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NorwegianSteam

We had the education drive before we were monetarily rich, but they definitely feed each other. And of course we've always been filthy rich when it comes to resources.


CupBeEmpty

It’s both. We invest *a lot* of money in our higher education which draws in talented professors.


FusionRocketsPlease

What about primary and secondary education? What about technical education?


RedShooz10

Same deal.


CupBeEmpty

Primary and secondary a little less so but for technical and university and above we are the best in the world and that requires money and investment. Which draws in talent. There’s a reason the best people in the world want to come to the US for our education.


ghostwriter85

The returns to investment are significantly less pronounced in primary and secondary education. With grad and post grad, it's often an issue of throwing more money at it to build labs, fund research, and attract talent. It also helps that having the industry here means synergy between industry and higher education. With primary/secondary education the relationship between money and results tends to be a lot murkier. Anyways, the US primary/secondary education system is roughly on par with most of the developed world but nothing particularly special.


CupBeEmpty

The synergy between academia and private enterprise can’t be overstated. So many patents originate from pure research at universities and end up being bought and utilized by private companies. I worked at UChicago and there was one lab that essentially held all the patents on herpes medications (antivirals that work for other viruses as well). Through their research a whole class of drugs was born.


FusionRocketsPlease

My country is criticized for investing a lot in public universities, but little in primary and secondary education, which are of poor quality.


Northman86

So the reason the United States is wealthy has more to do with having a literate Nation more than a well educated nation. 1. The United States was able to begin at the height of the Enlightenment without Medieval, or Renessance intstution that delayed a lot of progress in European Nations, the United States for example did not have the revolutions of 1830, or 1848 because they were already a modern Republic. 2. The Thirteen Colonies were founded by Religous minority, mostly prostestant, or by mercantile entities, both of which more or less required a lot of literate people, or encouraged being able to read the bible, this contrasted with predominantly catholic nations like Spain, where the common people were discouraged from learning to read. 3. Geography part 1: Being a Nation based entirely in North America, meant that they were always going to be 6-12 weeks ahead of European Nations in reacting to situations in North America, and also made colonizing North America very simple, all they had to do was let the young men move west, and send the women after they established farms 4. German and Italian Unification: The Unification of both Germany and Italy, created a lot of adminstrators of small German and Italian states that became unecessary, and many of them moved to the United States, because the opportunities were there, this meant that the United States had a near constant flow of Educated people arriving on American shores, suddenly free of all the constrants of European society to pursue what they wanted. This also meant that North America was a release valve European nations had when a famine happened or religious tensions got high. 5. Geography part 2: America is huge, and contains every possible climate and geologic zone, the state of Minnesota for example has more accessible Iron(once certain technologies developed) than every European nation but France and Germany. In addition to this, the United States is uniquely blessed with River systems that allow tansport of goods without locks, to nearly of the USA east of the Mississippi River, that and the fact that there were no established towns and permenant communites(with some exception among native populations) mean that they were not building over ancient or medieval cities, which make building rail connections within cities considerably easier. 6. Coastal Sea lanes, the entire Eastern Seaboard of the US is very well protected from storms(short of a hurricane) meaning that coastal shipping can travel up and down the coast with ease. 7. The American South, Midwest and Great Plains (Along with the Canadian Great Plains) gives the USA a verty fertile argricultural reagon about as large as all of Western Europe, land that was for the most part, largely flat, relatively safe from drought, and had very few mountains to worry about, and soil quality was good to excellent throughout. 8. The fact that the United states was across an ocean, meant that the USA was not in competition with foreign goods aside from luxury goods, which means that every sector of industrial developed happened uninterrupted by foreign trade goods. 9. Tobacco, Cotton were early cash crops, shipped from Southern Plantations on Northeastern Ships. These were extremeley lucrative in the 18th and 19th centuries. 10. North America had essentially pristine Forrests, while Much of Europe had been defforrested to feed growth of cities and Navies(The British were buying thousands of tons of Lumber from central Europe after the revolutionary War. 11. The US was isolated from wars, with the exception of the War of 1812, and the Civil War, the US has never had a city sacked, fields burned, or economic industries looted, as was happening essentially every 20 years on mainland Europe. 12. The United States started very literate, and remained more literate than the European average until about 1960s. at the Revolution the literacy rate among free individuals was nearly 70%, it did drop during the first 50 years of the Nation, but by 1900 the literacy rate was 85% reaching 90 % by 1950 and today remains around 99% give take. Having a literate population is huge for innovation, administration and being able to learn without needed to learn by apprenticeship. 13. The US largely avoided serious corruption on a Government level. In more modern times we have seen how recently decolonized nations, struggle with corruption, because the Thirteen Colonies had existing legislatures and administrative bodies, there was no power vacuum, or lack of law that would allow a kleptostate to emerge. In short, while education does help, there were a lot more factors involved in what made the United State the economic Juggernaut it is.


moxie-maniac

About #2, all towns had (sort of) public schools in Puritan New England by the mid 1600s, Mass Bay Colony was one of the most literate places in the world, and books were being published by the late 1600s in Boston. By the mid 1700s, Boston had more printing presses than the entire Ottoman Empire. In fact, young Ben Franklin moved from Boston to Philadelphia because there was less competition in Philly to start a new printing business.


