International observers have long viewed America’s higher education system, including a cadre of high-quality major research universities such as Berkeley, as one of its most important socioeconomic advantages. As the first nation to pioneer the idea of mass higher education, the United States proved that the talent, training, and creativity of a nation’s citizens are as important for generating economic prosperity as, for example, its natural resources. It was true over the past hundred years, and is much more so now.

Increasingly, postsecondary education access and graduation rates are factors that influence the fate of nations. This widely understood fact is driving a worldwide effort to reform and reshape national and supranational higher education systems, often with the explicit goal of surpassing the United States. And that effort is paying off for a growing collection of global competitors.

Recent data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a cluster of 30 largely economically developed nations, exposes decidedly different trajectories. The United States still retains its historic lead in the number of high-quality research universities such as Berkeley, and in the total percentage of people with experience and degrees in higher education. But for the younger cohort, a different story emerges. After decades of steady increases, access rates have nearly flattened over the past decade and in some cases (as in California) actually have declined.

On average, the postsecondary participation rate for those aged 18 to 24 in the United States has fluctuated between 35 and 38 percent over the last decade, ticking up in the last few years. In contrast, many OECD countries are approaching—and a few have exceeded—the benchmark of 50 percent participation among this younger age group. Over the past decade or so, the U.S. slipped from 1st to 14th among nations with the highest postsecondary participation rates. We also once had the highest rate of students who entered a college or university and successfully earned a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Now we rank a meager 16th in the percentage of young people who get a degree, behind Australia, Iceland, New Zealand, Finland, Denmark, Poland, the Netherlands, Italy, Norway, the U.K., Ireland, Sweden, Israel, Hungary, and Japan. Sadly, the United States is one of the few OECD nations in which the older generation has higher rates of education attainment than the younger one.

Why are we lagging? One major factor is the concerted policy efforts of our competitors. England, Sweden, Germany, France, and many other EU members have set national goals to beat the U.S. in access rates. Most have also joined a pan-European compact, the Bologna Declaration, with the announced intention to reform and create collectively within the EU the most vibrant and competitive higher-education system in the world.

But the more troubling cause of decline is the underperformance in the U.S. system. Perhaps the largest drag is the breakdown in the pipeline between the nation’s secondary schools and its colleges and universities. In the 1980s, we ranked among the top countries in secondary graduation rates; now we rank only 21st. The U.S. Department of Education reports that the graduation rate among all secondary school students is close to 75 percent—and this may be an optimistic estimate. One recent study indicates that in some of California’s poor urban areas, the high school graduation rates are a tragic 44 percent.

Increasing costs for college and university tuition and housing, rising student debt burden, and an overly complicated and inadequate financial aid model are part of the problem—but not solely the problem, as some like to argue. Larger social and political realities are at play. The growing divide between the rich and the poor is more pronounced in this country than in most other developed economies. This has corresponded with a dramatic influx in recent decades of immigrants, many with low socioeconomic status and low education attainment levels. In California, over half the current population is either foreign born or has at least one immigrant parent. In the midst of this demographic shift, the country’s lawmakers have repeatedly lowered public investment in education relative to costs. In part, this reduction is a reaction to rising competition for limited tax dollars to fund prisons (a recent study shows that 1 out of 99 U.S. adults is incarcerated), Medicare, and other entitlements.

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