Education offers a number of advantages. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the longer people remain in school, the higher their compensation is and their chances of being unemployed are much lower. A person with a professional degree has a median weekly income of $1,893. The unemployment level among this group is 2.5%. On the other hand, a person with less than a high school diploma has a median weekly income of $619, and unemployment among this group is 11.7%.
Higher levels of education do carry one substantial burden. People who stay in school to get college or professional degrees often have hefty loans when they graduate. For college graduates, this figure averages over $29,000.
The recently released Global Education Countries study from price-comparison website Money looked at the education systems in 63 nations. The yardsticks were enrollment levels at primary and secondary schools, the age people leave school, government spending on education, the percentage of the population age 15 or older that had tertiary education and the number of top-ranked universities. Data was pulled from the World Bank, QS World University Rankings 2022 and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Countries were ranked on a scale of 1 to 10.
Not surprisingly, the world’s most developed countries and those with strong economies did the best (see the 10 list below). The United States finished 13th, just behind the United Kingdom and just ahead of the Netherlands.
At the other end of the list were countries that tended to be poor and undeveloped. Jordan was at the bottom of the list. Algeria, Bulgaria, Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Panama and Tunisia all received extremely low grades.
These are the 10 best countries for education:
- Singapore (9.10)
- Iceland (8.40)
- Canada (8.28)
- Sweden (8.22)
- Denmark (8.07)
- Slovenia (7.97)
- Norway (7.94)
- France (7.94)
- Belgium (7.87)
- Finland (7.81)
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