EDUCATION IN THE USA (the United States of America)

You know that American children go to school for twelve years.

There are different schools in the USA: large and small, public and private, co-educational and for boys and girls alone, schools in large cities and in small towns.

When the children are five years old they go to kindergarten. After kindergarten they go to elementary school. They study there eight years.

Then the American children can go to high school. They study there four years more. Most Americans finish high school because it is free.

Public schools, one of the types of high schools, are always big There are about fifteen hundred boys and girls there. Most American public schools are co-educational which means that boys and girls study together. Most Americans go to public schools.

When the American children finish high school they can go to college. A college is like a university. The difference is that a university has several colleges. The students study at college four years.

The school year always begins in September or October and ends in May or June. Many young people cannot go to college because it costs too much.

Some colleges have three hundred students or fewer, but some universities have twenty thousand students or more.