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by wilg 5 days ago
https://www.statista.com/chart/30934/world-best-universities...
2 comments

Yes, but us universities aren’t financially accessible to most people and access depends more on connections and families than merit.

But your link also is only relevant to the university system.

It doesn’t change the fact that the non university part of education is severely financially crippled in major areas of the country in order to hinder black people from getting proper education.

Combined with a burnout introducing system of standardized tests the us educational system is truly world leading. At demonstrating how NOT to do education.

> us universities aren’t financially accessible to most people

On the contrary, they are too accessible due to enormous tuition bills and federally guaranteed student loans (which cannot be discharged in bankruptcy). This toxic combination saddles many graduates with debt they will struggle to pay off for decades. Almost as if it was intended to create a modern form of debt slave.

> access depends more on connections and families than merit.

Only true for small elite private colleges these days. Even most of the big top schools have tried to move away from legacy admissions.

State schools also have problems with excessive tuition expenses, but the value is still there for high-demand undergraduate degrees (mostly just for connections and job access afterwards) and definitely for a Master’s. They also accept almost anyone regardless of educational background.

US trade schools are a fantastic value, and more people should take advantage of them. They are a great option, but too many people don’t realize that for many careers a trade school or community college is perfectly adequate and won’t hold you back or saddle you with a mountain of debt.

> Combined with a burnout introducing system of standardized tests

Our standardized testing has problems, but it’s really not that stressful or difficult compared to, say, much of SE Asia.

"On the contrary, they are too accessible due to enormous tuition bills and federally guaranteed student loans (which cannot be discharged in bankruptcy). This toxic combination saddles many graduates with debt they will struggle to pay off for decades. Almost as if it was intended to create a modern form of debt slave."

How about making universities accessible without federally guaranteed studen loans? Debt slaving doesn't mean accessibility.

“Too accessible” was just a rhetorical flourish, obviously it would be great if everyone could get a good education. If “access” comes with crippling debt, better not to have that access. 4 year college isn’t the only way to get an education.
And yet my American ex-GF that went to one of these top universities with very good grades when she came to Barcelona to do a masters (in a lowly Spanish university) she was so far behind in knowledge compared to her peers she had to do a lot of work just to catch up.

I'm pretty sure most of these are just politics being played.