Access to education is a global problem, in developing countries getting K-12 education is still an issue while in most places of U.S is not. More information about “Higher Education in the Developing World” here.
http://www.unicef.org/progressforchildren/2007n6/index_41797.htm
Which is the root cause for U.S ranking in 12th percentile while compared with other countries? Many things come to the table such as : motivation, family support and economy.
Higher education at international level offers a higher degree of difficulty. Developing countries have very few public universities, therefore either you have a very high placement and/or standardize score test to get into public universities or have money to pay a private one. Unfortunately, this same situation is suffered by some people in U.S, something that is not expected in an industrialized country with so many community colleges and state universities.
Education is important to keep and/or improve the quality of life and status in a society. In a capitalist country as U.S education plays a bigger role in the economy, if we know that why our school funding looks like this?:
