Polish or American Education?

That's not really the case. Out of a 4 year degree (again though depending on the school, major, and a few other factors) a student will generally spend 2/2.5/3 years on classes directly (or indirectly) related to their major. Also it's subjective. While most people would think calculus wouldn't really be necessary for someone with an English major, it would be more important and related to someone studying engineers or business, and necessary for someone who's a math major. Liberal arts schools typically have students take 2-3 classes each in math, science, philosophy, theology, English, history, fine arts, etc. regardless of major. Students generally take 4-6 classes a semester with 4 being a light load and 6 being a heavier load.


It isn't true. Everyone declares a major when they first come in even if that major is 'undecided.' By 2nd semester sophomore year, everyone has a good idea of what their major is going to be as by then they've completed most if not all their 'core' classes. Some people take classes directly related to their major in 1st semester freshman year. It all depends on how you schedule your classes, what you sign up for, etc. You can go on a variety of different uni's websites and get an overview of courses required to complete a degree whether its in chem, business, premed, etc.

I haven't heard of that before. My degrees are in Chemistry and Biochemistry, and both focused only on those subjects, nothing else. Maybe it depends on the subject studied if it's not anything to do with it being different at a Welsh uni.


For some people yes, but I bet there are plenty of American students who still change their mind later on despite choosing subjects at a later age.

no it was the same if you were admitted to the science faculty.

OK, so a student who wants to major in Chemistry for example,will take science and maths based courses, but I am presuming these courses are still not specific to the degree itself? Specific Chemistry courses would only be studied as part of the major, yes?


I'm surprised, but maybe things have changed since I was studying.

chemi I am not that young..:):) but thanks. It's the Welsh system..

I think Scotland might be similar.

So in fact you are just talking about 'English' universities.

@Chemikiem

Yes so it would be up to the uni, the student, their major, and their academic advisor. GENERALLY (not always of course) the student would begin their freshman year taking the 'core' classes - 100 level classes in things like English, history, maybe some math classes, etc. If its a liberal arts school there'd most likely be some theology and philosophy courses the student would also take their first year (into 2nd year). Although, it doesn't mean that the student can't take any chem classes as soon as they start. They could take for example organic chem in freshman year either semester 1 or 2 then say inorganic chem in semester 1 or 2 of sophomore year. Each school is different and generally when a student first starts they'll decide on a major (or if they simply can't pick one they'll put undecided), take their 'core' classes frosh and into soph year, and then gradually move away from taking less and less core classes and more and more major specific classes - like for chem that would include biology, bio-chem, o chem, etc.

I am Roz, but from what Polish friends have said about their university studies, it sounds very similar. From what Maf and Dirk have been saying, the US system seems to be far less focused than in Europe.


I see, now it starts to make a bit more sense, as those courses would be included in a Chemistry degree over here. From what was said earlier about the major courses being final year, I thought a US degree would be lacking in content . That didn't make much sense as some of the best universities in the world are in America.

a lot of science programs in the us require a bit more focused course of studies if the student wants to finish a b.s. in 4 years. a bit more like the polish system with the general studies classes interspersed. for chem its usually chem 1 and 2 freshman year and calc. 1 and 2 maybe bio 1 and 2 , physics. year 2 org. chem 1 and 2 . maybe calc 3, differential equations . year 3 inorg chem and p. chem. year 4 special interest subjects, more math, chem and physics. deviating even one semester puts you behind.

Yes it's the same in Ireland too Chem. You apply to do certain subjects and you do only those from the first day of university.


American undergraduate degrees definitely seem to lack depth and some kind of post-grad study seems inevitable if you want to be truly knowledgeable in your subject. I came across a very interesting article by a history lecturer who's taught in American, British and Canadian universities and her opinion is as far as undergraduate degrees are concerned:

"Put simply, the level of expectation, in terms of critical thinking and analysis within any given discipline, is significantly lower at the most prestigious of the US institutions than at their UK counterparts".

