A chart with the article showed that Austrian graduates scored highest in a test of numeracy; Mr. Hochstadt noted that less than 15 percent of Austrians complete college, implying that those who do are likely to be higher achievers.

Image Credit... Eiko Ojala

It’s true that some higher-scoring countries have proportionately fewer graduates. But Norway, South Korea, Finland, the Netherlands, Japan, Denmark and Sweden have both higher Piaac numeracy scores among recent college graduates and a larger percentage of the population with bachelor’s degrees than the United States. They represent almost half the countries with better numeracy. Canada’s B.A. percentage is similar to ours; it also has better Piaac scores.

Karl Wheatley, an education professor at Cleveland State University in Ohio, said that “the United States suffers on international education comparisons largely because it ranks among the worst of the developed countries on most factors that affect human development, including poverty, inequality, health care, incarceration, maternal leave and social mobility.”

This is a familiar objection to international education comparisons, which have historically focused on the whole population of K-12 students, including the most disadvantaged. But one of the chief ways in which inequality in American society takes its toll is through unequal opportunities for higher education. People born in poverty or to parents with little education are far less likely than their peers to graduate from high school and earn a college degree. The Piaac study suggests this problem is much worse in America than in other countries.

In other words, college graduates are the beneficiaries of American inequality, with far better income, health care and security than others. By comparing American adults with bachelor’s degrees with their peers in other countries, the study was limited to the most privileged strata of American society.