OSNews

At least the Europeans still take pride in education.

In the US it take four years of college to barely achieve the academic standards of high school graduates in South Korea or eastern Europe.

Many of the topics I covered in the second year of my Australian undergraduate science degree were Masters level subjects at leading US universities.

No Child Get's Ahead.. er.. No Child Left Behind

Some do, others take pride in never getting a job.

In terms of quality of education, I had the opposite experience. I had covered topics and had access to labs full of far better equipment by my sophomore year of university than people who had finished their 'Magister' degrees in Europe, though that didn't stop them looking down on a 4 year bachelors from their 5 years-for-half-the-education programs. Amusing, and why would I question it when they put a Mag. before their names.

Title wanking is totally annoying. I guess when schools are all essentially free people can sit around and ponder what additional - often useless - Doctorate they can focus on next. No, the U.S. doesn't offer that luxury, but given the large numbers of foreigners that come here for degrees - generally also without feeling the need to drop a title like it's a 007 label - I'm not too concerned.