By Jackie Kraemer
In the most recent issue of the OECD’s Education at a Glance 2013, which compares data on education systems in member countries, there is much new data to suggest that there are real payoffs to investments in education. Indeed, OECD reports that the average wage difference between earnings from employment of low skill and highly educated workers increased from 75 percent in 2008 to 90 percent in 2011. Countries with more developed vocational education systems (VET) also seemed to weather the economic recession better, with less of a rise in youth unemployment than those with less developed systems. The report cites Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany and Luxembourg as having less of a rise in youth unemployment over the last few years than many other OECD nations.
Data on the United States, though, raises some questions about the types of investments the U.S. has made. The U.S. is again among the top spenders on education. The data, from 2010, shows that for all levels of education combined and including core and ancillary services, the U.S. spends more per student than any of the other countries surveyed as shown in the chart below.
Looking more closely at what systems spend at each level of education, the U.S. is among the top spenders on primary and secondary education, but it is in higher education where the U.S. outspends its peers most significantly.
The three charts below compare educational spending at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels in the OECD member countries and their partners such as Brazil, China, India and Russia. On tertiary or higher education, the U.S. spends nearly $2, 000 more per student than any other nation.