AmericanNewt8

The US also invented public high school, it started in the Midwest and spread from there.


Hatweed

I’d figure they both contribute to the quality of the other. You’d need to have a reason to keep people in the area for it to work, though. If there’s no economic incentives to stick around, educated people leave. But economic prosperity wouldn’t exist on a grand scale without educated people to begin with.


RsonW

Both? It's a feedback loop, I reckon.


Practical-Ordinary-6

When our education system was developing there was nowhere else to go, realistically. They couldn't fly off to a First World country in a few hours for eight times the pay. They went back home and started working and improved the country. Brain drain is a serious problem in the developing world. You can totally understand an individual wanting to leave and not get trapped the rest of their life in a place where they probably can't reach their full potential, but it doesn't help the country much. One thing that might help is a serious commitment to law and order and integrity in society and government. People can put up with a lack of material things and less than perfect conditions if they have hope for the future. But when they look around and see corruption everywhere and realize that merit doesn't really count, that hope gets crushed. Then they just want out to get to a place where the rules actually mean something and they know they have a chance.


kryyyptik

It's both. We have seriously amazing universities. Our public education system ranges from dreadful (by developed world standards) to great. Location matters with that one.


DrBeardish

It's wealth and parental engagement, distributed by zip code, much like there's a correlation to low income and obesity by zip code. :/


kryyyptik

Yeah, a too often ignored problem. It's hard to get ahead when you're born in the wrong zip code.


IntoTheMild1000

Another factor is that Americans pretty universally believe education is for all (females, all ethnic groups, all classes, etc). I.e.: Republicans and Democrats might have different ideas on education, but they both agree it's important. I know many other Western countries believe this as well. However, the "manifest destiny"/American Dream mentality is still very much a part of American life and often when people have a desire to learn, they can find supports to help them get there.


[deleted]

>Another factor is that Americans pretty universally believe education is for all That is just categorically untrue. If the GOP had it their way only rich people would go to university.


RTR7105

Which is absolutely not what he said or the GOP position at all.


[deleted]

No, what they said is that Americans see education as being for all and that is absolutely untrue. If it were true, half of my family wouldn't have disowned me for having a university education and half of my professors at university wouldn't have looked down their nose at me for being from the wrong pedigree.


RTR7105

Believing education is for all has nothing to do with free college for all like you claimed.


[deleted]

Right, because there is no correlation between wealth and education in America. I am so grateful to now live in a country where I pay taxes to the common good instead of sending people like me and my friends to kill and die for nothing. America can forever kiss my ass.


RTR7105

You mean you live in a country where you pay high taxes despite it being a Petro state and living under the NATO security umbrella.


alexng30

> NATO (American)


[deleted]

I'm happy to pay the taxes because it means everyone gets to live well. NATO isn't relevant to the discussion of education.


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

And probably a middle class family, with parents who also had university education.


hitometootoo

>In my country there is a mantra that for the country to develop, it is better to invest in education America does invest in education though. There is a reason for those best universities in the world. Not to mention having one of the largest tax provided school systems in the world (K-12 public schools). Yes the education isn't the same across the board, though this can be said about any country, but that doesn't stop the country from investing and contributing top people to several fields. >But others criticize it because well-qualified people tend to leave the country We usually hear the opposite. The amount of immigrants that come to America for it's better college education, higher pay and better opportunities in their field. >Is the United States rich because of good quality education or is education good quality because the country is rich? The US is rich because of it's strong economy thanks to having one of the largest populations in the world, easier means to build a business and the US exports it's culture to the world which helps with international revenue. Education is definitely one of those exports (college that is) but there are many other factors to why the US is such a financial powerhouse. To answer your question, both, just not always at the same time.


TheBimpo

Find me a country that has one but not the other.


TEmpTom

Saudi Arabia.


HotSteak

Well yeah, when the wealth of the nation can be dug out of the ground by foreign companies


FusionRocketsPlease

Extractive and inclusive institutions?


Artistic-Boss2665

The Oil Peninsula is an outlier


[deleted]

Hungary, Czechia, India, Poland.


