There is a 2017 report by the World Economic Forum.
The top three nations are scoring a cut above the remainder of other leading countries in this year’s Index, with Norway (1) and Finland (2) almost drawing level and slightly ahead of Switzerland (3). All three countries are unique in the Index in having passed the threshold of developing more than 75% of their human capital against the theoretical ideal.
Suggested by a commenter, who notes
43% of Finnish high school graduates go to vocational training programs rather than university and Finland spends 30 percent less per student than the US.
Also, most American universities are not highly rated.
Being the size of the US versus three nations that combine with less than the population of Texas seems an incredible result for the US IMO. These are the type of charts that the US with 330M ends up in ~20ish and still a good result.
However, I do agree Europe does vocational training better than the US but I tend to support Megan Mcardle idea that a lot of this is because the long job prospects for vocational training in Germany and Sweden are much better than in the US. (And I believe the private sector is more involved with the training as well.) Right now conservatives and economist believe this is a problem in the US economy, but I still don’t see any ideas how to improve this training for current High School students to increase student interest.
The US ranks 4th in spite of the significant factors holding us back. Also makes me wonder what could have been….