The Education System In The United States

By Author: Syed Jamal
Total Articles: 12
Comment this article

The USA education system has attracted many international students over the years. These students move to the USA for further studies and specializations.

The public sector provides education to most of the people in the US, while the funding and control comes from state, federal and local authorities, such as school boards elected locally. These boards set funding, teaching, employment, school curricula and other policies. Educating children is compulsory for parents and can be satisfied by enrolling them in public schools, approved home schools or private state-certified schools.

Education is split into these levels: elementary, middle (also called junior high) and high school. In each level, children are segregated by age groups, from kindergarten to twelfth grade. Post-secondary education is governed separately. The school year commences at the end of August. Children advance to the next grade in late May each year. The child starts his education in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten, before going through primary or elementary school, which spans from the first grade to the fifth grade. Following this, he/she ...
... is expected to enter middle school, also known as junior high school. Middle school consists of three grades from sixth to eighth, while the grades from ninth to the twelfth lie in high school. Students who complete school may opt enroll in a college or university to pursue undergraduate degrees.

Associate's degrees and bachelor's degrees are both types of undergraduate degrees. Community colleges, which are funded publicly, offer 2-year associate's degrees, career certifications, part-time programs and a few bachelor's degrees. A few community college students may transfer themselves to an institution with four-year degrees to do a bachelor's degree. Most four-year public institutions happen to be state universities.

These universities receive funding from taxpayer funds, private donations, tuition, proceeds from endowments and federal grants. Private institutions too provide four-year degrees and are privately funded. They vary a lot in focus, size and operation. For instance, some are big research universities, while some are colleges teaching liberal arts. Students with bachelor's degree may continue on to professional or graduate school to pursue either master's degrees like M.B.A. or M.S., or doctorates like M.D. or Ph.D. Professional schools focus on preparing students for entering learned professions while graduate schools require research work like a dissertation or a thesis for completion.

In high school, students generally take classes of broad variety, without any emphasis on any particular subject. They must take a specified minimum number of subjects that are mandatory, e.g. science, mathematics, English, social sciences, and physical education. Electives include computers, athletics, performing arts and foreign languages. They are expected to show at least some improvement every year in standardized testing schemes, in order to guarantee that they are attaining a minimum level of education. Performance in such tests also shapes the way schools are perceived. Common standardized tests like SAT and ACT.

United States provides high-quality post-secondary education and consequently a number of foreign students enroll in its universities every year. There are a total of 4495 universities, junior colleges and colleges in the country with students of different races and socioeconomic status. Admissions are based on students' GPA, standardized tests scores, high school grades. The costs are high and many students either receive scholarships or take loans. The average tuition for a year at a public university in 2009 was estimated to be $7,020. The famous universities include the Ivy League schools, (Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Dartmouth, Brown, Princeton, Penn, and Columbia), Stanford University, California Institute of Technology (also known as Caltech), University of California at Berkeley and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). These universities feature at the top in lists of world-renowned universities.

The USA education system has attracted many international students over the years. These students move to the USA for further studies and specializations.

The author of this article is associated with United States-India Educational Foundation. The organization helps students aspiring to go to the USA for further education USA is the preferred destination for international students.