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See also: Educational attainment in the United States and Higher education in the United States American public education is operated by state and local governments, regulated by the United States Department of Education through restrictions on federal grants. Children are required in most states to attend school from the age of six or seven (generally, kindergarten or first grade) until they turn eighteen (generally bringing them through twelfth grade, the end of high school); some states allow students to leave school at sixteen or seventeen.[149] About 12% of children are enrolled in parochial or nonsectarian private schools. Just over 2% of children are homeschooled.[150] The United States has many competitive private and public institutions of higher education. According to prominent international rankings, 13 or 15 American colleges and universities are ranked among the top 20 in the world.[151][152] There are also local community colleges with generally more open admission policies, shorter academic programs, and lower tuition. Of Americans twenty-five and older, 84.6% graduated from high school, 52.6% attended some college, 27.2% earned a bachelor's degree, and 9.6% earned graduate degrees.[153] The basic literacy rate is approximately 99%.[1][154] The United Nations assigns the United States an Education Index of 0.97, tying it for 12th in the world Web rao vat