[miked]

Based on what data?

Almost every country in the world is more socialist that the (former) U.S. None of those countries' university systems come close to that of the U.S. And what are the best universities in the U.S.? MIT, CalTech, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, etc. (private) vs. UC Berkeley and UCLA (public). The latter two are soon to feel the financial collapse of California.

[jacquesm]

That may have something to do with the immense budgets for defense the US has, a portion of that money goes towards research in universities.