If you ever doubted the decline of the American empire, a new report shows that the number of Americans obtaining college degrees is declining. Bottom line: Americans aged 25-34 have less education than their parent’s generation.

Americans have always aspired to give their children a better life, but we seem to be backsliding. A few weeks ago I posted about how Americans’ household net worth went down for the first time in history. But not only are we worse off economically, our children are not receiving as much education as we did.

Even worse, America is declining compared to the rest of the world. The US ranks second among countries of the world in the percentage of people aged 35-64 with a college degree. But among people aged 24-35 — the new generation in their most productive years — we rank tenth. Indeed, we are one of only two countries where the number of people receiving college degrees is declining. And for degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, the situation is even worse.

The report doesn’t speculate on why our new generation isn’t getting college degrees, but given that the tuition has been increasing at double the rate of inflation over roughly the last 50 years, it seems like many young people just can’t afford to go to college any more.

Or maybe it is all the fault of Fox News.