Are rankings unfair to U.S. higher ed?

updated 12:05 a.m. ET Nov. 4, 2009

The United States spends more money than any other country, and its elite institutions are the world's best. But overall the system is wasteful, fails too many — and is falling behind other countries.

No, the topic isn't health care — it's higher education.

The latest stinging report came last week from a state colleges group arguing the United States isn't producing enough college graduates, especially in science. Similar gloominess emanates from business groups and even the Obama administration, whose top education goals include again leading the world in proportion of college graduates.

But is it really fair to try to rank American higher education against the rest of the world?

And if you do, is the once-vaunted U.S. system really losing its edge?

A few contrarian experts say no. The most vocal is Cliff Adelman, a sharp-tongued data hound who after a long and influential career in government now works at the independent Institute for Higher Education Policy, where he feels freer to rock the boat.

"We've got a country full of masochists, people who love to be flagellated, they want to hear a bad story," Adelman said in an interview. "We hesitate to call it propaganda, but it is."

For years, Adelman has railed against tables showing other developed countries bounding ahead in college achievement. In a new paper Wednesday, he lays out his case against the most commonly cited international higher education comparisons, which typically cite annual reports from the Organization of Economic and Comparative Development, a consortium of the world's leading industrialized countries.

It's not that Adelman and like-minded experts, including Art Hauptman, a prominent independent education consultant, think American higher education is perfect.

It's just doing a better job than you might believe from the spin put on the annual OECD benchmarks.

Adelman's beef falls into three main categories.

Graduation rates
The conventional wisdom: American higher education is good at getting students into college — and terrible at getting them out with a degree. A figure commonly cited from the OECD report is that only 56 percent of U.S. college students graduate.

Adelman: That number is deeply misleading: It measures how many American college students have a degree within six years only if they graduate from the same school where they started. It doesn't capture students who transfer, which is much more common at American colleges than elsewhere.

How many U.S. students graduate somewhere within six years? An earlier government study estimated 63 percent — not great, but about in line with the highest-ranked developed countries. However, that study is buried in an index to the OECD report. In the most commonly cited OECD figures, only the United States is graded on the number who graduate where they started. Other countries are measured systemwide.

"They like to beat up the big guy," Adelman said of the OECD numbers. "It's a rhetorical race to the bottom."

The verdict: Adelman's right — the comparison is unfair to the United States. Still, 63 percent leaves much room for improvement.

A well-educated population?
Conventional wisdom: The influential Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation laments the United States' fall from first to 10th in college completion rates. The White House says President Obama "is committed to ensuring that America will regain its lost ground and have the highest proportion of students graduating from college in the world by 2020." Several reports have warned U.S. higher education attainment is on track to peak with the baby boomers.

Adelman: The United States does very well producing bachelor's degrees. In that category, he notes in the published 2008 OECD report the United States had the highest rate in every age group except 25-34, where it was No. 2.

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