Those numbers are dollars per student, if we start sending a lot of new people to community colleges our rank on that list might drop since community college is much cheaper than univeristy where many costs go towards things not directly tied to education: dorms, meal plans, sports equipment, stadiums, etc.
If you're trying to make the argument of diminishing returns for spending on education, that's pretty non-controversial.
I don't think chart B1.1 helps you make that case, I think per student numbers are probably a wash to that end unless several other factors are taken into account. Of the countries in that study, we're number 5 for primary school spending per student, number 4 for secondary school spending, and number 1 for tertiary spending (and number 3 for total spending if we include educational "services"? Not sure what that means.) That data isn't painting a clear picture of America overspending on education.
We also attract a large number of international students and they bring some money with them, some of them bring a lot of it.
