I can't talk about the US, but in the UK there's very good reason for disillusionment. Since 1990 there are 5x as many people getting university degrees, and th

I can't talk about the US, but in the UK there's very good reason for disillusionment. Since 1990 there are 5x as many people getting university degrees, and the rate at which those students get 1st class degrees has increased by 4x. That is to say, the number of people able to get degrees has sky rocketed, and the classification of their degrees has also sky rocketed over the past 30 years. So we're left with the obvious question: Do we suddenly have 20x as many students capable of getting a first class degree when nothing in the rest of our data suggests a sudden rise in education standards or economic improvement? Because your first class degree at a UK university is worht 1/20th of what a first class degree at a UK university was in 1990.