It’s just outside it in QS, but anyway… isn’t that a little bit of a weak praise? Their universities don’t compete with others in Europe, let alone the US. It’s definitely not access to top education is it?

Finnish students have better access to Harvard then American students have access to Finnish primary and secondary schools...

But given the existence of Harvard in the US rather than Finland it seems like the US primary and secondary schools are producing better results.

Praising an education system as ‘it’s good enough to let you escape somewhere else’ isn’t encouraging!

I'm not sure how you arrive at that conclusion. Harvard pre-dates our current primary/secondary education system. And it accepts only a tiny fraction of college-bound students, who are themselves a small fraction of the populace. It's one of the wealthiest, oldest, and most renowned universities in the world - it is almost completely divorced from broader educational system in the US.

Nobody is denying the US has excellent post-secondary institutions. My response was to your assertion that the existence of excellent universities proves the US cares about education.

The US excels at educating our wealthy elite, largely through access to zip-code restricted public schools or expensive private prep academies, which then grants access to institutions like Harvard, other Ivies and equivalent schools, and the flagship public state schools. We don't do so well at ensuring a baseline understanding of the world to the populace in general.