
Percent of population with a college degree, by country - pg
http://blogs.ft.com/crookblog/files/2008/03/kierkegaard.jpg
======
icky
Apparently it's higher than the percent of people trying to squint at that
image in 1680x1050. :-(

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dfranke
Try it on a 1920x1200 laptop screen :-(

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eusman
with some help of Snipshot

[http://aycu03.webshots.com/image/49922/2001351004567808923_r...](http://aycu03.webshots.com/image/49922/2001351004567808923_rs.jpg)

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gojomo
Another confounding factor in interpreting such a graph: credentialism.

Countries and cultures vary in how much they value official degrees and
titles, and greater reliance on granted credentials is not always better,
especially when it serves to protect established interests from competition.

So one interpretation of the relative stability of US education rates across
age groups: the US has resisted a wave of creeping credentialism that has
afflicted most of the world, having reached optimal level of education earlier
than most.

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etal
Looks like Russia, the U.S., Germany, Switzerland, Brazil and possibly
Argentina are the only countries where the youngest generation (25-34) is not
the most educated. The U.S.'s education rates have apparently been close to
flat for the past couple of generations. Russia's crazy history shows. Germany
is in surprisingly bad shape, mostly flat but with the youngest generation at
the bottom. Switzerland, Brazil and Argentina resemble Russia; this may mean
that in those countries it's more common to get a college degree later in life
(or else fewer young people are getting a degree at all).

~~~
ruslan
Your assumption is totally false. I'm Russian and I can tell you that more
than 80% of Russian pupils join universities (or a college) after 11 years of
school. Standard university education program lasts for 5 years, after that
you can join "aspirantura" (a post-gradute form of education) for another 4
years and only then you can earn some science degree. Doctor of Science is the
highest degree which is usually earned at age of 50. On the opposite, the US's
"phD" can be compared to the lowest possible degree here (no one will
call/treat you as a scientist if you under 30). Russian academic system is
very different from what you have in US or in EU. I believe same applies to
Brazil and Argentina and many other post-soviet countries which blindly copied
everything from Soviet Union system. So, it's very inaccurate to compare
education level of countries that way as on the pic since there's still no
unified standard adopted by them.

From my personal perceptions, I admit that more and more ppl here in Russia
tend to get higher degrees, hence require higher sallaries. This causes a
great problem in society - no one wants to clean streets and work on plants,
everybody want to be bankers or at least some financial/oil tycoons. And
programming/CS is considered as "street cleaning". :-(

PS: The only seemingly correct assumption that can be made based on the pic is
that China, Brazil and India will stay the best "outsource dirty work to"
countries at least for the next decade :-).

~~~
newt0311
At this point, I should point out that Einstein published his work on special
relativity at the age of 26. If it takes 50 years to earn a Doctor of science,
the education system is chocking itself. By that age, scientists are too set
in their ways to think up anything new (with rare exceptions).

~~~
ruslan
Do you know that Einstain was recognized as crazy fag in his 20th and it took
him next 20 years to improve his theory and make it real science before he was
nominated as genious.

I strictly believe that one has to produce ALOT of theoretical AND practical
knowledge before being recognized as scientist, which is not the US case. In
US you write down your 100 pages thesis of nothing, partisipate in a couple of
speak-about-everything-and-nothing-in-particular conferences and woah you are
a scientist! The value of science is heavily and rapitly devaluating :-(.

PS: Same trend is happening here in Russia.

~~~
apu
Saying that Einstein was "recognized as crazy fag" implies that he was
actually one -- which I strongly doubt is the case. Regardless, his 1905 paper
on special relativity and his subsequent work (mostly performed within the
next 5 years) fleshed out the vast bulk of his theory, and it remained
virtually unchanged henceforth. The 20 years you refer to is mostly the time
it took for experimental physics to catch up, and be able to experimentally
verify the many consequences of his theory. Also, it is somewhat immaterial
how long it took for him to be "nominated as genious [sic]" -- the fact that
he was indeed correct in all the major components of his theory, a theory
which broke so completely with most of physics prior to him, is evidence
enough of his genius (which is not to discount Lorentz or Poincare in any way,
who were certainly almost there as well).

With regards to your second paragraph (and your prior comment about scientists
having to be >30 to be recognized as such and >50 (!) to become one in
Russia), the evidence of the works produced by great scientists in the past
hundred years strongly suggests that there is something wrong with that
belief. Looking only at mathematics, for example, it is difficult to argue
that Ramanujan, Godel, Hilbert, Grothendieck, Weil, Weyl, or Deligne (to name
only a few), were not truly scientists before age 30 (by which time most of
them had published some of their best works).

If the value of science is indeed going down in the US (a fact which is not at
all clear to me), then there are lots of other possible reasons for it. But
certainly not age.

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rokhayakebe
there seem to be no correlation between the percentage of educated people and
the GDPP. just by glancing at this nations starting with Russia moving towards
China, i can state with confidence that a nation with more educated people
does not innovate more than others. one thing i would like to know is why some
nations are simply more educated than others? and what difference
(economically, even politically )does it make if one country is more educated
than others?

