Remember, just because the money is spent, it doesn't mean it is spent well. I'm sure a lot of the US dollars are fed into sports programs and other spending, and not directly towards efforts that would benefit the most students or workers.
For example, Austria is notorious for producing desastrous results in any metric (standardized tests, teen Analphabeten...) in relation to its spending on education.
The Hungarian numbers are inflated by religious schools, secular schools only would be in the very end, also we're forcing very old and inefficient teaching methods on our teachers, so old people can jizz their pants seeing kids not having free time to play outside (which they also complain about of course), and we also have a massive corruption problem (renovations, etc., cost way more they should because we need to make the prime minister's childhood friends billionaires).
I'd much rather look a simple sorted table or a bar chart.
For me the country outlines don't add anything of value and they aren't too scale either with arbitrary rotations mixed in. Spending is on a strictly one dimensional scale yet the graphic implies some concentric (2-dimensional) pattern.
I agree. Standard bars are boring, and it's not bad to liven them up, but there are a lot of different ideas layered one over another with a little connection to data representation or increasing readability (also heatmaps with strict color gradations, false grouping, distance from center breaks at the bottom level mixing different colors). But nailing visuals without trying things out is impossible. OP got feedback they can put to use in the future.
Critically checking the graph after each step could've make it easier even for them. Had it become better in some way with X? If no, let's scrap it and try something different.
I think with the US, it comes down to that number being an average and how big the spread is between states. North East and West Pacific states spend WAY more than South Eastern, but it averages out to something seemingly reasonable.
The US spends more on public education than multiple states where it's basically free for everyone. Now take a moment and appreciate how badly you are ripped off.
Just like healthcare...there are very few cases where replacing a societal motivation with a profit motivation results in better service or lower costs.
Part of that is because private education there is not a thing. So some of the funds that would go to for-profit education at the expense of public schools instead goes into taxes to more efficiently fund education.
Primary to tertiary? Does that mean it includes what college students through grad school spend themselves? Because that would shift perception of this a lot.
Edit: The original data does include public funding and private funding:
Every year, governments, private companies, students and their families make decisions about the financial resources invested in education.
They do break it out, but I can't tell if the graphic is using the total or just the public funding.
So this graphic might just be: Americans spend a stupid amount on college.
Yeah, data can be beautiful - but is ugly if presented misleadingly. Only very little can be concluded from this 'graph' (without sources btw), but it is presented as if the inner west are the great core of enlightenment, spiraling out to the 'dumber' nations. The level of knowledge excellence is obviously related to the amount of dollu spent - which is nonsense.
My equally valid opinion is that Western liberal/Capitalist education is exceedingly inefficient, and only optimized for wage-slavery. Notice how all the super 'edumecated' citizens from the west have been so easily propagandized to think that Russia is the bad guy. ..China is the bad guy ..socialism is bad ..communism evil ..Capitalism GREAT! We are the best!! ..and so on and so on with similar infantile propaganda from the Capitalist elite. The average intellects in these 'educated' western nations is Embarrassing, and misinformation from constant propaganda doesn't help much i'm afraid..
I guess when you consider that citizens of rich capitalist countries have to throw away so much of their income in commodified and privatised education, I guess that it is possible that countries like can spend near the top.