Why Aren't Public Schools More Like Universities?

By Richard Vedder

Richard Vedder is Distinguished Professor of Economics, Ohio University and is author of Going Broke By Degree; Why College Costs Too Much (AEI Press, 2004).

There is widespread agreement that America has the best universities in the world. Foreign students enroll by the hundreds of thousands, and American college professors dominate the Nobel Prize lists.

But virtually no one says we have the best K-12 education in the world. To the contrary, many lament the poor showing of American students on international tests. What makes American universities so much better than our primary and secondary schools?