Editing Education in the United States (section)

====Economic impact====
Current education trends in the United States represent multiple achievement gaps across ethnicities, income levels, and geography. In an economic analysis, consulting firm [[McKinsey & Company]] reports that closing the educational achievement gap between the United States and nations such as Finland and Korea would have increased US GDP by 9–16% in 2008.<ref name="mckinseyonsociety.com">{{cite web |date=April 2009 |title=McKinsey and Company, "The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap on America's Schools." |url=https://mckinseyonsociety.com/downloads/reports/Education/achievement_gap_report.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150904113411/https://mckinseyonsociety.com/downloads/reports/Education/achievement_gap_report.pdf |archive-date=September 4, 2015 |access-date=September 21, 2013 |page=5 |df=mdy-all}}</ref>

Narrowing the gap between white students and black and Hispanic students would have added another 2–4% GDP, while closing the gap between poor and other students would have yielded a 3–5% increase in GDP, and that of under-performing states and the rest of the nation another 3–5% GDP. In sum, McKinsey's report suggests, "These educational gaps impose on the United States the economic equivalent of a permanent national recession."<ref name="mckinseyonsociety.com" />

The households and demographics featuring the highest educational attainment in the United States are also among those with the highest [[Household income in the United States|household income]] and [[Wealth in the United States|wealth]]. Thus, while the population of the U.S. is becoming increasingly educated on all levels, a direct link between income and educational attainment remains.<ref name="US Census Bureau report on educational attainment in the United States, 2003" />

[[ACT (test)|ACT Inc.]] reports that 25% of US graduating high school seniors meet college-readiness benchmarks in English, reading, mathematics, and science.<ref>{{cite web |date=August 21, 2013 |title=The Condition of College & Career Readiness 2012 |url=http://www.act.org/research-policy/college-career-readiness-report-2012/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130922091931/http://www.act.org/research-policy/college-career-readiness-report-2012/ |archive-date=September 22, 2013 |access-date=September 21, 2013 |publisher=ACT |df=mdy-all}}</ref> Including the 22% of students who do not graduate on time, fewer than 20% of the American youth, who should graduate high school each year, do so prepared for college.<ref>U.S. Department of Education, "Public School Graduates and Dropouts from the Common Core Data: School Year 2009–10" (provisional data). January 2013.</ref> The United States has fallen behind the rest of the developed world in education, creating a global achievement gap that alone costs the nation 9–16% of potential GDP each year.<ref>McKinsey and Company, "The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap on America's Schools." April 2009. Forty years ago, the US led the world in high school graduation rates; now it is 18th out of 24 industrial nations. In 1995, the US was tied for first in college graduation; it now is 14th.</ref>