Assumption? Sorry, I wasn't aware I made any any assumptions that weren't implicit in the graph. In the U.S. a student will attend a 4-year program after 12 ye

Assumption? Sorry, I wasn't aware I made any any assumptions that weren't implicit in the graph. In the U.S. a student will attend a 4-year program after 12 years of school, meaning 16 years of schooling for a "tertiary" degree. That sounds equivalent in time to a Russian education through the standard university program. The higher degree programs here and in Russia are not relevant to the graph, so the fact that a U.S. PhD can be attained before the age of 30 versus Russia's 50 doesn't actually skew anything or explain why the 35-44 bracket in Russia is higher than the 25-34 bracket (though both are higher than any other country on the chart). Anyway, the original blog entry is here: http://blogs.ft.com/crookblog/2008/03/the-dumbing-of-america/ http://blogs.ft.com/crookblog/2008/03/the-dumbing-of-america... The point of the study was to look at the decline of the skilled workforce in the U.S., and in light of this, the foolishness of policies that keep out foreign skilled workers. So the main question the chart addresses is, "Where can we find people with the equivalent of a U.S. college degree?" And the answer that you and the study have both given is that Russia, Canada, Japan and South Korea have educated workers to spare -- and U.S. politicians should make it easy for them to immigrate here, since we're not generating enough of our own.