More than half of graduating high school students in America—57 percent—may not be successful in college, based on sat test scores and the College Board’s calculated college and career readiness benchmark. President of the organization Gaston Caperton evaluated this state of education as “a call to action,” saying: “Our nation’s future depends on the strength of our education system. When less than half of kids who want to go to college are prepared to do so, that system is failing.”

Other stats indicate this declining trend in education in the United States. The average sat reading score for the high school class of 2012 was 496 out of a possible 800. This is the lowest score since 1972—40 years ago. And this, as The Foundry noted, at a time when tuition is at its highest.

A number of reasons have been brought up to explain this dismal decline. The College Board explains that these low average scores are a result of an expanding pool of test takers. About a quarter of these students were minorities who did not have English as a native language. Thirty-six percent reported that their parents themselves had not advanced beyond high school. But, as cnn contributor and former U.S. secretary of education William J. Bennett asked, “Since when has diversity and more students taking the test become a legitimate excuse for bad scores?”

sat scores in the U.S. declined for all ethnic groups except Asian Americans, the biggest decline being among blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans. Other studies have also found a correlation between test scores and family income. The Washington Post reported that some educational experts “assert that privileged students do better on the sat because they are exposed to activities, from summer camp to private violin lessons, that give them an advantage in that particular test.”

So, what is the reason behind the failure of the American education system? And what is the solution?

The reason for the failure of education today is simply that it lacks the fundamental dimension of divinely revealed truth upon which true education was originally founded by our Maker.

The solution is simply to reinstate that missing dimension in education to the world’s education systems. That missing dimension is what educates people in how to pursue their incredible, God-given human potential. Without that essential knowledge, man’s form of education tends to be but a regurgitation of the miseducation of previous generations—an education that has but perpetuated the problems of humankind to the point of today’s great global crisis.

In our article “Sucked Under by That College Degree,” we wrote: “This broad failure [in the education system] is part of the reason Herbert W. Armstrong College was founded. Herbert W. Armstrong College is partially sponsored by the Trumpet’s publisher, the Philadelphia Church of God.” With students from different nationalities, family backgrounds and ethnic groups, this college strives to instill studiousness and industry, teaching how to live.

Our free booklet Education With Vision explains more on true education. It reveals just what is that missing dimension in today’s failing education system, the dimension that leads to fulfilling one’s incredible, God-given, human potential.