In the age group 55-64, the US has the highest proportion of college graduates in the world, but in the 25-34 cohort the US has fallen to tenth place behind Canada, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Belgium, Ireland, Norway, Denmark and France, and is tied with Australia, Spain and Sweden, according to this NYRB essay by Andrew Delbanco. Not only is the US losing its competitive educational advantage versus other nations, but the American Dream that children will have better lives than their parents is increasingly out of reach.
Too many students are unable to continue their education beyond high school, and of those who do, too many find themselves in underfunded and overcrowded colleges.
A report released in January by the Lumina Foundation, Trends in College Spending, concludes that "higher education is becoming more stratified," with enrollment growing in the institutions with the least resources—the public community colleges—as more and more students are "pushed out of higher-priced institutions."
And those lower on the income scale are also being pushed out of lower-priced and 2-year institutions. A 2002 federal advisory committee reported that “more than 400,000 students nationally from families with incomes below $50,000 met the standards of college admission but were unable to enroll in a four-year college because of financial barriers,” and 160,000 of those qualified did not even enter a two-year institution.
[T]he college-going rates of the highest-socioeconomic-status students with the lowest achievement levels is the same level as the poorest students with the highest achievement levels. In short, bright and focused kids from poor families are going to college at the same rate as unfocused or low-scoring kids from families much better off.
Not only is college less accessible, but the quality of a typical US college education is declining. There is even discussion of reducing from 4 years to 3 the requirement for a BA degree (while other nations are considering raising their requirements).