In December 2024—little noticed in the U.S. amid the holidays and post-election exhaustion—the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released the results of its latest adult skills survey, spanning 160,000 respondents in 31 countries.
The report expressed concern that adult capabilities worldwide (U.S. included) are going in the wrong direction (even among adults with a postsecondary education), just as AI and geopolitical turbulence threaten to upend the status quo.
How do the results for U.S. adults with a postsecondary education compare to other countries, and what lessons do they offer for higher education leaders?
Ill-Prepared for the Future
The OECD’s Survey of Adult Skills was first conducted more than a decade ago. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development—a club of mostly rich countries—wanted a skills measure independent of formal credentials that would permit cross-country comparisons. In a fast-changing world, the argument goes, adults need foundational skills more than ever, and it is in countries’ interests to measure them. The report notes that adults with superior skills earn more, are less likely to be unemployed, and achieve higher rates of civic participation.
The survey measures adult literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving. The tests gauge respondent ability to, for example, locate information in a piece of text or on a graph, evaluate the accuracy of a claim, and form and test a hypothesis. Test questions are grounded in familiar personal and occupational settings. There is a detailed methodology.
The test is administered to people aged 16-65 and takes 90-120 minutes to complete (for a $50 incentive). This is not a quick quiz; it is closer to the adult equivalent of the ACT or SAT.
Almost 9,000 Americans took the recent Survey of Adult Skills test. How did we do?
Figure 1 looks at U.S. adults with a high school diploma (but without a postsecondary credential) tested in the latest round against the OECD average (mean) and benchmarked against the first round a decade ago. The problem-solving measure is not comparable between the first and second round, so only the latest data is shown. On all three metrics, a score of 500 is the highest possible (and zero the lowest).
Figure 1
Americans with no more than upper secondary education lagged the OECD average in both survey rounds, on all three measures. The gap widened a little over time; in the 2023 survey, Americans were 4% below the OECD average on literacy and 11% behind on numeracy.
Why the decline, and why is the U.S. falling further behind?
The pandemic is an obvious culprit, but the OECD cautions against premature conclusions. The report notes atypical economic inequality in the United States as one explanation—the U.S. has a higher inequality Gini coefficient than any other rich nation—and is higher today than at almost any other time over the past 50 years. Other explanations include the rise of social media as the primary news source for a growing proportion of the population and a steady decline in reading for pleasure.
How did Americans with a postsecondary education do on the adult skills test?
Figure 2 compares scores for U.S. adults with a postsecondary education over time and against OECD averages.
Figure 2
For literacy and numeracy, both the U.S. and OECD averages were higher a decade ago. The differences are statistically significant but smaller than for respondents without a postsecondary education (<5%). Most countries saw a drop, despite (or perhaps because of) steady increases in postsecondary attainment.
The share of Americans aged 25-64 with a degree grew from 44% to over 50% over the past decade, so proficiency might be expected to rise, not fall.
The U.S. is widely thought to have the best higher education system in the world, but in both survey rounds, the foundational skills of adults educated to postsecondary level are close to the OECD average. Finland did best with a score of 313 on literacy (9% better than the U.S.) and 312 on numeracy (11% higher). Japan was a close second on both items and topped the list for problem-solving (289—7% above the U.S.).
One limitation of the OECD survey is that what is termed “tertiary” education attainment is not broken out. The designation encompasses everything from certificates to doctoral degrees.
The OECD survey also broke out adults with less than a high school diploma, who exhibit the lowest proficiency. The latest report calls out the U.S. for one of the highest proficiency gaps between the lowest and highest educated adults.
The Bottom Line
It is perplexing that after a decade when U.S. postsecondary attainment continued to climb—on the assumption that students and society would be better off—foundational skills proficiency slipped and is further behind the rich-country average. Perhaps weaker performance is the price of wider access, but that is a dispiriting take on the college promise. Indeed, Americans scoring on the lower end of the range on literacy and numeracy did worse over time, but scores on the higher range were higher on average in 2023 versus the first cycle.
This resonates with other trends. The past decade saw the “college-for-all” consensus break down in the United States. Adult undergraduate and community college enrollment slumped by a third or more. Policymakers trumpeted degree alternatives, such as apprenticeships and microcredentials, and employers warmed to “skills-based hiring.” A strong economy convinced many marginal prospects that a college education was optional.
Shorter, more applied credentials can make sense, but fuel an increasingly transactional mindset. It is ironic that ardor for skills-based hiring coincided with a skills decline, but perhaps that explains employer enthusiasm.
A just-released study of 800,000 undergraduates across 22 U.S. public research universities between 2012 and 2023 found steady decline in student engagement—academic, research, extracurricular, civic, career—with little evidence of post-pandemic recovery. Less traditional students were often less engaged.
Student embrace of online learning is a boon for flexibility but risks fraying the emotional bonds between students, faculty, and institutions.
It is possible that the OECD is measuring the wrong things as technology increasingly augments numeracy and literacy fundamentals, but there is no consensus on what better measures might be.
Of course, the OECD scores are just averages. Individuals score higher or lower, and postsecondary education remains strongly associated with higher proficiency and many other benefits. Many college students are as committed and engaged as ever and emerge as proficient and productive citizens. In pockets, institutions are innovating on everything from pedagogy to price.
College leaders certainly have more than enough to worry about right now. It is tempting to ignore a report from the faraway OECD, but that would be a mistake. Whether the stimulus is a looming population decline, shifting demographics, weakening student engagement, anxiety about value, rising non-degree competition, AI—or even a scowling federal administration—change is coming, and the OECD data is yet another red flag.
To quote the OECD report, boosting adult skills is “essential for economic resilience and social cohesion.” For higher education, proficiency is no less existential; it’s essential for a healthy college pipeline, student engagement and success, and forging a new higher education compact from the ashes of the old.
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