Is the U.S. economy on the right track? That is one of the ensuing debates upon which the nation seems divided. In an interview published in USA Today, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers weighed in.

“The economy's out of the canyon, but it's got a ways to go before it reaches the top of the mountain,” he said.

“We have millions more people without work than should be without work,” he added.

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As Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke made clear last week when announcing the latest quantitative easing program, employment is seen as a bellwether of economic conditions.

But, one of the divisions in the debate on unemployment stems from disagreement on the underlying problems. Some believe that there is a lack of jobs primarily because the economy has not recovered from the recession and the government needs to do more to spur the economy. Others point to structural problems, arguing that there are jobs, but Americans largely lack the necessary skills.

According to the Los Angeles Times, a report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce shows that only one in five jobs, or 29 million jobs, in the United States are so-called middle jobs — those with annual salaries of more than $35,000 but that don't require college degrees

While fewer than half of the jobs lost in the recession have come back, nearly all those that did require some type of post-secondary schooling, the Times reports.

Like others, Georgetown foresees those with only a high school diploma as facing increasingly difficult times competing for jobs and boosting wages. The report therefore advises people to get some form of job training or higher education.

That, however, leads to another contentious issue — the rising costs of education, which are causing some to rethink whether a degree is actually worth it.

Summers weighed in on this debate as well.

“I think a college education is expensive, but it is very cheap compared to ignorance,” he said in the USA Today interview.

“Those who suggest the irrelevance of knowledge in a knowledge economy are very much barking up the wrong tree,” he added.

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