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"We could all use a crash course in personal finance. Two-thirds of people around the world failed a short test of basic financial concepts. The five-question test-created by Standard & Poor's, Gallup, the World Bank, and George Washington University-was posed to 150,000 people in more than 140 countries last year. It tests understanding of risk, inflation, interest, and compound interest. To pass, people had to demonstrate competency in three out of four topics. Yet just 33% of people were able to do that. See how you fare on this slightly modified version of the quiz. After each question, we'll tell you how various countries did on it, too."

""Grundtvig is our man for this time. He's still relevant," says Clay Warren, a professor of communication at George Washington University and author of The School for Life: N.F.S. Grundtvig on the Education for the People. Nikolaj Grundtvig, a 19th century Danish educator and a contemporary of Hans Christian Andersen and Søren Kierkegaard, helped pioneer the folk high school, an adult educational institution that is common in Scandinava. The school does not grant academic degrees but rather fosters intellectual thinking and discussions through community engagement. Warren sat down with Reason's Nick Gillespie to discuss his book, the educational philosophy underpinning Grundtvig's work, as well as Grundtvig's emphasis on individual potential and development. "

Lynch, J. 1994. Provision for children with special educational needs in the asia region. Washington: The World Bank.

The allure of America's universities, and the pressure-cooker drive to succeed among Asia's expanding upper class, will continue to propel Asian students into American schools. Many Chinese teenagers applying abroad, Melcher said, are the sort of highly motivated students colleges desire. "Chinese kids are typically great," Melcher said. "They're not at the tailgate parties drinking. They're busting their butts. Failure is not an option." But college application fraud will continue, he said, so long as the risks are low and the rewards are so high. His consultancy suggests interviewing all Chinese students via online video chats, conducting spot tests in English, and hiring a mainland Chinese staffer in the college's home office.