[trafficlight]

It's not a financial problem (well it is), it's a cultural problem. American culture just doesn't value education and learning in general.

Isaac Asimov articulated this very well:

Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge'.

[j_baker]

I don't buy it. We have a culture that rewards everyone going to college, even if they'd be better off not going to college. And your explanation for this is that we don't value education? I'd argue the exact opposite. We value education too much.

[Jtsummers]

That's inaccurate. We have corporate cultures which value the possession of a certificate of achievement, not a culture which values education.

Depending on the survey you have up to 50% of the US denying evolution. A process that is clearly evident without any leaps of faith. That's not indicative of a culture that values education. There are many other aspects of math, science and technology that large swaths don't understand or misunderstand that would not occur if education were truly valued.

[NoPiece]

People who are religious can still value education, even though certain religious beliefs are in conflict.

[Jtsummers]

I won't disagree with that as there are many aspects to education beyond the technical (literature, art, philosophy, etc). I used evolution as an example because the statistics were easy to find. I also find it strange that the Roman Catholic church can express an acceptance of it, but so many people in the US still deny it.

It's not the only scientific or technical concept that's grossly misunderstood in this country (or the world in general).

How about the false connection between autism and MMR?

I've removed other examples that tended to fall back on showing religious groups as particularly in conflict with science.

Here's a still controversial but areligious one: WTC collapse. A 'model' using chicken wire and gasoline was used to persuade a non-negligible percent of the population that planes filled with fuel crashing into the upper half of 110 story buildings would be unable to cause the collapse of said buildings. A fundamental failure in education has occurred when you get engineers accepting things like this.

[vrishabh]

People with a college education are definitely rewarded.

The cultural problem is not that education is not valued, it is more on the lines of that education is often (most of the times) equated to "formal education."