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Some conventional wisdom holds that America is in decline. Particularly in the arena of science and technology

America Dominates the World in Higher Education- But Could Use More Jobs



One way to measure a country's scientific impact is to determine how many of the world's top universities are located there. US News & World Report publishes such a list annually. In 2010, the United States had thirty-one of the top one hundred universities, far more than any other country. (1)
Carrying this further, the US had eighty-seven of the top four hundred global university rankings. The United Kingdom had forty-six, along with the second highest ratio of engineers per million citizens. China had only eight of the top four hundred universities (not including Hong Kong), and India trailed with just six. (2) Alex Berezow and Hank Campbell observe, “There are several noteworthy points here. First, despite persistent complaints that American education is underfunded, we remain the best country in the world for higher education. By far. No other country is even really close. Second, the British have an incredibly strong record in higher education. When we consider that the United Kingdom has a population a fifth the size and an economy about a seventh the size of the United States, possessing nineteen of the world's top one hundred universities is an outstanding accomplishment. Third, continental Europe has a respectable showing with twenty-three universities in the top one hundred. Of particular note, Germany has five, the Netherlands has four, France and Denmark have two each, and Italy, Greece and Spain have none. Finally, China has a long way to go before it can challenge anyone in higher education. Until its universities emerge on the global stage, it will be difficult for China to achieve scientific and technological dominance.” (1)

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In spite of this, some conventional wisdom holds that America is in decline. Particularly in the arena of science and technology, and that countries like China are taking the lead. But as is often the case, the conventional wisdom is wrong. According to R&D Magazine, in 2013, the US will invest $424 billion in research and development, while China will invest roughly half that amount ($220 billion). (3) Two years ago, the BBC reported that China may overtake the US in scientific output by 2013, as measured by the total number of scientific journal articles published. It all depends on how you measure this and the quality of the journals. As reported by David Cyranoski in Nature, quantity does not trump quality. He says, “Few Chinese scientists would be surprised to hear that many of the country's scientific journals are filled with incremental work, read by virtually no one and riddled with plagiarism.” (4) A better- though imperfect- measure of scientific output is the h-index, a numerical value that reflects not only the quantity of articles published, but also the number of times they were cited by researchers. By this measure, China is not even in the global top 10. Instead, it ranks at #17. Russia is #21, Brazil #22, India #23, and South Africa #35. The top ten from number 1 to 10 are: United States, United Kingdom, Germany France, Canada, Japan, Italy, Netherlands, Switzerland, and Sweden. (3) Yet, in spite of the high standing of US institutions, the market for young scientists is bleak. Jordan Weissman notes, “Politicians and businessmen are fond of talking about America' scientist shortage—the dearth of engineering and lab talent that will inevitably leave us sputtering in the global economy. But perhaps it's time they start talking about our scientist surplus instead. Job prospects for young science Ph.D's haven't been so hot these last few years, not only in life sciences, which has been weak for some time, but also in fields like engineering. There's no great run on trained scientists in this country.” (5) The situation in China is much worse. Yu Hua reports, “University tuition in the past ten or fifteen years has risen enormously, to twenty-five or even fifty times as much as it used to be, ten times the rate of income growth. Supporting a college student today is estimated to require the equivalent of 4.2 years of an urban net income or 13.6 years of a rural net income. The Great Leap Forward-type of enrollment growth has created immense difficulties in the job market: every year we are adding more than 1 million college graduates who cannot find work. Many low-income parents are prepared to bankrupt themselves and take on enormous debt to put their children through college; but after graduation those children join the army of unemployed, and their parents can only sink deeper into financial hardship. Give this harsh reality, some children are forced to abandon their dreams; as soon as they graduate from high school they put a bedroll on their backs and become migrant laborers instead. In 2009, after thirty-two years of increases, there was actually a drop in the number of high school students taking the university entrance examination.” (6) Jack Dini Livermore, CA

References

  1. Alex B. Berezow and Hank Campbell, Science Left Behind, (New York, PublicAffairs, 2012), 157
  2. Michael J. Silverstein et al., The $10 Trillion Prize, (Boston, Harvard Business Review Press, 2012), 196
  3. Alex B. Berezow, “Top ten countries with greatest scientific impact: H-Index,” realclearscience.com
  4. David Cyranoski, “Strong medicine for China's journals,” Nature, 467, 261, September 15, 2010
  5. Jordan Weissman, “The Ph.D bust: America's awful market for young scientists- in 7 charts,” theatlantic.com/business/archive, February 13, 2013
  6. Yu Hua, China in Ten Words, (New York, Pantheon Books, 2012), 119


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Jack Dini -- Bio and Archives

Jack Dini is author of Challenging Environmental Mythology.  He has also written for American Council on Science and Health, Environment & Climate News, and Hawaii Reporter.


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