Training
The United States is a world leader in post-secondary
education and research. In 2010, just over 41% of the US
population aged 25-64 had some form of post-secondary
education (in Sweden 33%).
However, basic education is not as prominent. In
international statistics, literacy is stated to be 100%, but
the task is misleading. Recent reports from the states show
major shortcomings in both mathematics and literacy. In a
2010 PISA study involving 15-year-old students from more
than 70 countries, the United States ranked 14th in literacy
and 25th in math. Check topschoolsintheusa for test centers of ACT, SAT, and GRE as well high schools in the country of United States.
 The US school and higher education system is
characterized by having originated in an immigration
country, and it thus differs in important respects from the
corresponding European, mainly from a historical
perspective. Elementary schools were set up, funded and
governed locally, while in Europe they came through central
decisions. In the mid-1800s, the educator Horace Mann
(1796–1859) organized a "school for all" in Massachusetts in
the mid-1800s that formed a model for the entire United
States. The US Constitution places the responsibility for
education entirely on the states, which has meant a great
deal of variation in resources and achieved levels of
knowledge and skills. A secondary school, high school,
came into being in the latter part of the 19th century, also
through local initiatives. Thus, already a general school
took care of all the children in a catchment area, which
came to be regarded as a backbone of American democracy.
This was in contrast to the conditions in Europe, where the
secondary school, the high school, was far from an elite
school with medieval traditions. There has never been such a
parallel school system in the United States.
Basic education
The compulsory basic education is a matter for the states
and, above all, for the elected boards of the 14,000 local
school districts. However, this long-running
decentralization has proven to bring great inertia when it
comes to working for a general increase in the level of
knowledge throughout the country. It also means that a
school board's budget largely reflects the area's financial
status. In practice, there are also differences between
different states in the scope of compulsory schooling, in
rules for private schools' activities and not least in terms
of knowledge objectives.
The compulsory schooling begins with elementary
school, which for most children starts with
kindergarten aged 5-6 and continues with five grades. This
is followed by three middle school courses (junior
high school), after which the school is completed with
four high school courses. Some states allow
students to quit, with parental consent, before high school
is over. In 2011, 90% of pupils attended compulsory
schooling in public, duty-free schools and just over 8% in
private schools, while 1.5–2% of children were taught by
parents at home. In many cases, private schools are run by
the Catholic Church.
The public school has been decisive for the assimilation
of immigrants, formerly mainly those from Europe, and later
those from Asia and Latin America. During the 20th century,
and especially after World War II, a large proportion of
African Americans moved from the southern states to
primarily the industrial cities in the north. It created
ghetto educations that led to problems in the school system
with underprivileged students. A large immigration of
Latinos, ie. Spanish speakers from Mexico and the islands in
the Caribbean, in particular, have in recent decades created
a new large minority, mainly in the states farthest south
and in the largest cities in the east. This is clearly
reflected in the resources and results of the education. The
percentage of students who did not finish high school in
2009 was among Latinos 20.8%, African Americans 11.6% and
Whites 9.4%.The dropout rate is higher among men than among
women.
The mass education in high school and the difficulties in
recruiting competent teachers to the compulsory school,
mainly in nature-oriented subjects, already led to harsh
criticism from university teams in the mid-1900s. The Soviet
launch of Sputni in 1957 triggered strong reactions and
demands for a better standard of education. After 1980 the
comparisons became applicable to Japan, whose students
showed superiority in mathematics and the natural sciences.
A radical improvement in basic education became a federal
concern under the leadership of various presidents in the
1980s and 1990s. Among other things, In 1994, Congress
passed a law that established that the United States of 2000
would have achieved world-class mathematics and science.
A large school policy program, No Child Left Behind
(NCLB), was initiated by President George W. Bush in 2001.
This has to some extent contributed to improved mathematics
skills, while the general level of reading comprehension has
not improved. However, the program - through strict
requirements for performance reporting and follow-up, linked
to federal grants - has helped to keep an up-to-date image
of students' knowledge throughout the United States,
primarily in terms of reading and counting, by state, age,
gender, ethnic affiliation, income group and disability.