Interestingly a Stanford chemical engineering graduate cites the breadth over depth thing as the reason why America universities are simultaneously better and worse :

"It is my opinion that this small but critical difference in higher education is the reasons why the US simultaneously has both the top Universities as well as produces so many useless graduates."

I would say that's a bit of an oversimplification though. There is no doubt that the sheer amount of money poured into the best American universities by industry and commerce and the funding of cutting edge research means that they attract some of the brightest and best post-grads from around the world so it's a kind of cycle of money funding research and research raising the profile and reputation of the university.

I might have over stated a bit, but where I went to university you weren't officially admitted to a specific major (by that department) until the third year. Lots of people 'declare' earlier but again the departments only officially admitted students after finishing all their general education requirements (and maybe some prerequisites that the department tells the student to get before they can be admitted).

And talking about 'years' is a little inaccurate, in theory every student is a kind of academic free agent and while almost all majors have required courses (and or sequences of courses) it doesn't matter much when you do them. I only filled one required intro course in one of my last semesters (after taking a graduate level course or two in the same area). The US system is much less lockstep and linear than European systems.


That's part of the problem, a university administrator once told me that, among other things, the first two years are meant to make sure the students know what they should have learned in high school. For those from better high schools the first two years are much easier and there's more time for exploring, for those from worse high schools they have to spend more time on filling in gaps as they try to broaden their horizons.

The biggest difference between the US and Europe is the commitment to broad horizons, so that even when officially admitted to a major students have to have a certain number of elective courses from outside their major. This partly comes from the frontier/settler tradition where jacks of all trades are more useful than narrow specialists.

Also there's a lot less commitment to making sure that every student knows the detailed academic history of the discipline and more to getting students to contribute to their field as early as possible. Europeans tend to know the basics better than Americans but it also takes them longer to start doing original work as well.

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Why is it then that the vast majority of the top schools in the world are in the US? Riddle me that one. There's a reason why so many people chose the US as their 1st choice for a college education if they can afford it and get the visas. Go to any top US school and I guarantee at least a solid quarter of the students are foreign born.

For every oxford lse insead erasmus in europe we have dozens of schools like Harvard Yale mit northwestern univ of Chicago Princeton Stanford mit upenn nyu brown Cornell UCLA the list goes on and on.. Clearly our US college system is doing something right considering so many people from all over the world will move heaven and earth to get into even the top 50, let alone the top 25 us unis. I studied abroad in Europe as well for a semester - univ of Maastricht. Personally I don't think there's a huge difference in curriculum of us and EU schools and if were going by sheer amount of prestigious schools and worldwide recognition we clearly have EU beat. I can barely name 10 European unis that would be recognized all around the world as there's only really about maybe 6 or so that are truly world famous - most being in england. The amount of ivies is even greater than that whole EU list.

Also I work in a corporate environment, not a day care I mean school. We use f bombs more than any other word. Props to you guys for having a complex vocabulary amd impecable grammar. Use words like that in everyday life and people won't think you're smart, they'll think you're being a smartass and dislike you for it. The only more complex vocab used in the real world is 'legalease' as its known here, aka the language in contracts, finance documents etc which doesn't even use all that complex vocab more so just rly long sentences and barely any pronouns. After working with documents for years a persons speech and writing and legalese become quite similar.

@Atch
Lol you described me as a student quite well. I crammed for an hour or two before a test and would usually get an a if it's an easier subject b or c if not. I've had to work full time since I was in high school. I never had the luxury to spend countless hours editing an essay 5 times or making sure I knew every little detail to get an A. I still don't as I work full time while going to school.

In the top ten, five are American, so not really 'vast majority'. I think the US universities offer the breadth and depth as discussed.

Well firstly it's not quite true. It would be truer to say that a large number of the top universities are in the US.

