Friday August 31, 2018
Abigail Hess
More Americans are going to college than ever before. But even as students attend college at record-breaking rates, the country continues to fall behind other nations.
Every year, institutions in the United States dominate rankings of the best colleges in the world. Of the top 10 best universities in the world, eight are located in the U.S. But despite having some of the best educational institutions on earth, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) ranks the U.S. sixth for adult education level.
The OECD defined a country's adult education level as the percentage of people between the ages of 25 and 64 who have completed some kind of tertiary education in the form of a two-year degree, four-year degree or vocational program.
Here are the 10 most educated countries:
10. Luxembourg
42.86 percent
9. Norway
43.02 percent
8. Finland
43.60 percent
7. Australia
43.74 percent
6. United States
45.67 percent
5. United Kingdom
45.96 percent
4. Korea
46.86 percent
3. Israel
49.90 percent
2. Japan
50.50 percent
1. Canada
56.27 percent
Canada tops the list as the most educated country in the world. According to the OECD over 56 percent of adults in the Great White North have earned some kind of education after high school. During the 2016 World Economic Forum in Davos, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested that Canadians' education was the nation's greatest resource.
"We need education to enable people to learn, think and adapt," he said. "Our natural resources are important, and they always will be. But Canadians know that what it takes to grow and prosper isn't just what's under our feet, it's what between our ears."
Canada is followed by highly-educated countries like Japan, Israel and Korea.
The United States ranked sixth on the OECD's list. According to the OECD, 45.7 percent of American adults between the ages of 25 and 64 have completed some kind of tertiary education in the form of a two-year degree, four-year degree or vocational program. The U.S. Census estimates that about 33 percent of American adults possess a bachelor's degree or more.
This is an updated version of a story that appeared previously.