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osipov
>a nation with more educated people does not innovate more than others

based on the chart you are dead wrong -- Russia was and still is one of the
key competitors of US in innovation, albeit in the sectors outside of the
semiconductors and IT (which I assume you know best). Russia is an innovator
in space, weapons, nanotech and other industries, so i wasn't surprised to see
them in the upper 10%. I must admit seeing them at #1 was surprising.

Going from right to left, Japan certainly makes sense as an innovator (e.g.
manufacturing), Korea (electronics), Nordic countries(telcom), etc.

On the other hand, countries from Peru and on down are hardly innovators on
anyone's list.

~~~
rokhayakebe
3 countries out of 30 make an exception, not a rule. i am not saying these
countries are not innovative, but to my knowledge France, Denmark, Norway,
Ireland, Korea, Japan and Canada are not more innovative than the US.they may
be more advanced in one field like telecom, or medecine, or car manufacturing,
but as a whole these nations are not more innovative then the US or India,
therefore a more educated nation does not mean it will innovate more.

~~~
osipov
India is a bad example -- it suffers from a huge, uneducated population and
the fact that top minds usually leave the country (until recently) and spend
their most productive years abroad. Do you have any examples where India can
claim world-class innovations that weren't created elsewhere?

~~~
ruslan
There's a very interesting point. Both China and India have nearely same
population (1.32B and 1.12B people accordingly), and same education level as
per the graph. Aslo it seems both countries are on same level of innovation,
yet, China's GDP is almost 3 times higher than GDP or India ($10.12T to
$4.12T). So, I won't call India an exception. The question is what makes China
so productive or what India lacks ? The answer is mentality: Chinese ppl got
used to work, whence Indians are not. And I think GDP does not corelate with
level of edication and innovation.

~~~
Husafan
Concerning this point, it is not necessarily just the mentality. It is worth
noting that China has had a government imposed and subsidized
industrialization program in place for some time now. India, which is a
democracy, is not forcing its people to work in factories when they might be
happier living in a village. This might explain the difference in GDP?

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Maven911
Note: College degree does not mean university degree. For US, university
degree rate is like 28-33%. Canada's is lower then that.

~~~
breily
What would the difference be? I go to a university, but am getting a degree
from a college within the university. I would think that means I'll have a
college/university degree - I don't see how you can get one without the other.

~~~
pchivers
In Canada, a college degree (generally referred to as a "diploma") is a two
year course, usually in an applied area such as graphic design or radio
broadcasting. A university degree is a four year course in an academic area
like philosophy or chemistry.

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ckinnan
Education is less important than economic freedom (free trade, property
rights, rule of law) in terms of higher per capita GDP.

~~~
ruslan
Say that to Chinese gov ;-), there no freedom in China. Although I totally
agree with your point.

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ojbyrne
The blog article with a link to chapter one of the study can be found here:
[http://blogs.ft.com/crookblog/2008/03/the-dumbing-of-
america...](http://blogs.ft.com/crookblog/2008/03/the-dumbing-of-america/)

Seems to be a position paper used to support higher H1B limits. But I found
the bit about "immigrant entrepreneurs" to be interesting. Quote:

"The survey found a substantial rise in the share of immigrant- founded
venture capital–backed companies in America. The share rose from just 7
percent in 1970–80 to 20 percent in 1980–89"

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aggieben
I think the most interesting feature of the chart is that Germany and the U.S.
have the smallest spread.

~~~
pchristensen
Possibly the value of a degree has been consistent for ~45 years (across all
the age cohorts), as opposed to countries where the value of a degree has gone
up (like Korea, where there's a huge spread).

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TheTarquin
Huh, interesting graph. Great way to show both country and age cohort
comparison.

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myth_drannon
In Russia for example there is no 3 years bachelor degree only 5 years degree
which is equivalent to masters degree in North America. So the comparison is
useless .

~~~
ojbyrne
These arguments probably would not last as long if you actually track down the
source. Because chances are they have addressed your objections. From the
study, which is linked from the blog post which can be found above:

"It is important to note that no attempt is made in figure 1.3 to “adjust for
quality differences” in tertiary educational experiences between countries. Of
course, not every university around the globe is a Harvard, Stanford,
Cambridge, or Indian Institute of Technology, so invariably considerable
“skill aspects” are not included in ﬁ gure 1.3. Such comparisons are
significantly beyond the scope of this policy analysis. However, following the
axiom that tertiary training is what principally enables individuals to
quickly grasp new complex subjects and therefore makes it easier to train them
on the (especially services-sector) job, it seems evident that in terms of
describing the overall level of high-skilled workers in different countries’
workforces, any impact of quality differences among universities will be
swamped by the quantitative differences in tertiary skill uptake depicted in
figure 1.3.16"

~~~
xiaoma
>However, following the axiom that tertiary training is what principally
enables individuals to quickly grasp new complex subjects and therefore...

I'm not at all convinced that it is axiomatic that "tertiary training is what
principally enables individuals to quickly grasp new complex subjects".

