Measuring Up: The National Report Card on Higher Education

Commentary: Current Year

Introduction: International Comparisons Highlight Educational Gaps Between Young and Older Americans

by Patrick M. Callan

Measuring Up 2006 is the fourth national report card on higher education in the United States.1 As in earlier editions, the 2006 report card evaluates the progress of the nation and all 50 states in providing Americans with education and training from high school through the baccalaureate degree. Unlike other evaluations of higher education and college guides that address the effectiveness or prestige of particular colleges and universities, Measuring Up examines the status of postsecondary education and training from a state-by-state and national perspective. In Measuring Up 2006, we evaluate, compare, and grade the states on their higher education performance in six key areas:

Today’s knowledge-based global economy is highly competitive and will only become more so in the foreseeable future. The nations, states, and communities that are the most successful in developing human talent, particularly college-level knowledge and skills, will enjoy significant advantages. Conversely, those nations, states, and communities that fall behind educationally are likely also to fall behind in competing for good jobs and in achieving or maintaining high standards of living. Accordingly, a major challenge for our nation and states is to incorporate international benchmarks and advances into educational policy considerations and into our assessments of progress and success. To this end, in addition to comparing states with each other, Measuring Up 2006 introduces international comparisons for states and the United States as a whole. 

Older Adults (Ages 35 to 64)
Younger Adults (Ages 25 to 34)
Figure 1: The United States is still among the top nations in the proportion of older adults holding a college degree … but it drops to 7th in the educational attainment of young adults.
Source: Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Data represent the percentage of adults with an associate's degree or higher in 2003.

How Does American Higher Education Measure Up Internationally?2

The United States is still among the world leaders in the proportion of 35- to 64-year-old adults with college degrees, which reflects the spectacular gains of the four decades following World War II, first through the educational efforts of the G.I. Bill and continuing with the population explosion of the baby boomers. In the 1990s, however, as the importance of a college-educated workforce in a global economy became clear, other nations began making the kinds of dramatic gains that had characterized American higher education earlier. In contrast, by the early 1990s, the progress the United States had made in increasing college participation had come to a virtual halt. For most of the 1990s, the United States ranked last among 14 nations in raising college participation rates, with almost no increase during the decade.3 This U.S. performance has continued into this decade.

What is at risk is America’s future educational and economic leadership, if the nation’s younger population does not keep pace with the educational attainment levels of earlier generations and with the accelerating pace of higher education around the globe. The United States has already lost ground in several areas:

College Participation
Percent of Young Adults (Ages 18 to 24)
Currently Enrolled in College.
College Completion
Total Number of Degrees/Certificates
Completed per 100 Students Enrolled.
Figure 2: The U.S. remains among the leaders in college participation …
but it ranks in the bottom half in college completion.
Source: Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Data represent the percentage of adults with an associate's degree or higher in 2003.

India

India’s economy—the world’s fourth largest—has grown rapidly over the past decade, reaching nearly 8% annual growth in recent years. This economic performance has been built, in part, on growth in technology-driven sectors, including software development, outsourced services, and, more recently, cross-border-contracted research and development (R & D). These sectors rely on a critical mass of educated and skilled workers, a large share of whom have facility in English. Disparities in income and living conditions are substantial, however, so that per capita annual income for the population as a whole is about $600.

Education and Research and Development have been identified as key policy targets, if the country is to build on rapid growth in knowledge-economy sectors. In the words of the prime minister, India is best positioned to “leapfrog in the race for social and economic development” by establishing a knowledge-oriented paradigm of development. A National Knowledge Commission was established in 2005 to recommend appropriate policies to boost research, technology transfer, and skill and knowledge development to strengthen India’s competitive position in the global knowledge economy.

Higher education currently enrolls more than nine million students (about 10% of the relevant age group), with almost 20% of students in engineering and medicine. More than 300,000 students graduate each year with qualifications in science and engineering; of these graduates, according to one study, only about 100,000 are comparable to U.S. bachelor’s degrees and another 100,000 are comparable to U.S. sub-bachelor’s awards, such as associate’s degrees. In both cases, the annual volume of graduates is similar to U.S. degree production in these fields. Further, India’s elite science and technology institutes rank among the world’s best, producing graduates who track into leading posts in national and multinational firms. Overall, however, graduate unemployment is high, at a time when the supply of graduates in some dynamic fields is judged insufficient to meet demand. Generally, the quality—and particularly the relevance—of study programs pursued by many students are judged to be weak. Targeted initiatives have been advanced to strengthen research and training in science and engineering, with funding and enrollment increases for leading institutes, and to broaden student learning, partly through new options for students to combine conventional studies with skills-oriented coursework, and new job-oriented diploma or certificate programs.

China

China’s rapidly growing economy, increasing at about 9% per year since the late 1990s, ranks among the largest in the world. The private sector, which is fueled in part by substantial growth in foreign direct investment that benefits from relatively low costs and a favorable business environment, accounts for about one-half of overall gross domestic product. While incomes are rising rapidly in the coastal areas, wide regional disparities are evident. A stated policy aim is to strive for economic growth that is more knowledge- and innovation-driven, and that is more equally shared among the population. Education figures prominently in this effort.

Educational attainment continues to improve, including higher education. Expansion of educational opportunity has been rapid and substantial, increasing from about 10% of the college-age population enrolled in 1999 to just under 20% in 2006. With 16 million enrolled in higher education, China now stands among the world leaders in this area. Growing graduate unemployment—partly attributed to uneven quality in teaching and learning—has led authorities to call for a more modest 5% annual growth in student numbers, which is still an increase of about 700,000 to 900,000 students annually. China already produces a substantial share of the world’s science and engineering graduates each year. Expansion is being accommodated partly through the growth of private institutions and cross-border provision, as well as growth in public national and provincial institutions, the latter drawing more on tuition fees as a revenue stream. Public funding has targeted research and key disciplines in leading universities. For all programs, new quality-assurance processes are being implemented gradually.

