But hey!! Here on Slog we've got dozens of commentators who say you don't need no college education! So who cares right?

Just a knock-on effect of our being ahead of the urbanization curve. Nations right in the thick of it have lots of kids still, and they all clamor for education BECAUSE OF the urbanization boom. Pretty fabulous.

And our domestic universities happily soak up the international students, tuition rising to what the global market will bear, to the woe of our own students.

But we can fix the student loan issue, and will.

I'm so very tired of this lazy, pointless and apparently unstoppable use of the word "Empire" to describe the United States. I've never understood how that word applies.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things wrong with the United States, so of them very serious. I just don't think the word "Empire" describes anything.

Good Afternoon Charles,
I also read that American parents are getting more savvy in how to pay for their children's higher education which is exorbitant:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/na…

I reckon you, as a parent will have some anxiety regarding the cost of your children's higher education. That's understandable. It's bloody expensive. And, one wonders if it's worth it, considering other more populated countries are greatly increasing the numbers of college and university graduates. The future portends a highly competitive world.

If Americans have a clue, they will embrace the expansion of the economic, cultural, and yes, educational strength of the developing world, not fear it. America isn't losing anything here; we aren't producing fewer graduates, just a smaller portion of a much larger pie. The emergence of countries like Brazil and Mexico is a tremendous boon to us all. The future lies with Brazil, not with Italy or France. Brazil's economy is already larger than Italy's, or Great Britain's, and should pass France soon enough, making them the fifth-largest in the world. That's where I'd place my bets -- though to a large extent the expansion of Brazil depends heavily on Chinese demand for their raw materials -- made into goods for the US market, to a large extent. But notice that it is Brazil that is making a mark for itself in, for instance, aircraft manufacturing, not Russia, India, or China.

There's some question also about the efficacy of Chinese education, in particular. The line is that they learn by rote and stifle the individuality and creativity that create new business ideas. They make the parts for the iPhone but they are a long, long ways from making iPhones themselves. Will this always be true? I dunno. I hope not, for their sake and for ours.

Sure, but how good are those degrees. The raw number of diplomas granted is a shitty measure of success. Like saying you own 20 businesses just because you know how to register LLCs.

@5,

What worries me is the way our educational priorities seem to be changing to mimic China's. At the grade school level, No Child Left Behind and charter schools are focusing our education more on rote. The de-funding of higher education and the crushing debt most students take on are making it difficult, if not impossible, to expand their horizons by exploring different fields of study.

I was reading the Wikipedia entry on Steve Jobs the last time Slog had its "college educations are useless" blog fight, and what struck me is how much time Jobs spent just fucking around by taking calligraphy classes. Would he have been as successful had he started working on an engineering degree his freshman year in high school?

@6,

American students are widely taking "useful" degrees. There are still no jobs.

The standards for a degree in China are like their standards for keeping lead out of children's toys. The only cause for concern here is that an hysterical press will spin this to convince American workers that Chinese workers are their enemy. The headline should be 'China Skips Education to Boost Graduation Stats.'

It's time for a new, new deal. I have no idea why someone doesn't get on that.

The only other option is WW3, which seems like kind of a bad idea.