In 2021, about 37.7 percent of the U.S. population who were aged 25 and above had graduated from college or another higher education institution, a slight decline from 37.9 the previous year. However, this is a significant increase from 1960, when only 7.7 percent of the U.S. population had graduated from college.

Demographics

Educational attainment varies by gender, location, race, and age throughout the United States. Asian-American and Pacific Islanders had the highest level of education, on average, while Massachusetts and the District of Colombia are areas home to the highest rates of residents with a bachelor’s degree or higher. However, education levels are correlated with wealth. While public education is free up until the 12th grade, the cost of university is out of reach for many Americans, making social mobility increasingly difficult.

Earnings

White Americans with a professional degree earned the most money on average, compared to other educational levels and races. However, regardless of educational attainment, males typically earned far more on average compared to females. Despite the decreasing wage gap over the years in the country, it remains an issue to this day. Not only is there a large wage gap between males and females, but there is also a large income gap linked to race as well.

In 2021, the District of Columbia had the most highly educated population in the United States, with 61.4 percent of residents over the age of 25 having a Bachelor's degree or higher. Massachusetts followed closely behind, with 45.2 percent of residents having completed a Bachelor's degree or higher. For the United States as a whole, this figure stood at 33.7 percent of the population.

Patterns of educational attainment vary greatly across countries, and across population groups within countries. In some countries, virtually all children complete basic education whereas in others large groups fall short. The primary purpose of this database, and the associated research program, is to document and analyze these differences using a compilation of a variety of household-based data sets: Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS); Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS); Living Standards Measurement Study Surveys (LSMS); as well as country-specific Integrated Household Surveys (IHS) such as Socio-Economic Surveys.As shown at the website associated with this database, there are dramatic differences in attainment by wealth. When households are ranked according to their wealth status (or more precisely, a proxy based on the assets owned by members of the household) there are striking differences in the attainment patterns of children from the richest 20 percent compared to the poorest 20 percent.In Mali in 2012 only 34 percent of 15 to 19 year olds in the poorest quintile have completed grade 1 whereas 80 percent of the richest quintile have done so. In many countries, for example Pakistan, Peru and Indonesia, almost all the children from the wealthiest households have completed at least one year of schooling. In some countries, like Mali and Pakistan, wealth gaps are evident from grade 1 on, in other countries, like Peru and Indonesia, wealth gaps emerge later in the school system.The EdAttain website allows a visual exploration of gaps in attainment and enrollment within and across countries, based on the international database which spans multiple years from over 120 countries and includes indicators disaggregated by wealth, gender and urban/rural location. The database underlying that site can be downloaded from here.

Global Share of Population Having at Least Completed Primary Education by Country, 2023 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

In an impressive increase from years past, 39 percent of women in the United States had completed four years or more of college in 2022. This figure is up from 3.8 percent of women in 1940. A significant increase can also be seen in males, with 36.2 percent of the U.S. male population having completed four years or more of college in 2022, up from 5.5 percent in 1940.

4- and 2-year colleges

In the United States, college students are able to choose between attending a 2-year postsecondary program and a 4-year postsecondary program. Generally, attending a 2-year program results in an Associate’s Degree, and 4-year programs result in a Bachelor’s Degree.

Many 2-year programs are designed so that attendees can transfer to a college or university offering a 4-year program upon completing their Associate’s. Completion of a 4-year program is the generally accepted standard for entry-level positions when looking for a job.

Earnings after college

Factors such as gender, degree achieved, and the level of postsecondary education can have an impact on employment and earnings later in life. Some Bachelor’s degrees continue to attract more male students than female, particularly in STEM fields, while liberal arts degrees such as education, languages and literatures, and communication tend to see higher female attendance.

All of these factors have an impact on earnings after college, and despite nearly the same rate of attendance within the American population between males and females, men with a Bachelor’s Degree continue to have higher weekly earnings on average than their female counterparts.

