Norway Supplants U.S. as World Leader in College-Graduation Rates By DAVID L. WHEELER
For the first time, international-education statistics show that three countries -- Norway, Britain, and the Netherlands -- surpass the United States in the proportion of young people who graduate from college, according to a report being released today.
The report, by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which pools data from 29 democratic, market-oriented countries that belong to the organization and 16 nonmember countries, can be ordered on the World Wide Web.
"The U.S. continues to have very high college graduation rates, but it no longer has the highest in the O.E.C.D.," says Andreas Schleicher, principal administrator of the organization's Center for Educational Research and Innovation.
The last edition of the report was issued in December 1998, and that edition indicated that the United States led in college-graduation rates but trailed 22 other countries in completing high school, after having once been the world leader in that category.
Compared with previous editions, the report's authors say this year's compendium of education statistics contains a more detailed inspection of how higher education is financed, a broader look at how students are crossing national borders to attend postsecondary institutions, and confirmation of stunning enrollment growth around the world.
From 1990 to 1997, the number of students enrolled in postsecondary education grew by more than 20 percent in all but five O.E.C.D. countries. In eight countries -- Portugal, Poland, Hungary, Turkey, Britain, the Czech Republic, Ireland, and Korea -- enrollment grew by more than 50 percent.
Driven by an average enrollment growth of 40 percent, spending at public institutions went up by 28 percent from 1990 to 1996, the report says.
The O.E.C.D. also took its first detailed look at the number of foreign students in member countries. Switzerland, Australia, and Austria have the highest proportion of foreign students. But the United States receives the largest number of foreign students, taking in 32 percent of all students who study outside of their home countries.
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[earlier story, linked from above]
From the issue dated December 4, 1998
U.S. Trails 22 Nations in High-School Completion
By PAUL DESRUISSEAUX
Washington
The United States, once the world leader in high-school completion, now trails 22 other leading industrialized countries that have graduation rates higher than the American rate of 72 per cent, according to a report released last week by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The Paris-based O.E.C.D., in its annual compilation and analysis of education statistics from its 29 member countries, found that the United States "has lost its supremacy as the premier educator." That the United States has been surpassed by many countries is primarily a reflection of what those nations have managed to accomplish in a relatively short time, according to Andreas Schleicher, principal administrator of the organization's Center for Educational Research and Innovation.
"It's not the case that the United States is doing worse, but that so many other countries have become better," he said. He noted that 1998 was the first time that his group had been able to compare high-school graduation rates, "but the trend of more educational attainment in these other countries has been building strongly in recent years."
The O.E.C.D. countries with high-school graduation rates above 90 per cent in 1996, the year for most of the statistics in the report, were, in descending order, Norway, Belgium, Japan, Finland, Poland, New Zealand, Portugal, and South Korea. Those in the group with rates from 70 to 80 per cent were Ireland, Italy, Canada, Spain, and the United States, which, except for Mexico at 26 per cent, had the lowest rate of all O.E.C.D. members that provided such data.
U.S. education officials have said that increasing the high-school graduation rate is an important goal. The National Governors' Association has set new graduation standards for students, and many states have adopted specific programs aimed at raising the rate of high-school completion.
The O.E.C.D. also looked at how many years of education a person who is 5 years old can be expected to attain in various countries, based on current enrollment rates. In 1990, the United States led all countries with 16.3 years of education. By 1996, that figure had increased to 16.8 years, but 11 other O.E.C.D. countries had higher levels of expected educational attainment than did the United States.
While college enrollment and graduation rates are comparatively strong in the United States, the O.E.C.D. found that postsecondary education is expanding rapidly in many of its other member countries. College entry rates in the United States are still the highest, at just over 50 per cent, but U.S. enrollments remained relatively stable from 1990 to 1996, while they increased by more than 25 per cent in 16 other O.E.C.D. countries.
The findings are included in Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators 1998, a 432-page book that costs $49 and, according to Mr. Schleicher, has become an annual best seller for the O.E.C.D., outpacing many of the group's stock-in-trade volumes of economic analysis. Ordering information is available on the organization's World-Wide Web sites. O.E.C.D. officials said that much of the data on which the 1998 education indicators are based will soon be available on the group's main site (http://www.oecd.org/els/stats/els_stat.htm) as well as that of its Washington center (http://www.oecdwash.org).