To understand why America ranks so high you need to look at the criteria used to determine rankings. There are several, but a large part of America's reputation is down to their their post-grad programs rather than their undergraduate degrees. In certain disciplines the US excels, therefore it attracts the top post-graduate students in those fields from all over the world. For example Stanford is outstanding (excuse the pun!) in the field of computer science. Such universities also attract the best lecturers in those disciplines who continue to produce academic papers themselves. Then you have the fact that American universities have very strong links with industry and commerce and receive large funding through that which enables them to conduct research, and publication of research raises a university in the rankings.

Money is a big part of it you know. I mean, a highly respected lecturer in economics, possibly a published author, who's a Swiss national for example is not going to accept a very poorly paid job in Poland when he can have a very well paid job in the USA. The English language is also very important. Just as Latin was once the language of learned men of different nationalities who communicated through that, English is the language today. If our Swiss professor can't speak Polish, his vast knowledge is of no use to a Polish university so an American one gets the benefit of his expertise.


Well now Dirk, that's exactly what I would expect you to say but it's no excuse. You are literate in as much as you read and write fluently but a truly literate individual spells correctly as a matter of course (apart from the odd typo which can happen to anyone) and doesn't have to make any special effort to do so. Spelling mistakes in textbooks are a big deal. It's down to inadequate proof reading, maybe by somebody like yourself giving the text a quick once over :))


Oddly enough we have America, the land of supposedly plain speaking and 'we're all just folks' to thank for the worst examples of corporate speak and meaningless, pretentious twaddle. However on the whole outside of formal settings where certain rules have to be followed, I believe one should use whatever language one feels comfortable with. Obviously if you have a very wide vocabulary you need to temper it sometimes according to the company you're in as it's insensitive and rude to talk over people's heads and use obscure language that you know they won't understand. But on the other hand you shouldn't ever dumb yourself down excessively to fit in.


Oh I didn't think you were :)

Eh I wouldn't totally agree with that. At the top 50 type of unis the undergrad and grad programs are just as prestigious and if you were to sort say top 25/top 50 schools in US (or even the world) according to undergrad and grad degrees, I'm sure you'd see the vast majority of unis on both lists. Once you go further into the rankigns like 50-100th place (still very high considering there's around 5k unis that hold national as opposed to regional accreditation) that's where it makes a difference. Some schools for example will have an 'average' business undergrad program but then their grad program is excellent. In the US, the percentage of the population who has a bachelor's is around 32% for 25 and over while with graduate it's closer to around 8-11% (different sources say different %'s) but only about 3% have PhD's.

census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2016/demo/p20-578.pdf

wtop.com/business-finance/2017/04/education-counts-americans-never-smarter

Nonetheless, worldwide Americans are considered kind of stupid. Not so much in terms of education but more so that they're like kind of naïve, loud mouthed, unsophisticated, not worldly, etc.

The language I use here is casual. I adjust my speech and writing according to my situation. I don't speak the same in a bar with a friend as I would to a professor. (Actually, that bar speak would oddly enough be closer to the language used in the board room). I'm rather articulate in real life however when I write things on a forum I typically don't go back and proofread. I type pretty fast (probably around 70 80 wpm) and the way I write on here is the way I would speak to a friend on a lunch break. Also, taking Latin actually helped me learn grammar a lot. On here of course I'd do things I'd never do in an academic paper or a professional one (like use a preposition at the beginning of a sentence with a comma). I actually scored in the 97th percentile in the English portion on the ACT - higher than any of the other 3 section. I would brag to my friends that I wasn't even born in the US but managed to attain a higher score.

Also no, I never read the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Unfortunately, too much of grade school literature had a had heavy African American focus so we missed out on a lot of great works. Not that black people didn't write great things, but it's like they seem to have only focused on such authors. I didn't even get to read any Shakespeare aside from the basic Romeo and Juliet in grade school. At least we got to read Macbeth in a 3rd year English honors (different than AP - considered a bit lower as AP is a sort of 'double honors'). To my understanding in 'Pied Piper' the word pied means like promising false things, negative connotation, (unless I'm reading it wrong) but in terms of the GMAT pied simply meant having many colors.

