Higher education

About 12 million students currently attend schools of higher education in the USA. The USA leads all industrial nations in the proportion of its high men and women who receive higher education.

Americans place high value on higher education. A middle – income family with two children must take loans for up to 120.000$ go that their son and daughter can attend private university for four years.

Parents low – income family take jobs to support their children at a state university – each at an annual cost of 4.000$.

Out of the more than 3 mln. students who graduate from high school each year, about 1 mln. Go on for “higher education”.

A college at a leading university might receive applications from 2% of these high school graduates, 2 then accept only one out of every 10 who apply. Successful applicants at such colleges, are usually chosen on the basis of their high school records, recommendations from their high school teaches, the impression they make during interviews. At the university, 2 their scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT) перевірка здатності з метою визначення доцільності відповідного курсу навчання. There is no national system of higher education in the US. Instead there are about 3.000 separate institutions ranging from two-year “junior” (community) colleges and technical institutes to university.

Students have to pay to go to both private and state universities. Every person who enters a high education institution can get financial assistance. If a student borrows money from special funds, he should repay it with interest after he finishes his education. Needy students are awarded grants which they do not have to repay.

Scholarships are given when a student is doing exceptionally well at school. Some students take part-time jobs.

The universities with the highest reputation are: California University, Catholic University of America, Cornell University, Harvard University, John Hopkins University, Columbia University, Stanford University, Chicago University, Wisconsin University, Yale University. The best known of all is Harvard University, Massachusetts which was founded in 1636.

The American system of education differs somewhat from the system of other countries. It has certain peculiarities of its own which are closely connected with the specific condition of life in the New World and the history of American Society. There are free, state-supported, public schools which the majority of American children attend. There are also a number of private elementary and secondary school where a fee is charged for admission and children are accepted or rejected on the basis of an examination.

Most public schools are coeducational, that is, girls and boys study together, but a lot of church-supported schools are for boys and girls only. Under the US Constitution the federal government has no power to make laws in the field of education. This education remains primarily a function of the states. Each state has a Board of Education (usually 3 to 9 members elected by the public or appointed by governor), not subject to federal control. State laws determine the age of compulsory education, the length of the school years, the way in which teacher shall be certified and many of the courses which must be taught.

Education is compulsory for every child from the age of 6 up to the age of 16 except in Maine, New Mexico, North Dakota and Pennsylvania where it is compulsory to the age of 17 and in Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma and Utah where children must go to school until the age of 18.

Elementary (primary) and high school are organized on one of two bases: 8 years of primary school and 4 years of high school, or six year of primary, three – of junior high school and 3 – of senior high school.

Elementary school children in the US learn much the same things as do children of the same age in other aunties. The program of studies includes English (reading, writing, spelling, grammar, composition), arithmetic (sometimes elementary algebra or plane geometry in upper grades), geography, history of the USA, and elementary natural science. Physical training, music, drawing are also taught. Some schools teach a modern language, such as French, Spanish, German.

LECTURE 4

WASHINGTON, D.C. – THE CAPITAL OF THE USA

Washington is the capital of the USA. It is also one of the country’s most beautiful historic cites and the site of many of most popular tourist attraction. The capital is important to the America people as a symbol of their country’s unity, history and democratic tradition. Many visitors to Washington enjoy the rich and varied architecture of the city’s buildings and monuments. But a law limits the height of buildings in the city. As a result, Washington – unlike most other large cities – has no skyscrapers. Visitors tour the city’s many museums, which together house the world’s largest collection of items from America’s past.

At the same time Washington faces problems common to all cities, including crime, drug abuse, poverty and traffic jams.

Washington is one of the few capitals in the world that was especially built to house the American nation’s government.

When the 13 colonies became states and decided to join in a Union, there was much discussion about the capital. The decision finally arrived at was to carve out a hundred square miles from the States of Maryland and Virginia, call it Federal territory, and build a model capital on that site.

In 1790 the first President of the USA, General George Washington, personally chose the site for the capital of a new nation. The General drew a circle at his well-worn map, where the Potomac River divided the Virginia Maryland States, and wrote inside it, “District Columbia. Federal city”. Washington invited a famous French engineer Pierre Charles L’Efant (П’єр Шарль Лефант), a supporter of the American Republic to design the new city.

The District was named in honor of Columbus, the discoverer of America. The city was founded in 1791, became the capital of the US in 1800 and was named after the first US President, G. Washington.

The District of Columbia is not a state, it belongs neither to the north nor to the south, but to all states. The name of the capital always goes with the abbreviation D.C., not to be mixed with another Washington, one of the 50 US states.

Most Americans are unaware that until 1800 the US had 5 “capitals” or meeting places of the Congress - Princeton, Annapolis, Trenton, New York and Philadelphia. For various reasons now of these cities offered an ideal seat of government for the new nation. After the Constitution was adopted, the establishment of a new city was considered.

While the capital is named for G. Washington, it was not named by him. The first President called it simply “The Federal City”, and the name “Washington” did not come into general use while after his death.

At the beginning of the 19^th century, the new capital was called “Wilderness City” and the “City of Streets Without Houses”. When the government moved there in 1800, President John Adams and his party literally couldn’t find the place, becoming lost in the woods.

To the visitor, Washington appears most confusing, despite the master plan drawn by Pierre L’Enfant so long ago. The centre of the city is the Capitol Building. Four geographical sections, or quadrants, radiate out from the Capitol dividing the District of Columbia into North-East, North-West, South –East, South-West. The Capitol is also the point from which the city’s streets are numbered or lettered. The streets east and west of the capitol are numbered 1^st Street, 2^nd Street, and so on. Similarly, the streets to the north and to the south are named for letters of the alphabet - G Street, R Street etc. Round the Capitol a series of circles and squares occur at various intervals, and diagonal avenues radiate from these. From the Capitol to the Executive mansions (White House in XIX century) runs broad Pennsylvania Avenue, about a mile and a half in length and flanked with trees.

All the diagonal avenues are named after the original 13 American states, and longest and straightest of them all is Massachusetts Avenue, which virtually cuts the city in half. But not every diagonal is an avenue, that is why despite the simple plan of numbered and lettered streets Washington at times confuses its sightseers.

Washington is not the largest city in the US, for it cannot compare in size with cities like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit and Los-Angeles, which have more than a million inhabitants. In 2003 its population was 563, 384.

In the political sense, however, it is the centre of the republic and the most important city in the US Washington’s only big business has always been the business of Government. It is said that some three – quarters of the adult population in Washington D.C. are wholly or indirectly involved in the administrative machine and the general process of government. They are either politicians, or civil servants, or suppliers of goods and services to such people. In 1800, when the US government moved to Washington from Philadelphia, the Washington bureaucracy consisted of about 130 clerks, while in 2000 government employees in Washington numbered about 260.00.

Power is what Washington is all about. It is power that attracts able men into government and politics and keeps them working ten hours or more a day, for far less money than they could make elsewhere. Thus, it is not exaggeration that Washington is the greatest industrial town in the world, and its industry is politics.

Many tourists come to Washington to see the nation’s capital. Let’s get acquainted with some of its sights.