Global 25-34 Year-Olds Population with Tertiary Education by Country, 2023 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

The American Community Survey Education Tabulation (ACS-ED) is a custom tabulation of the ACS produced for the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES) by the U.S. Census Bureau. The ACS-ED provides a rich collection of social, economic, demographic, and housing characteristics for school systems, school-age children, and the parents of school-age children. In addition to focusing on school-age children, the ACS-ED provides enrollment iterations for children enrolled in public school. The data profiles include percentages (along with associated margins of error) that allow for comparison of school district-level conditions across the U.S. For more information about the NCES ACS-ED collection, visit the NCES Education Demographic and Geographic Estimates (EDGE) program at: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/edge/Demographic/ACSAnnotation values are negative value representations of estimates and have values when non-integer information needs to be represented. See the table below for a list of common Estimate/Margin of Error (E/M) values and their corresponding Annotation (EA/MA) values.All information contained in this file is in the public domain. Data users are advised to review NCES program documentation and feature class metadata to understand the limitations and appropriate use of these data. -9 An '-9' entry in the estimate and margin of error columns indicates that data for this geographic area cannot be displayed because the number of sample cases is too small. -8 An '-8' means that the estimate is not applicable or not available. -6 A '-6' entry in the estimate column indicates that either no sample observations or too few sample observations were available to compute an estimate, or a ratio of medians cannot be calculated because one or both of the median estimates falls in the lowest interval or upper interval of an open-ended distribution. -5 A '-5' entry in the margin of error column indicates that the estimate is controlled. A statistical test for sampling variability is not appropriate. -3 A '-3' entry in the margin of error column indicates that the median falls in the lowest interval or upper interval of an open-ended distribution. A statistical test is not appropriate. -2 A '-2' entry in the margin of error column indicates that either no sample observations or too few sample observations were available to compute a standard error and thus the margin of error. A statistical test is not appropriate.

This layer shows the Population distribution by Education attainment in 2016 within the 18 districts of Hong Kong. It is a subset of the census data 2016 made available by the Census and Statistics Department under the Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (the “Government”) at https://DATA.GOV.HK/ (“DATA.GOV.HK”). The source data is in XLSX format and has been processed and converted into Esri File Geodatabase format and then uploaded to Esri’s ArcGIS Online platform for sharing and reference purpose. The objectives are to facilitate our Hong Kong ArcGIS Online users to use the data in a spatial ready format and save their data conversion effort.For details about the data, source format and terms of conditions of usage, please refer to the website of DATA.GOV.HK at https://data.gov.hk.

Among the OECD countries, Canada had the highest proportion of adults with a tertiary education in 2022. About 63 percent of Canadians had achieved a tertiary education in that year. Japan followed with about 56 percent of the population having completed a tertiary education, while in Ireland the share was roughly 54 percent. In India, on the other hand, less than 13 percent of the adult population had completed a tertiary education in 2022.

Global Share of Population Having at Least Completed Post-Secondary Education by Country, 2023 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

This web map shows the Population distribution by Education attainment in 2006 within the 18 districts of Hong Kong. It is a subset of the census data 2006 made available by the Census and Statistics Department under the Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (the “Government”) at https://DATA.GOV.HK/ (“DATA.GOV.HK”). The source data is in XLS format and has been processed and converted into Esri File Geodatabase format and then uploaded to Esri’s ArcGIS Online platform for sharing and reference purpose. The objectives are to facilitate our Hong Kong ArcGIS Online users to use the data in a spatial ready format and save their data conversion effort.For details about the data, source format and terms of conditions of usage, please refer to the website of DATA.GOV.HK at https://data.gov.hk.

Global Adult Population at Tertiary Education Level by Country, 2023 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

Global Share of Population Having at Least Completed Short-Cycle Tertiary Education by Country, 2023 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

Global 55-64 Year-Olds Population with Tertiary Education by Country, 2023 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

© 2016 The World Bank Group, All Rights Reserved.

