Higher Education Debate Question

The Des Moines Register-hosted Republican debate included a meatball question about education.  Progressives need to note what Giuliani said and learn how to correct his lies.

"Parents should choose the school that their child goes to, the same way people choose higher education," Giuliani said.

"Has it ever occurred to us that higher education is still the very, very best in the world, and you're asking me about K-12? Well, higher education is based on choice. It's based on a large consumer market. It's based on competition."

"It's the area of K-12 where we have this government command, sort of, approach. And if we give the choice to parents, where they can choose a private school or parochial school or public school, a charter school, home schooling, let them be the decider."

If only the world were as simple as Rudolph Giuliani...  thinks it is.

The United States of America has most of the top schools in the world. Yes. 

But that is not the way to judge an education system or compare education systems.  
In Merrimack NH, Giuliani himself said: "People come from all over the world to attend college in the United States."

He's exactly right.  But how well does our secondary education system serve our country's students?  That is the question.  

He judges the best education system simply by who has the best schools. This flawed logic when allied to other areas would also make the United States the coldest country. Not Iceland, Finland, or Russia: No, the United States has more Physics Labs with Low Temperature Chambers so we are the coldest. We have more places close to absolute zero.

What country has the best art collection? France? Italy? Actually, Giuliani would say that David Geffen has the best art because he owns the top two most expensive paintings in the world.

The point is: Compared to the 27 countries with the largest economies, how well does our higher education system serve OUR country's students?  

Not based on Rudolph's gut, but instead based on a study by National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education which compared national and state performances with those of 26 other countries in the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, whose members include many of the world's leading economies, such as Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and Turkey, The answer is sad.

Percentage of students going to college:

American students can't afford to stay in college.

Although America still leads in the share of people ages 35 to 64 with a college degree, it ranks seventh among 25- to 34-year-olds with college degrees. That suggests that as the large and well-educated baby boomer generation retires, the USA faces a drop-off in college-trained workers to replace them.  When Generation X retires, we're in a load of trouble.

• The proportion of family income needed to pay net college costs at public four-year colleges has grown from 28% to 42% in Ohio.
• Gaps in college participation persist between high -and low- income students. In Virginia, 4 times as many high-income adults are in college compared to their low-income counterparts (ages 18 - 24) ; in Illinois, the gap is 52% to 23%.

This is the education Eden that Rudolph wants, one where the children of America's super-rich can afford to go to college with the children of Europe and Japan's super-rich.

The report also suggests that tuition increases, combined with dwindling financial aid, contributes to the flat growth in participation rates. "For most American families, college affordability has continued to deteriorate," it says.

Then again, Republicans aren't looking to be President of "most American families," they're running only to help the super-rich as they've always only done.