<p>[Sam Lee] Unlike in engineering or natural sciences (physics, chemistry, biology), I don’t see the US having a particular advantage over Europe, even at the graduate level, as far as mathematics is concerned. It suffices to take a look at the list of [Fields Medalists](<a href=“Fields Medal - Wikipedia”>Fields Medal - Wikipedia) to see that countries like the UK or France, whose population is only 1/5th of the population of the States, are, in relative terms, overrepresented among the laureates. </p>
<p>In any case, your point is well taken. Generally speaking, doctoral dissertations in the US are indeed deeper than their counterparts in Europe in most fields. The main reason for that IMHO is that, in the US, it may take up to 6 years or more beyond a bachelor’s degree to get a doctorate, whereas in Europe, because of funding constraints, one has only 5 years beyond the BS/BA (four in the UK !) to finish a PhD. With more time and less pressure to graduate early, students can go deeper in their research, publish more papers, etc. </p>
<p>America’s advantage in graduate school, which comes basically from better funding and a bigger pool of talented (domestic ** and ** international) students to draw from, has little or nothing to do IMHO with the “liberal arts” education at the undergraduate level. If anything, a liberal arts undergraduate degree, at least in fields like math and sciences, is a disadvantage rather than a plus for someone who plans to go on to get a doctorate after college.</p>