In a world where education increasingly determines economic opportunity and social mobility, understanding how well education systems perform and whom they serve is important.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) recently published a report that provides a comprehensive and comparative assessment of education systems across OECD member and partner countries. The latest edition places a particular emphasis on tertiary education — examining not only how many people attain higher education credentials but also how well education systems support learners, how well those opportunities are distributed, and how education connects to skills and labor market outcomes.
A central finding of the report is that educational attainment has reached unprecedented levels across OECD countries: nearly 48 percent of young adults now hold a tertiary qualification.
But the report also highlights stagnation or decline in adult literacy and numeracy skills, indicating that simply increasing enrollment or attainment is not enough to meet future labor market and societal needs if it does not translate into meaningful skills development.
Key findings for the United States
For the United States, the data highlight both investments and challenges. The U.S. spends significantly more per student across all educational levels than the OECD average (about $20,387 per student versus an OECD average of $15,022). Education also accounts for a larger portion of the United States’ GDP — 5.8 percent compared to the OECD’s 4.7 percent average.
Despite this high investment, adult skills levels in the United States are near the OECD average and have declined across all age and education groups in recent years. Over a quarter of adults score at the lowest level of literacy proficiency. This suggests that high spending has not automatically translated into high proficiency among adults and raises questions about the effectiveness of current education policy and resource allocation.
On the other hand, the percentage of young adults without an upper secondary qualification continues to decline in the U.S. But these higher attainment levels haven’t fully closed gaps in actual skill achievement, a theme echoed in other U.S. assessments showing stagnating or declining proficiency in math and reading among K-12 students.
The report also notes that U.S. students receive above-average compulsory instruction time, and class sizes in primary school have slightly decreased. But as I have written here, the U.S. still gets outperformed by dozens of countries despite higher hours in school per year. (I explore a number of potential reasons why, too, from barriers to instructional time such as cell phone use and chronic absenteeism to the types of curricular materials used to the way the country’s education system is structured.)
What policy implications does this have?
The OECD’s findings make clear that the United States faces a structural challenge in education policy. Its substantial investment has not produced consistently strong outcomes, particularly in literacy, workforce alignment, and affordability.
For example, higher education delivers strong economic returns for many Americans (the highest net lifetime earnings among OECD countries), but the figures presented in the report do not account for student debt repayments or interest, which are substantial for many U.S. graduates. The system also remains overly dependent on four-year degrees. This crowds out equally valuable alternative pathways such as apprenticeships and technical training (that can be completed with far less debt attached), leaving those who might thrive in skilled trades or technical fields with fewer options despite the strong labor demand in those areas.
When it comes to future policy decisions, improving learning quality versus simply expanding access should be the starting point. Supporting and expanding alternative pathways outside of the four-year degree model is another area for policymakers to explore, as this would not only help with employer needs but also strengthen economic mobility for a broader set of Americans.
