, commonly known as the United States

Higher education

Main article: Higher education in the United States

The United States has many competitive private and public institutions of higher education. The majority of the world's top universities listed by different ranking organizations are in the U.S.There are also local community colleges with generally more open admission policies, shorter academic programs, and lower tuition.

In 2018, U21, a network of research-intensive universities, ranked the United States first in the world for breadth and quality of higher education, and 15th when GDP was a factor.

As for public expenditures on higher education, the U.S. trails some other OECD nations but spends more per student than the OECD average, and more than all nations in combined public and private spending.As of 2018, student loan debt exceeded 1.5 trillion dollars, more than Americans owe on credit cards.

Museums

Main article: List of museums in the United States

The United States is home to thousands of public and private museums with exhibits concerning local history and culture, national heritage, global events, science, art, literature, and a number of other topics. The national museum of the United States, the Smithsonian Institution, is an encyclopedic museum containing over 154 million items^[, governs over 200 affiliate museums^[, and is endowed by the U.S government with $1.2 billion annually.  Other prominent museums in the United States include The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The National Air and Space Museum, American Museum of Natural History, Discovery Park of America, National Museum of African American History & Culture, Houston Museum of Natural Science, and California Science Center.