What is the Silent Education Crisis?

E. J. Dionne, in today's Washington Post discusses the silent education crisis. He argues that the United States is fairing poorly at educating its people after high school.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor honored this national article of faith in a lovely tribute to her mother at her confirmation hearings. "She taught us that the key to success in America is a good education," Sotomayor said.

"And she set the example, studying alongside my brother and me at our kitchen table so that she could become a registered nurse."

In telling this story of intergenerational mobility, Sotomayor was describing how our education system is supposed to work — and, inadvertently perhaps, pointed to how it's failing so many now.

Dionne goes on to point out that federal grants for post graduate education have dropped dramatically since 1976.

In 1976, the year Sotomayor graduated from Princeton, federal Pell Grants for low-income students covered 72 percent of the average cost of a four-year state institution. An excellent education (if not necessarily at Princeton) was, in principle, within reach of most Americans. But by 2003, Pell Grants covered only 38 percent of the cost of attending a state university.

And we are falling behind in the world rankings of citizens with postsecondary degrees.

Today, the United States stands tenth in the percentage of 25- to-34-year-olds who have earned a postsecondary degree. We're behind Canada, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Belgium, Ireland, Norway, Denmark and France.

You can read the full article here.