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> As a society, we do a shit job of ensuring everybody has access to quality education. Is there any society that does a good job with that ? The US richly re

• alistairSH 5y ago
  Finland? Yes, the US rewards those that manage to get an education. Where we fail is ensuring everybody who wants a top-quality education has access. At the post-secondary level, it's largely a money problem - school is just too expensive. And whole scholarships and other funding sources do exist, a student needs a lot of guidance on obtaining that money.
  • chrisseaton 5y ago
    > Finland? I'm not sure Finland has any universities at all in the top 100. Nobody's getting a top-quality education in Finland. I guess that's more fair?
    • alistairSH 5y ago
      The University of Helsinki is top-100 in the US News rankings.
      • chrisseaton 5y ago
        It’s just outside it in QS, but anyway… isn’t that a little bit of a weak praise? Their universities don’t compete with others in Europe, let alone the US. It’s definitely not access to top education is it?
        • aidenn0 5y ago
          Finnish students have better access to Harvard then American students have access to Finnish primary and secondary schools...
          • chrisseaton 5y ago
            But given the existence of Harvard in the US rather than Finland it seems like the US primary and secondary schools are producing better results. Praising an education system as ‘it’s good enough to let you escape somewhere else’ isn’t encouraging!
            • alistairSH 5y ago
              I'm not sure how you arrive at that conclusion. Harvard pre-dates our current primary/secondary education system. And it accepts only a tiny fraction of college-bound students, who are themselves a small fraction of the populace. It's one of the wealthiest, oldest, and most renowned universities in the world - it is almost completely divorced from broader educational system in the US. Nobody is denying the US has excellent post-secondary institutions. My response was to your assertion that the existence of excellent universities proves the US cares about education. The US excels at educating our wealthy elite, largely through access to zip-code restricted public schools or expensive private prep academies, which then grants access to institutions like Harvard, other Ivies and equivalent schools, and the flagship public state schools. We don't do so well at ensuring a baseline understanding of the world to the populace in general.
• devwastaken 5y ago
  in California and New York. Salaries across the U.S. in tech jobs are far less outside of the bubble economies. Salaries have nothing to do with education costs. There is no causal relationship. We can both fund education and have high salaries in those bubble economies. Infact the high salaries means we would have an easier time doing so, if only we taxed mega corporations. The point of my post is that many cannot even get the funds necessary to attend a university. They cannot "just focus" on school. You have to work to afford living costs at a bare minimum.
• SyzygistSix 5y ago
  Finland has famously good public education. I'd add that maybe some people have been educated well enough that they realize there is more to life than working all the time. In addition to the fact that most kids generally act like their parents do.