That's crazy that you need at least 5 'AP' style classes for a Cambridge school in the UK. Some high schools don't even have that many AP classes in total. The better ones will have quite a few - usually around half a dozen to dozen but it's more of an issue of fitting them all into a schedule within junior and senior year. The top students in my hs, the ones that went off to the top ivies, would typically take around 2 AP classes per semester. These were like the top 1% of students though, which I certainly wasn't in. If I studied, read, re-read, maybe I could've got similar scores but alas I was involved in other clubs, working, etc.

Some students who get into these top unis aren't maybe even super high IQ individuals, they just study a ton. Some people are able to study for an exam 2-3 hours and get an A, others will study for 5 hours and barely get a B or C, and yet others will study 10 hours but at the end will get also get an A. I know quite a few people who maybe weren't the 'smartest' in terms of sheer intellect but they devoted tons of time either to getting good grades and high standardized test scores and hence got into top unis, or perhaps were above average students but had some sort of unique skill. I actually wrote in a previous post how a friend got into Dartmouth, with a scholarship nonetheless, because he was a great skier although his grades were good - certainly above average, but definitely not in the top 1-5% that's usually required for admissions into an Ivy.

Thanks. Now perhaps we can move away from criticizing grammar and spelling on a forum.

Due to the broader nature of a US degree, I'm still not convinced that they are as in depth as European ones. I was actually wondering if a US Masters degree incorporates the honours level courses of a standard European BSc/BA for example.


Maybe it's just me, but I don't get this at all. Great for those students who can't make up their mind what to study I suppose, but for someone who knows what they want to graduate in, why should irrelevant courses have to be picked? Furthermore, if a certain number of elective courses from outside the field of study have to be picked, how are those degrees titled? A BSc Hons in Chemistry for example isn't exactly that if courses outside that discipline have to be included in it. I get what you're saying about the jack of all trades bit, but for me the whole point of taking a specific degree is to study the subject in depth.


This probably isn't going to go down too well, but if high school students haven't got it together by then, it doesn't bode too well for their university studies does it?

Again depends on school. In general though, if we compared an 'average/above average' US school to 'average/above average' EU school I bet the EU would have a far higher standard of education. Nonetheless, the US school would more than likely be more widely respected. If we're comparing UCLAor even a school like University of Wisconsin-Madison to like Wroclaw U or U of Hamburg, I'd put my money on ucla/Wisconsin though. Plus, even if Wroclaw/Hamburg were a better overall education, you're going to get a lot more respect from UCLA/Madison than Wroclaw.


I'm not too familiar with honors levels classes of EU BS/BA degrees. When I went to school for bachelors and masters there weren't any 'honors' or 'advanced' level classes and I've never really heard of such things at unis. Like there was like Economics 220 normal and Economics 220 honors for example. There are 'honors' class but there are honors degrees like *** laude, suma *** laude, etc. but that more depends on just your GPA rather than the classes


I agree. It's bc so many schools are liberal arts and want to make students 'well rounded.' I had no desire to take 1 class in theology or philosophy let alone 6 (3 each) but nonetheless that's how schools tend to operate in the US. Some like it some don't. I can understand taking like some entry level college English, math, etc. but no need to nearly 1/3 of the syllabus on 'liberal arts' type classes unrelated to a major.

A lot of the problem is the schools, not the students (due to systemic reasons that would take a long time to explain).

Also the skill sets needed for success in high school and unviersity (in the US) are different enough that you get a lot of cases of people thriving in one but not the other. A fair amount of students from crappy schools manage to get into college and do fine and a fair amount from great schools burn out. This happens in Poland too but to a lesser degree.

I personally did far, far better at university than high school (my high school was not terrible but not great either) because I always felt hemmed in and constrained in high school and simply felt freer at university which meant I did better work.

I agree, but largely because those universities are better known. Unless a person has a specific interest in Poland I doubt many would have even heard of Wrocław University. Also In comparison to many American universities, Polish ones are generally not as well regarded, at least if you look at International rankings and where Polish universities are placed.