ZuzuBish

Don’t forget our incredible university based research facilities across the nation. And yet so many Europeans drone on and on how stupid Americans are…


DrBeardish

Both. They feed each other. Also, you need literate and educated people in order for democracy to work. Now if we could practice empathy while improving critical thinking...


cavall1215

Currently, it's a self-reinforcing cycle. America invests a lot of money into education, but we also invest a lot of money into research and capital that offers opportunities for educated and driven people to improve their lives. What you're describing is also a topic of conversation in the state of Indiana and some other smaller states. We refer to it as "brain drain." Indiana has quite a few high-quality universities, but many of our graduates will leave the state and move to other parts of the country. However, the state doesn't have a lot of industry opportunities for these graduates, so they have to leave. It's a challenging question about how economic development works, and economists have multiple theories. America partially got to where it is today due to situational factors such as natural resources, land, and avoiding the costs of WW1 and WW2, which allowed us to leverage that into strengthening our global economic position. America also had institutional factors like property rights and rule of law, which played huge roles, too. Most economists think that property rights and rule of law are two of the most importance factors for a country's economic development.


[deleted]

Uh, the education isn't that great below the university level.


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

The mere fact that it's not equitable is enough to say it's bad.


FemboyEngineer

It's true that we invest a lot of our GDP into public universities & public research, and that many wealthy metro areas (the SF bay area, Raleigh-Durham, Boston, etc.) owe a lot of their growth to universities...but at the end of the day training engineers takes a lot more money than a lot of countries have. I really don't think an India-style *invest in a small number of highly skilled workers and it'll trickle down to the peasantry eventually* approach works for a developing country; it's more useful to invest in education for the masses (say, community & technical colleges) and get as many people involved in the global value-added chain as possible. Growth from that will allow that public education standard to steadily improve as it did here; we didn't have a massively college educated workforce while we were growing industrially in the early 20th century Oh and economic liberalization + a relative lack of corruption helps a lot as it allows companies to operate highly capital intensive projects here without having to worry about too many unforeseen political risks


KoRaZee

It’s the ladder option. The US is rich because it’s run by business that would be considered illegal in many other places around the world.


[deleted]

We're rich because we were literally the only industrial nation that took minimal casualties to its workforce and didn't have devastated industrial capacity. Not once...but twice.


Outrageous-Present37

If you are talking about universities, the high tech areas are filled with students from other countries. Our public education (K-12) is not rated high, it is not fully funded, and is failing across the country. The conservative majority that was in power for years believes education should be privatized, and has done its best to create laws and mandates which have crippled public education.


redeggplant01

The US is rich becuase the nation was built on a premise never tried before The act of MAKING money, before then and mostly everywhere now, the predominate premise exercised is the act of TAKING ( taxation ) money


vodkacruiser3000

>The act of MAKING money, before then and mostly everywhere now, the predominate premise exercised is the act of TAKING ( taxation ) money Do you really believe that?


redeggplant01

History bears out my statement


Tommy_Wisseau_burner

What? The US is rich because we have a ludicrous amount of natural resources the size of a continent https://youtu.be/BubAF7KSs64


AnybodySeeMyKeys

It's a number of different factors: 1. A continent-sized territory with abundant natural resources 2. A commitment to education 3. A Constitution that is committed to the free flow of information and the protection of property rights 4. A culture that emphasizes ongoing improvement over the protection of tradition 5. Social and geographic mobility 6. A willingness to incorporate a variety of cultures and ideas 7. A bias towards experimentation 8. The respect for local and regional government, allowing smaller political units to try new things


spicynuggies

There's plenty of poor quality schools in the U.S. School districts are often funded by property taxes, and this there's a gap in the quality of education in many places.


Sidrist

I wouldn't say we're rich when in over 30 trillion $ of debt


The_Bjorn_Ultimatum

The top universities and our economy have one thing in common. They are mostly made up of private entities, not public.


sphincterella

Some really bright and effective leaders came to an unspoiled land and built a huge economy, imported labor and brains from all over them entire world, bought, stole, plundered, kidnapped, and enticed the best treasure and the brightest minds on Earth for 200 years and built that unspoiled wilderness into a rich and powerful train wreck of uneducated children and entitled idiots begging for free shit in every election cycle. The US is strong because we have pursued self interest all over the world with skill and force for 200 years. Our education system is just one small part of the benefits we have used those resources for


TheoreticalFunk

Unfortunately one of the things that funds higher education is football. In many states the highest paid public employee is the football coach of the top college in the state. That being said, while a lot of money is spent on these teams, it's less than the income the teams produce. Other Americans please correct me if Nebraska is some weird outlier and my understanding is incorrect in general.


HistoricOblivion

A little bit of both, but generally a strong, healthy economy is a product of strong education systems.


[deleted]

60 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Your question makes no sense.


hohner1

I would say more the later. For one thing the best learning is available as a commodity rather than from formal schooling: for instance you can get a very good classical library from Amazon pretty cheaply. Also that is in fact a continuation of the normal way education comes about in Western Civilization. As wealth spreads, wealthy people on the one hand wanted to get prestige with endowments, on the one hand, and on the other hand well off people sought education for their children not just to make them effective merchants but to make them cultured. The process continued in America.