Saudi Arabia education indicator related dataset from the world bank. There are over 1300 series in the dataset, we have selected those relevant to education category. Checkout other related dataset Population, Health and Employment in demographic category of our portal.

| * Citation: "World Development Indicators| World Databank". Databank.worldbank.org. N.p., 2016. Web. 10 Mar. 2016. | | | | | | |

Global 25-34 Year-Old Men Population with Tertiary Education by Country, 2023 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

In 2021, about 41 percent of the United States population aged 25 to 34 years had attained a bachelor's degree or higher. In comparison, only 33 percent of the U.S. population aged 65 years or older had a bachelor's degree.

The American Community Survey Education Tabulation (ACS-ED) is a custom tabulation of the ACS produced for the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES) by the U.S. Census Bureau. The ACS-ED provides a rich collection of social, economic, demographic, and housing characteristics for school systems, school-age children, and the parents of school-age children. In addition to focusing on school-age children, the ACS-ED provides enrollment iterations for children enrolled in public school. The data profiles include percentages (along with associated margins of error) that allow for comparison of school district-level conditions across the U.S. For more information about the NCES ACS-ED collection, visit the NCES Education Demographic and Geographic Estimates (EDGE) program at: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/edge/Demographic/ACSAnnotation values are negative value representations of estimates and have values when non-integer information needs to be represented. See the table below for a list of common Estimate/Margin of Error (E/M) values and their corresponding Annotation (EA/MA) values.All information contained in this file is in the public domain. Data users are advised to review NCES program documentation and feature class metadata to understand the limitations and appropriate use of these data.-9An '-9' entry in the estimate and margin of error columns indicates that data for this geographic area cannot be displayed because the number of sample cases is too small.-8An '-8' means that the estimate is not applicable or not available.-6A '-6' entry in the estimate column indicates that either no sample observations or too few sample observations were available to compute an estimate, or a ratio of medians cannot be calculated because one or both of the median estimates falls in the lowest interval or upper interval of an open-ended distribution.-5A '-5' entry in the margin of error column indicates that the estimate is controlled. A statistical test for sampling variability is not appropriate.-3A '-3' entry in the margin of error column indicates that the median falls in the lowest interval or upper interval of an open-ended distribution. A statistical test is not appropriate.-2A '-2' entry in the margin of error column indicates that either no sample observations or too few sample observations were available to compute a standard error and thus the margin of error. A statistical test is not appropriate.

This web map shows the Hong Kong Population Distribution by Education Attainment by Small Tertiary Planning Unit Group in 2021. It is a subset of the 2021 Population Census made available by the Census and Statistics Department under the Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (the "Government") at https://portal.csdi.gov.hk ("CSDI Portal"). The source data is in CSV format and has been processed and converted into Esri File Geodatabase format and then uploaded to Esri’s ArcGIS Online platform for sharing and reference purpose. The objectives are to facilitate our Hong Kong ArcGIS Online users to use the data in a spatial ready format and save their data conversion effort.For details about the data, source format and terms of conditions of usage, please refer to the website of CSDI Portal at https://portal.csdi.gov.hk.

Context

The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to countries of the world for capital projects. The World Bank's stated goal is the reduction of poverty. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Bank

Content

This dataset combines key education statistics from a variety of sources to provide a look at global literacy, spending, and access.

For more information, see the World Bank website.

Fork this kernel to get started with this dataset.

Acknowledgements

https://bigquery.cloud.google.com/dataset/bigquery-public-data:world_bank_health_population

http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/ed-stats

https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/public-data/world-bank-education

Citation: The World Bank: Education Statistics

Dataset Source: World Bank. This dataset is publicly available for anyone to use under the following terms provided by the Dataset Source - http://www.data.gov/privacy-policy#data_policy - and is provided "AS IS" without any warranty, express or implied, from Google. Google disclaims all liability for any damages, direct or indirect, resulting from the use of the dataset.

Banner Photo by @till_indeman from Unplash.

Inspiration

Of total government spending, what percentage is spent on education?