The UK was the same at one time. These days, all bachelor's degrees have honours components ( level 3 courses ). These are the harder courses and are taken in the final year. If you pass your degree, you receive either 1st class honours, upper second, lower second or 3rd class. As a US degree is broader, I'm seriously wondering if those level 3 courses are incorporated into a Masters.


1/3 of the syllabus? That seems crazy!

You're right. Nonetheless, I'd be willing to bet that I would've learned a hell of a lot more practical real world knowledge SGH than at my US alma mater which is one of the best schools for business in the Midwest and is Division 1.


Absolutely. It's pretty standard for liberal arts schools. Weirdly enough they'd emphasize 6 classes of theology and philosophy but only require 2 classes of foreign language and that was actually a require for international business otherwise I don't think you needed to take any. Of course you'll learn nothing within those 2 semester. For some reason I ended up in like a French 101 class bc I needed some b.s. elective and the basic French class was the only available in summer evenings. I only remember how to say jem appelle Adrian (or however it's spelled), merci, and bonjour lol

I'll look for my old transcripts when I get home from work and bring them with me tomorrow - it'll give you an idea of like typical courses a student would take at a liberal arts school. Keep in mind though that I took more courses though than required to graduate mainly bc I switched majors from biology to international business and then later added marketing as a 2nd major since it only meant I needed to take like 2 or 3 extra classes which I wanted to take anyway.

Also if you're interested in learning more about like a specific school's syllabus for a certain major, say chem, oftentimes they give a general like coure path that a student would take from years 1 to 4. State schools tend to focus a bit less on the 'liberal arts' aspect of education but nonetheless every single accredited uni in the US will have you take 'core' classes which basically are a slightly more advanced version of junior/senior year classes... or perhaps even easier.... I'm taking a master's level statistics class and it's actually easier and far less comprehensive than the stats class I took in like sophomore year of undergrad.

Its kind of sad because like most of the stuff you learn in business, esp at the bachelor level, is just like theory but not so much practical info. much of it is just definitions which you could learn just by purchasing like 'marketing for dummies' or some other books lol. nonetheless, you still need that piece of paper regardless of how little practical knowledge you actually learned to get your foot in the door of a good job.

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OUR schools?? I thought you were Polish :)) In the UN education index Ireland ranks 11 only five places behind America and well ahead of Poland who come in at number 35. 'School' for Europeans means primary and secondary, not university. Once again you show how much of an Amrerican you are. You neither think nor talk like a European. Anyway we already had the debate about the woeful American education system that turns out semi-educated secondary school students.

And civil wars are frequently about territory. The Trojan war is a myth by the way, not historical fact.

Polish-american, first and foremost polish though of course. And indeed we did discuss it, where i cited numerous sources showing that top american unis are superior.

And what does secondary school have to do with it? Absolutely nothing. Everyone knows us primary and secondary schools are terrible no ones denying that. You have a ton of kids that want nothing to do with education and drop out. Even the ones that do finish and have no plans for college can barely read and write let alone solve calculus problems or balance chemistry equations. If a person didnt go to college then yes you could compare secondary school quality. Seeing as most people on this forum have a college education it makes far more sense to compare colleges as that would be their highest education attainment, not a grade or high school. Eben when you go for a job interview no one cares where you went to primary or secondary scholl unless youre interviewing to be a janitor or ditch digger. For white collar jobs people care about your last educational attainment - college. Not primary or secondary.

Superior to what? European ones? You didn't demonstrate anything of the kind. In fact you said:

"I honestly think if someone's going for sheer knowledge and to learn as much as they can, they'd probably be better off in a European University where education is far more comprehensive and there's way more time spent on teaching, studying, etc"

The top universities in America are certainly equal to the top European ones. But when you start to look at which unis are best for which subjects, for technology and engineering for example, America occupies only the top two spots in the top ten QS rankings. The remainder are in Europe and the Far East.


