The Most Important Unknown Statistic

Worth Clicking: Blasts from the past wound Romney

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September 22, 2009

The Most Important Unknown Statistic

At last night's policy discussion, former President Bill Clinton flagged a warning sign that America is losing its competitive edge in the global economy.

Said Clinton: "In the last eight years, we went from first to tenth in terms of the percentage of 25 to 34 year olds holding a bachelor's degree. That's the most important unknown statistic out there... We are headed into long-term economic decline if we don't do something about it."

Clinton noted that exploding tuition at college is driving the problem, as "higher education institutions are pricing themselves into America's decline." He argued that new, less-costly "delivery systems" for education were needed to reverse this trend.

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Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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September 22, 2009