In light of the recent report (www.nytimes.com/2010/07/23/education/23college.html) that the U.S. has fallen to 12^th in the world in percentage of young people who attain at least a two-year college degree (40% vs. 56% for Canada, the world's best), kudos to Obama and Duncan for putting forth a plan to address this embarrassment.

President Obama, making the case that "education is an economic issue," called on Monday for the United States to produce an additional eight million college graduates by 2020 — enough for the nation to reclaim its title as the country with the highest percentage of college graduates.

The United States gave up its spot as the world leader about 10 years ago, as students in nations like South Korea, Canada and Russia began to surpass their American counterparts. Now the United States ranks 12th among 36 developed nations in college graduation rates, a trend Mr. Obama said he intended to reverse.

"Over a third of America's college students, and over half our minority students, don't earn a degree, even after six years," Mr. Obama told a an audience of cheering students at the University of Texas here. "So we don't just need to open the doors of college to more Americans. We need to make sure they stick with it through graduation. That is critical."

He added, "That's how we'll lead the global economy in this century, just like we did in the last century."

…While close to 70 percent of high school graduates in the United States enroll in college within two years, just 57 percent graduate within six years. Currently, about 16.7 million Americans age 25 to 34 possess college degrees, but the administration calculates that for the United States to resume its place as the world leader in college graduation rates, the nation will have to provide a way for 11 million more young people to enter and complete college by the end of the decade.

If current population trends hold, an estimated 3 million more young adults will graduate during the next 10 years. But that leaves a gap of eight million students. Mr. Obama will argue that closing this gap is critical to creating the kind of educated workforce that will be necessary to create and sustain economic growth over the long term.

"We have to educate our way to a better economy," Mr. Duncan said.

The U.S. used to educate its population to a much higher level than other countries, which was a critical part of how we came to dominate the world economically until about 1970. Since then, as this chart in my school reform presentation (page 27, posted at: www.tilsonfunds.com/Personal/TheCriticalNeedforGenuineSchoolReform.pdf) shows, we've stagnated while other countries have passed us. If we don't start to move our educational outcomes upward, as just about every other country in the world is doing, we're destined to be in permanent decline.

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