The differences in the general level of knowledge between
different states are still very large. The largest
proportion with good literacy and numeracy ability was in
2005 in states in the north and northeast. The largest
proportion with inferior ability (about half of all
students) was found in states in the South, including
California, and in Washington DC. African Americans and
Latinos are still far behind students of European and Asian
descent. Transferred to everyday life, according to the
Ministry of Education in 2009, means that more than 30
million adult Americans are unable to read and understand
simple newspaper text and simple instructions for use. The
situation is exacerbated by the increased demand for reading
ability in the labor market.
Higher education
In 2009, 70% of those who graduated from high school went
on to higher studies. Post-secondary education is given at
the college (equivalent to the Swedish university)
and the university. In the fall of 2010, 20.3 million
students were enrolled at universities and colleges in the
United States, of which 14.6 million were full-time
students. Nearly 725,000 came from other countries, of which
158,000 came from China. During the academic year 2007–08,
260,000 Americans studied at foreign universities and
colleges, of which just over half in Europe.
There are several different types of college. Colleges
with two-year programs are usually Community Colleges
where studies lead to associate's degree. Colleges
with four-year programs lead to a bachelor's degree
(such as Bachelor of Arts, BA, and Bachelor of
Science, B.Sc.), which is the academic undergraduate
degree in the United States. Several such colleges,
including with a focus on the humanities and social sciences
(liberal arts colleges) are known for high quality teaching.
Those who study to get a BA or B.Sc. are called
undergraduates, and such education is also provided at
the universities. More than a quarter of college-level
students study at a private university. A 2006 study found
that close to 20% of the adult population had enrolled in
college but had not graduated.
Continuing studies, then in the vast majority of cases at
a university, after 1-2 years lead to a master's degree (eg
Master of Arts, MA, or Master of Science,
M.Sc.), or also, normally after four years of study, for a
Ph.D., Ph.D. The students at that level are called
graduates. Many universities also have academic
vocational training in special schools (medical
schools, business schools, law schools, veterinary schools
etc.). School is then a term that can be equated with the
faculty in Sweden. The term college, when it occurs in a
university, usually has a similar meaning.
The federal state itself does not conduct higher
education except at defense colleges (eg West Point) and the
like. There is also no overall common regulatory framework
for universities and colleges. Quality is considered to be
ensured through competition between the university
institutions, and an important role in this context plays
ranking lists, based on research successes, publication
profile and publication scope, library quality, teacher
staff qualifications and exams. Low-ranking HEIs are not
considered to be accredited.
The federal state can provide grants and scholarships to
students as well as support for specific research programs,
but during the 1990s, it accounted for a maximum of
one-tenth of all the costs of higher education. Half of all
funds came from the states, while the remainder consisted of
returns from donations and, not least, the students' tuition
fees. A majority of universities are state-owned and each
state has at least one such university, usually with the
state's name. The major states have gathered "their"
universities in so-called university systems. California has
three of these, of which the best known is the University of
Californiawhich has aggregate operations (campus) in about
ten locations, primarily in San Francisco (Berkeley) and Los
Angeles (UCLA). State universities are partially
tax-financed and therefore the tuition fee is usually lower
for state residents than for prospective students. The
universities have become increasingly dependent on external
support, which is evident in the operations of medical
schools. The vast majority of states have student funding
systems for their residents and the larger states also have
special support programs for students from low-income
groups. At various levels, there are also charities that
have performance or needs-related loans and scholarships for
students, something that is increasingly needed. Tuition
fees and other tuition expenses increased significantly more
than the average household income in the United States
during the 00s.
It is easier to gain admission to a public university
than to a private one, but there are hardly any differences
in the course requirements. There are many private
universities, some of them related to religious communities.
The course fees are usually five to ten times higher than at
the state university, since a private university does not
receive any financial support from the state. Return on
donations is also an important source of income. The private
universities are usually smaller but often more prestigious
than the state. The competition to be accepted is therefore
very fierce. For well-qualified applicants, there may be
good opportunities to receive study grants at such a
university. The leading private universities are clearly
research-oriented and are high on international ranking
lists, such asCalifornia Institute of Technology (Pasadena),
Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut), Princeton
University (New Jersey), Harvard University (Cambridge,
Massachusetts), MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(Cambridge), Stanford University (San Francisco) and
University of Chicago. Several Nobel laureates have come
from there for the past hundred years.
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