Education

America has had a great respect for education from its earliest times. Universities were founded by the first settlers. Harvard College was founded by religious refugees from Cambridge, England in 1636, only fifteen years after the Pilgrim Fathers had landed, and there were eight other colleges before 1776, though for a long time they had few students. Except in the South, America was before Europe in providing schools for all children, and more recently in providing free education up to the age of 18.

About 85 percent of American children attend public school. The other 15 percent choose to pay tuition to attend private schools. Most private schools are run by religious organizations and generally include religious instruction.

Educational opportunities in the United States are highly varied. High school students at the same grade level do not take the same courses. Students who do not plan to go to college may be enrolled in classes such as basic accounting, typing, or agricultural science, along with “core” curriculum courses such as mathematics, social studies, science, and English. College-bound student may be enrolled in college-preparatory courses such as chemistry, political science, or advanced writing.

Which courses a student takes depends on his or her abilities and future goals, but also on the particular course offerings of the school. Some elementary schools offer computer and foreign language courses. Courses in scuba diving or Russian are available at some high schools.

In higher education, the wide variety of degree programs is remarkable. Besides colleges and universities which offer degrees in traditional fields of scholarship, there are also small art colleges which grant degrees to students who concentrate in specialized fields such as ballet, film-making, and even circus performing.

Variety exists also in schools’ academic standards and reputations. The standards students must meet to attain a high school diploma are rigorous in some schools and lax in others. The same is true for college admission standards. Highly reputable colleges such as Harvard and Yale accept only students of exceptional ability.

The main reason for such diversity in college offerings and standards is that there is no national education system in the United States. In public schools, decisions about school curriculum, teacher certification, and student achievement standards are made by board of education at the state and/or district level. Spending for public education is also determined by state and local education leaders, education standards differ from state to state.

There is no national curriculum but certain subjects are taught in all public schools across the country. Almost every elementary school instructs children in penmanship, science, mathematics, music, art, physical education, language arts (which includes reading, writing, and grammar), and social studies (which includes geography, history, and citizenship).

Most children attend mixed schools, with boys and girls together all though the school time up to the age of eighteen, though there are a few separate schools for the older pupils.

Most secondary schools require students to take English, mathematics, science, social studies, and physical education. In addition to his, students choose “elective” courses on their areas of interest.

Elementary education begins at the age of six. At this stage four-fifths of all teachers are women, mostly married. The atmosphere is very friendly, the emphasis is on cooperation rather than competition.

Secondary education is in one or two stages. From the age of eleven to eighteen the term “high school” is generally used though the first three years of this are called junior high school and the senior classes are called senior high school.

To enter the university of high reputation, students have to get good marks. Some universities are very selective in their admission, while others will admit any students provided that they have passed through all of the high school courses up to the final or twelfth grade, even if they have obtained rather low minimum pass marks in their high school courses.

High schools generally organize much activity outside the classroom, for example, societies to which the pupils may belong, orchestras and brass bands, and there is also organized school sport.

Higher education

Degree-granting institutions in the USA can be called colleges, institutes or universities. As a general rule, colleges tend to be smaller and usually offer only undergraduate degrees, while a university also offers graduate degrees. An institute usually specializes in degree programs in a group of closely related subject areas, and one comes across degree programs offered at institute of technology, institute of fashion, institute of art and design, and so on. Within each college or university we will find schools, such as the school of arts and sciences or the school of business. Each school is responsible for the degree programs offered by the college or university in that area of study.

By now in the USA, in addition to hundreds of junior colleges (with two-year courses), teachers’ colleges and special schools, there are over 2,000 universities, colleges or other institutions with four-year courses leading to bachelors’ degrees, though only some of these provide postgraduate work as well, for masters’ degrees and doctorates.

Community colleges provide two-year associate degree programs, usually called the associate of arts (A.A.) or associate of science (A.S.), as well as excellent technical and vocational programs. The colleges are community-based institutions with close links to secondary schools, community groups, and employers, and many US students live close to campus with their families. Tuition costs are lower than at four-year institutions, and many community colleges have agreement to allow students on transfer programs to move easily into the third year of a bachelor’s degree at the local state university.

Technical and vocational colleges specialize in preparing students for entry into, or promotion within, the world of work. They offer certificate and other short-term programs that train students in the theory behind a specific vocation or technology, as well as in how to work with the technology. Programs usually last two years or less.

State universities are founded and subsidized by US state governments to provide low-cost education to residents of that state. They may also be called public universities to distinguish them from private universities. They tend to be very large, with enrollments of 20,000 or more students, and generally admit a wider range of students than private universities. Tuition costs for the instate residents are lower than for out-of-state residents.

Private universities are funded by a combination of endowments, tuition fees, research grants, and gifts from their alumni. Tuition fees are high but there is no distinction between state and non-state residents. Colleges with a religious affiliation and single-sex colleges are private.

Research universities, in addition to offering undergraduate education, stress research as well as teaching. As a general rule, they are less likely at the graduate level to place emphasis on applied study and research and more likely to place emphasis on theoretical, or “pure” research.

Land grant and sea grant universities appeared in the XIX century, In 1862 Congress passed the Morrill Act that provided a grant of land to many of the states to establish “land grant” universities. Theses universities, in addition to providing a broad general education in many fields, emphasize that application of knowledge in such fields as agriculture and engineering. The name of a land grant university often reflects this emphasis. More recently some state universities have been designated as “sea grant” universities, to emphasize the importance of marine applications.

Nearly half of all people aged nineteen are in full-time education, but only half of theses successfully complete full four-year courses for bachelors’ degrees. Some attend junior colleges with two-year courses (from which they may transfer); most start full four-year degree courses. Most students receive d\federal loans to cover part of the cost of their studies; much smaller numbers receive federal grants, or scholarships or bursaries from other sources. Virtually all pay part of their cost themselves, from family contributions or from part-time work or both.

Most students aiming at bachelors’ degrees take the four years (freshman, sophomore, junior and senior) consecutively at the same institution, but some interrupt their courses. Some start late in life and may spread their courses over several years. For each stage of the course it is necessary to gain adequate average grades over a number of courses, and credits gained at one stage can be accepted for a later stage after an interval, if necessary with change from one institution to another. For the freshman year, courses usually cover a wide range, and with each year there is scope for more specialization.

About one-fifth of college graduates continue with studies for masters’ or doctors’ degrees, in their own major subjects or for professional qualifications in law, medicine, business, etc., which involve two to four postgraduate years. Postgraduate schools admit students on the basis of their grades in bachelors’ degree studies.

Most college students are in “public” institutions, a minority in “private” ones. Every state has its own full university system, and in a big state there are many separate state campuses, general and special, at different levels. In terms of research output, and of Nobel prizes won by academic staff, the most prestigious is the University of California at Berkeley.

The oldest, and in some ways the most prestigious, colleges are private, funded partly from their endowments, partly by contributions from business and, above all, former students. A few receive some state or city grants as well. But in general they need to charge high fees for tuition, averaging about five times the rates charged by equivalent state colleges for local residents.

Some of the best-known private universities are the oldest ones in the Northeast, known informally as the Ivy League. These include Harvard, Yale and Princeton. They are all quite small, but there are also the yet smaller institutions of the Little Ivy League, as well as many hundreds of other private colleges all over the United States.

Until 1960 most of the private institutions, including the small liberal arts colleges, were for either men or women only. By now almost all the former men’s colleges have become coeducational and the most selective of them may have raised the academic standards by attracting many of the cleverest women.