The latest Education at a Glance report from The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) offers an unsettling portrait of the United States. Once a global leader in higher education, the country now finds itself spending more than nearly any of its peer nations while delivering outcomes that fall increasingly short. American students are less likely to complete college on time, and more likely to leave school burdened by debt without a degree. They are navigating a system that continues to promise opportunity while too often failing to deliver it in practice. If we want to reverse this trend, we have to treat education not as a patchwork of disconnected stages, but as a continuous journey that demands investment, planning, and care at every level.
