Very recently, there was a report issued on education, which
stated something on the order of people in the United States
are receiving 10% more of a certain level of education, than
they were a decade before.
The years and the exact figures have been altered to protect
those responsible from embarrassment.
For example: let us presume the report stated:
Graduation From Grade School was up 5% from 1981 to 1991.
You would think from this report that the average kid had 5%
greater chances of getting a Grade School Diploma in 91 than
in 81. . .but. . .it turns out that it was just the opposite
because the population was 1.097352 times larger in 91, than
it had been in 1981. . .which is about 10% larger, thus in a
"real education" sense, in the same way the monetary reports
are given in "real dollars" or "constant dollars," education
was actually moving in just the opposite direction, and thus
was DOWN about 5% instead of UP about 5% from 1981 to 1991.
Remember, these were not from years quoted in the report and
the figures were not exactly 5% or 10% respectively, nor the
diploma referred to was not a Grade School Diploma, but they
are pretty close to being exact, in terms of the percentages
and years; much closer than you might expect.
***Here is a footnote explanation of how to be more exact***
To be exact, one would have to do a demographic analysis, of
the specific portions of the population of the ages at which
such diplomas were conferred, as it would be irrelevant from
a realistic point of view to measure the population on whole
bases if you were only concerned with people who were of the
age to receive Kindergarten Diplomas between 1981 and 1991--
or whatever ages and a whatever kind of diploma. Thus these
figures are not as precise as they could be, but still given
the trends of population and education, it is obvious that a
trend in one is not following the direction of the other. A
further look at the US Census figures averaged below will be
sufficient to inform you that previous generations that were
measured had even greater growth rates than 10%, so that the
number of people getting any specific degrees or diplomas in
the following decades should have been going up even more.
***
In the tables below, the first line shows the Base Year: or
"The Year In Question" labeled "YEAR: ####" so if you want a
chart based on 1980 as the base year, you simply search/find
"YEAR: 1980" to find the relevant portions.
Once you have located the table for "YEAR: ####" you can see
comparisons of that year to any other year by looking up the
year you wish to compare to in the left column.
The SAMPLE comparison is 1991, presented below.
You will note a ten year comparison looks like:
year/1991 1991/year Growth%
1981 0.911285 1.097352 0.9031%
This means a 1991 statistic would have to be shrunk to about 91%
of its size to be relevant to a comparable 1981 statistic.
On the other hand, and 1981 statistic would have to be enlarged,
this time by about 10% to be useful in comparison to 1991.
1991 is the latest year for which we have "hard statistics" so a
copy of that year is presented first for you immediate use, with
year back to colonization following, starting with estimates for
2009 when the United States population should reach 300 million.
You may note some fluctuations in these figures, because we used
all reports from the major media and almanacs of the periods our
researchers could find. If you have access to any figures which
do not appear in the footnoted materials, please send them to us
for inclusion in the next edition.
We are also working on a database that will NOT show fluctuation
patterns of this nature, which will be based on massaged figures
presented at later dates by the Census Bureau. These will be an
example of the difference between the figure we can expect on an
entirely "here-and-now" basis, and those which we would probably
not see about today's events until a decade or two have passed.
***BYEAR = BASE YEAR
***AYEAR = A YEAR IN COMPARISON TO THE BASE YEAR