I do a lot of complaining about various aspects of the American education system, so when I see something at a systemic level that's spot-on right, I should publicly praise it.

I was at the gym last week and spent a long time talking to a guy who's taught me a lot about a few exercises. He was very excited because he just landed his first professional job. He's a great example of both one huge failure of the American education system, and one huge success. He's from a very rural area of Southern California, and went to a high school that isn't accustomed to dealing with very strong math/science students. He's clearly a smart guy, so I wasn't surprised to hear that he was the top math guy in his area, and skipped at least one grade before heading off to college.

College was a disaster. Perhaps he was too young. Perhaps his school hadn't prepared him. (I think this was certainly the case, as did he.) Perhaps he was unfortunate enough to go through high school pre-AoPS Regardless, his first run at college was unsuccessful. He spent some time playing poker, which he was good at because he's smart. But he eventually, or rather quickly, grew weary of that and started back at school, first through community college, and then at San Diego State. And he didn't study something relatively useless, like ________ Studies (beware majors with "Studies" in the title). He just landed a job as an aerospace engineer. He's back in the hard-core geek fold, and happy to be there.

Here's what the education system got right: the American system has lots of on-ramps for people who get sidetracked early in life, or who simply aren't ready for college at age 18. From what I understand, it's a lot harder in many Western countries to reroute or restart your education later in life, and to build a new career through education well after the typical age people might complete their education.

I have a lot of issues with so-called higher education in the US (and hoepfully I'll have time to write about some of them soon), but this is one thing it gets right. For people who know what they're doing and know why they're in school, the US system of higher education offers enormous opportunity to get yourself back on track.