I really am not prepared to spend time or energy explaining to you, nor do I have the patience. You can spend some time reading a few articles on the importance to a person's future, of a good foundation at primary, secondary and especially pre-school level.

Yes they may have a more comprehensive education but its rankings and prestige that matters at the end of the day, which i cited earlier and which show theres far more us schools in the top 100 worldwide than european schools. Employers dont care how much you learned or how well rounded your education was. Even GPA doesnt matter to employers. What matters is if you got the degree or not and where you got it from. And theres far more top us universities ranked in the top 100 than european ones. Us ivy leagues are consistently ranked higher not to mention stanford, university of chicago, and all the other top schools not in ivy league. How many top european schools are there in the tip 100? 10? 2 or 3 in uk, insead, 1 in Spain, 1 in France, 1 in Switzerland, 1 in Holland and that's it.

Some countries, like Ireland and poland, dont even make the top 100. Trinity is ranked around 116 and that's regarded as the best school. Northwestern is ranked higher and that's the safety school for people who don't get into the ivies.

Yes primary and secondary school are important while youre attending them but they make zero.dofference once a person has gone through college or graduate school. No analyst or banker or doctor or attorney gets asked where they went to grade school or high school in an interview, unless the interviewer happens to be from the same area and is merely curious. What counts is where you went to college, not grade school or high school.

Congrats you guys made the list! There's 1 european school, a British one of course, on the top 10 according to cnbc. Naturally all the rest are american

cnbc.com/2017/10/24/the-10-best-universities-in-the-world.html

And almost every ranking is similar in that there's far more us unis represented than european ones. Poland Ireland amd a dozen other countries never make the list.

Wrong, as usual :))


You're speed reading again. Last time I checked Oxford University was in the UK, not America, so that makes two, not one. Depending on the ranking organizations, it varies. Zurich for example consistently comes in the top ten, as does Imperial College, London. In the current QS rankings half the top twenty are NOT American.


Again Adrian, what's 'you', I thought you were European?? You're American sweetie pie, don't fight it, embrace it, enjoy it :))

I know I couldn't edit it to 2 time ran out..

Still american unis dominate any list created by a known publication. QS is not known, no ones heard of it.... cnbc, Princeton review, forbes, ime etc are however known and all have more american unis in top spots than european ones.no ones heard of qs it doesn't even come up on the first page when searching google

timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2018/world-ranking#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/stats

forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2017/09/20/the-worlds-top-universities-in-2017/amp

I'm polish american, never said I wasnt..... nonetheless its polish first and foremost.

I think this is one of the rare occasions when Dirk is right! I attended uni both in the UK and in the US, and the US was much better. The teachers were more engaged, more respect for the students, better quality professors, and better networking and chances coming out of that experience.

Of course a lot of it is to do with money and with more money big US universities are able to attract better faculty - however they also treat the students much more like customers and part of a lifelong community.

I think the issue is not so much who is in in the top 10 as who is in the top 100 then I will think you will see many big US public universities - Washington, Michigan, UCLA, Virginia etc which all have very good standards.

Also split my high school years between the UK and the US - on that score I would think the UK was probably slightly better. From what I see on FB, the people I knew from US high school either doing very well or very badly.

Yea high school and grade school is on average better in the eu than us. No ones denying that. You have tons of kids who don't care about their education and drop out or get pregnant or whatever. That doesn't happen in the eu. It's very rare for a girl to get pregnant in her 3rd yesr of high school or for guys to drop out at 16 so they can spend more time with their friends and gangbang. The teachers dont give a **** about those kids. They're just babysitting them and making sure they don't stab each other and no one snuck a gun in. They pay attention to the kids that actually want to learn. And theres tons of programs for those kids. Those are the ones who go off to college, along with the aforementioned kids who care nothing about education they go to college too provided theyre good at sports. Most of them end up majoring in parks and recreation or sports management. A tiny minority will go pro, the rest will end up making $15 an hour at the park district.

Of course with private schools its different because they select who gets in so naturally you don't have kids who don't care about their education. But if their parents cant afford 15k a year to send them theyll have to go to a public school where they can be just as successful provided they actually want to graduate and go to college.

Students are treated like customers youre right about that. Teachers are very open, will spend a lot of time outside of class and even office hours, and they want you to succeed. The teachers actually want you to succeed and will go above and beyond to help you. Of course not at every uni and not every teacher, but in general those at the top unis definitely. I know I can call the director or dean of the mba program and theyd answer whatever questions I have. Same with teachers if i email them about some hw ill get a response within an hour or two.

Nonetheless, I wish I could get a refund for my bachelors. I really feel like I didn't learn the most useful things about business esp since 1 of my majors was marketing, other one was international business. I didn't learn anything about things like building websites, administering crm software, seo, analytics, etc. Business statistics was really the only undergrad level class that i actually ended up using in my career. Everything else I learned was theory and definitions basically. All the practical real world stuff I didn't learn till I started working. Although my experience with MBA is totally different and every class even the ethics one I learned things that are useful and I can actually apply in my career. Not so much with bachelors. I think my experience wouldve been different though if i stayed a biology/pre-med major.

Dirk, QS and The Times were one and the same until 2009, so yes, people involved in education have very much heard of QS. According to your favourite source Wikipedia :

"Generally, the QS World University Rankings is regarded as one of the three most influential university rankings in the world, along with the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and the Academic Ranking of World Universities."

I don't know what kind of search engine you have but the QS rankings come up first with Google when I search. The trick Adrian is to look not at the name of the website, but at who publishes the ranking, thus this site:

topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2018

is the one for QS and it's the first hit if you search 'top universities in the world' which is what you should be searching for. Of course if you search 'american universities best in the world'.................... :)) Incidentally the CNBC rankings were created by US News??? Basically they made up their own.

I deliberately didn't cite The Times one as it's English and I didn't want to be accused of bias but the Times 2018 world ranking is as follows:

1. Oxford

2. Cambridge

Joint 3rd/4th California Inst of Technology and Stanford

5. MIT

6. Harvard

7. Princeton

8. Imperial College, London

9. University of Chicago

10. ETH Zurich

The interesting thing is that once you get outside the top twenty, it's a much more mixed bag. 39 of the top 100 are located in the USA, so just over a third, which is what you'd expect given the size and wealth of America. The top 100 represents the top 1% of universities worldwide btw. So anyone who makes it into the top 100 is doing well. But when you break it down by subject area, even humble little Trinity College, Dublin makes it into the top 100 for Arts and Humanities :) Let's take a cross range of subjects:

Archaeology: of the top ten, only three are in America and four of the top five are in the UK.

Medicine: with your chosen university ranking The Times, three of the top five are in the UK.

Computer science: three of the top five are located in Europe, two in the UK.

Arts & Humanities: three of the top five are in the UK.

Of course to some degree rankings have to be taken with a pinch of salt for many reasons - and other than a handful in each part of the world, there is really very little to choose between a university ranked number 30 and one ranked at number 80. To be in the top 100 means it's of the highest standard. Also rankings are not just about the quality of teaching and learning but money and links with industry, research and development etc. Sometimes, for that reason, American universities can offer opportunities to the best of their students that others can't.

But if you compare Stanford (16,000 students, founded 1885) with the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) of Paris (2,500 students, founded 1920) Stanford has 10 Nobel Laureates and the French Uni has 13. Stanford hasn't claimed a single Fields Medal in maths (it's a highly prestigious award from the International Mathematical Union) while the ENS in Paris has 11. So when you say that America has all the top universities the evidence suggests otherwise. Plenty of universities around the world that are as good and better.

As to primary and secondary education, as I say I'm not going to waste my time trying to explain why that matters but I'll just say that somebody shouldn't need to do two years of further general education courses AFTER they finish what's supposed to be basic education. One should leave school with an adequate level of literacy, numeracy, logical thinking skills, study skills, general knowledge and an interest in the world, to prepare you for life.