The United States: 1992 to Measuring Up 2006

It is not surprising that nations that have historically performed far behind the United States in college opportunity, participation, and attainment would initially achieve faster rates of growth. What was not predictable is the “wall” that the United States hit in the early 1990s and the national failure to make significant progress on key higher education indicators in the last decade and a half, while the rest of the world improved. Two additional points, however, become clear from Measuring Up 2006:

In addition, national college participation rates are flat. High school graduation rates have declined, although those who do graduate are more likely to attend college. The chance of a U.S. 9th grader being enrolled in college four years later is less than 40%. Large gaps in college attendance that correlate with either income or race and ethnicity have not narrowed. About 4% of working-age adults attend college part-time, a smaller proportion now compared with the early 1990s.

The proportion of students who complete college programs has improved modestly, with most of the improvement in certificates rather than degrees. Even in best-performing states, only about two-thirds of students in four-year colleges and universities complete a bachelor’s degree within six years.

College affordability has declined dramatically. The primary affordability measures used in Measuring Up 2006 are family income and the proportion of that income required to finance a year at a two-year public, four-year public, or four-year private college or university after all student financial aid is taken into account. The results show that paying for college has become significantly more difficult for most American families, particularly those with modest and low incomes. An important indicator of declining affordability is an increase in student debt. Each year more students borrow and the amount they borrow increases.

Finally, the nation lacks direct comparable measurements of student learning. This nearly complete lack of information about a crucial aspect of higher education in America accounts for the “Incomplete” grade received by most states. However, Measuring Up 2006 for the first time includes 50 states’ scores on a limited number of indicators of student learning. Nine states that made progress in their information receive a “Plus” grade.

The Demographic Context

The areas of challenge that Measuring Up 2006 reveals for the nation and for each of the 50 states become even more important in relation to two major demographic realities that will heavily influence education and the economy in the United States for the next quarter century. First, 78 million post-World War II baby boomers are moving toward retirement years. The sheer size of the baby boom generation, combined with the entry of women into the workforce on an unprecedented scale, accounts in large part for the explosive growth of college-educated residents available to the workforce in the United States over the past decades. Between 1980 and 2000, for example, the prime-age workforce (ages 25 to 54) grew by 35 million workers, an increase of almost 50%. Both proportionately and in absolute numbers, more baby boomers completed high school and enrolled in and completed college programs than any previous generation of Americans. These increased rates resulted in the doubling of the college-educated workforce between 1980 and 2000.4

The second demographic reality concerns the difficulty of replacing these well-educated workers. The American workforce is projected to grow much more slowly during the first decades of the 21 st century than it has since World War II, with a predicted increase of only about three million prime-age workers through 2020—in contrast to the 35 million added between 1980 and 2000.5 Moreover, the composition of the next generation reflects the demographic shifts that have occurred within our nation’s youth. That is, a larger proportion of America’s future workforce will come from ethnic minority and low-income groups. Many workers in these groups will be first-generation college students who are served least effectively by education at all levels, whether elementary, secondary, or postsecondary. Such students graduate from high school, enroll in college, and complete college programs at significantly lower rates than the baby boomers that preceded them.6

In short, America’s educational strengths are heavily concentrated in the nation’s older population. Their successors in the workforce will be drawn from a smaller pool comprised primarily of young adults who, if current educational trends persist, are less likely to have college-level education and training. Because of this educational disparity, individuals with college-level skills may be in short supply, which may in turn severely limit individual opportunity and erode economic growth.7 The implications of these two demographic realities have received much less attention than have other more immediate concerns regarding the baby boomers, such as retirement and health care costs. Yet they are of equal or greater importance to the economic strength of the nation.

The expansion of a knowledge-based global economy has raised the bar for higher education in the United States—particularly in light of the rapid growth of college opportunities in many other nations. These nations have made their greatest gains in college access and attainment more recently than the United States has. One consequence is that the comparative educational advantage of these countries rests with their younger adults and workers. As the baby boomers in this country reach retirement age, a key challenge for the United States—and each of the 50 states—will lie in our collective ability to improve rapidly the educational opportunities and achievement of our younger Americans.

Profile: American Higher Education

Colleges and Universities

Students

Appropriations for Higher Education

1. In the Measuring Up series, “higher education,” “college education,” “postsecondary education,” and “education and training beyond high school” are used interchangeably to refer to academic and occupational education and training after high school offered by two- and four-year, public and private, nonprofit and for-profit institutions.

2. Comparisons are made with the member countries of the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Currently, 30 countries are affiliated with the Organisation, including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

3. Anthony Carnevale and Donna Desrochers, Standards for What? (Princeton, N.J.: Educational Testing Service, 2003), p. 69.

4. David T. Ellwood, “The Sputtering Labor Force of the Twenty-First Century: Can Social Policy Help?” in Alan B. Krueger and Robert M. Solow, eds., The Roaring Nineties: Can Full Employment Be Sustained? (New York, NY: The Russell Sage Foundation, 2001), p. 433; Committee for Economic Development, Cracks in the Education Pipeline (Washington, D.C.: 2005), p. 22.

5. Ibid.

6. The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, “The Educational Pipeline,” Policy Alert, April 2004.

7. Thomas J. Tierney, “How Is American Higher Education Measuring Up? An Outsider’s Perspective,” in James B. Hunt Jr. and Thomas J.Tierney, American Higher Education: How Does it Measure Up for the 21 st Century? (San Jose, CA: The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, 2006).

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