as hippes and sneaking in unnoticed - cheeky bastards.

From an article in a prague newspaper
 

“The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president.

"The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America . Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince.

"The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.”

It is sometimes enlightening to read and hear how others in the world outside the U.S. view us and our "leaders". I, unfortunately, find myself most in tune with the thoughts shared in this brief comment from the Czech columnist.

Is the US an exceptional nation?
Bill O'Reilly wants to know.

Go to his website and vote in the poll... located on the right, top 1/3rd of the page.
Bill O'Reilly Official Home On The Web

Hmmm.... I thought "exceptional" meant that it is better than what others have.

Americans have no CLUE what poverty really is. I think we are exceptional in that regard.
Americans have the RIGHT to speak against the government without fear of reprisals. How is that going in Libya?
Is America exceptional because God made it that way ? HELL no. We can't even agree who, or what God IS.

Do we do everything right? Not even close. We still have people that think America is a Democracy, instead of a Federally Represented Republic.

Our little "Experiment" has been tried before, and usually lasts about 200 years. It takes the populace about that long to realize that they can use their vote to make the government steal from earning class, and give it to them without working for it.

So yeah, The USA is kinda screwed up, But I still don't want to live any where else.

America is exceptional in that she seems to be able to borrow against her future indefinitely.

Show of hands, everyone who doesn't think the US is exceptional?
OK everyone with their hands up, get the hell out.

The US became exceptional because of it's people. It's innovative, aggressive, "can do" attitude, the attitude that we can do it better that anyone else through hard work, creative thought, and strong work ethic.

We proved just that in WWII and we've been proving it ever since, DESPITE the obvious attempts from the left to tear down this great country.

That's a very romanticized, simplistic view of history and the present, but it's a popular one.
The US was exceptional for many reasons. 250 years ago there were 4 million square miles of resources that could be had virtually free. The Europeans who came here to settle did not believe in the divine right of royalty - every man had the right of ownership of personal property. They adopted a more or less representative type of government. It took both unimaginable wealth for the taking, personal property rights, and representative government to make the US exceptional.
As the population grows and the free wealth is used up, as we need to do more with less and become more like the old world, we are learning just how "exceptional" we really are.

After WWII we, the AMERICAN people payed out tons of our hard earned $$$ to rebuild and teach the Japanese how to turn their country into a manufacturing based economy. We occupied them so that they didn't need to have as large and powerful army.

We did the same for Germany. Our tax dollars got spent protecting Western Europe from the Soviet hoard.

Guess what, Western Europe didn't need to spend 25% of their economy protecting it's backside. The spent their saving on Health care, public transportation on other social goodness.

This was paid for by our government via us being their fall-back army.

Right now Korea is very prosperous. Well right now how many US soldiers are stationed in Korea? Who is paying for this? Where else do we have soldiers, helping other countries?

It used to be said "that the Business of America is Business."

It used to be said "so goes G.M. so goes America"

We need to look at our past to build our future.

We need to look at the Marshall plan:Marshall Plan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What worked in this we need to implement here! What failed in this we need to be wary of and avoid.

Wow... I can't remember the last time I read something and agreed so strongly!