The Non-monetized Value of Higher Education, Part 1

In recent years several societies have questioned how to measure their progress. For decades, gross domestic product (GDP), a measure of the economic production of a country, dominated the way we ranked nation-states. Those with higher GDP’s and faster rates of growth of GDP were labeled as more successful than others.

A watershed in thinking about the well-being of nation-states occurred with the release of the Stiglitz report in 2009 (see Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress), which argued that more than money was involved in nation’s well-being — the quality of air and water resources, the efficiency of transportation infrastructure, lack of income inequality, sustainability and resilience to human and environmental disasters, the satisfaction that people have in what they do and how they feel about their situation, health, education, ubiquity of political voice and participation in governance, social connections and relationships, and physical security. Some of those are highly related to the GDP; others are not.

It is interesting in this context to observe the increasing questions about the monetized benefits of higher education. Which institutions offer the best “return on investment” of tuition? Does a student earn more per tuition dollar at one school versus another? Is higher education “worth it”? Would it be better to attend a low tuition school for life-time earnings potential when you include the savings from tuition costs? Would it be better for a parent to invest the cost of tuition in the stock market and give the sum to the child instead of their attending college? All of these questions are about the monetary gain from higher education.

I am personally doubtful that these questions would be arising so pervasively without the economic recession of 2008-2009, where job growth was sharply curtailed. This damaged the prospects of college graduates. I am also doubtful that these questions would be so ubiquitous if the median family incomes of US households had not stalled and income inequality had not increased. This made any tuition level more difficult to meet. I’m doubtful they would be so strident if state legislatures had not cut support for state universities, leading to tuition increases in those universities. This led to greater mismatches between median family incomes and tuition levels.

Regardless of why the questions arise, is money earned the only valid measure of the value of higher education? Should one consider other benefits of going to college? Why, at the moment they choose major fields of concentration, do some college students choose to enter fields with low average salaries? Should all students choose majors preparing for the high paying occupations? Should universities systematically stop offering majors in fields with low-expected life-time earnings? Is there something else that is produced in college that should be brought into the valuation of the experience?

Several have noted that the greatest proportional return on tuition investment is probably a certificate program at a trade school or community college, say, in heating and air conditioning services. For every dollar invested in training costs, the value in income is maximized far beyond a college degree. Why is that of little interest to many college-age students?

So, what other outcome of higher education are these students seeking? Why aren’t they merely income-maximizing? The answer might lie in some of the key goals of liberal education, especially those motivated by Jesuit ideals. The years between 18-22 are ones of self-discovery. Indeed, true self-discovery might be one of the most important outcomes of university training. The choosing of a major is a key moment in one’s life, filled with speculation about one’s future. That decision is often guided by a search for one’s special identity, the work that provides lasting satisfaction to that individual.

Georgetown students in philosophy and theology classes tackle some of the great unanswered questions of the ages. These often force attention to discerning one’s place in the world and give them deep logical skills to tackle a new problem. They learn to engage people who are different from them. They are part of an inter-faith, inter-race, inter-culture dialogue. They build skills of global citizenship. They have intense interpersonal relationships among those who are interested in the same topics; they build an interest network. Some of these grow into lifetime career networks, entrepreneurial partnerships, and social support groups. They take advantage of original research experiences, building skills that make them robust to knowledge shifts. Through exposure to multiple disciplines they learn the interconnection between apparently diverse knowledge domains. They grow skills of problem-solving using multiple sources of information. They explore new social and intellectual experiences, discovering previously unknown things about themselves. They learn to work in teams; they learn leadership and organizational skills in the hundreds of student activities. They have one-on-one discussions with faculty who are deep experts in their field; they seek the counsel of those mentors; they are guided in their life decisions that they make during those years. They learn that those provided with the gift of knowledge have the obligation to use it to help others. They exit with a set of enduring principles that guide their future decisions.

None of these outcomes of higher education can be easily monetized. Just as GDP doesn’t fully measure the well-being of a country, salary levels of graduates do not fully measure the worth of higher education. Building a higher education system totally focused on income-maximization of its graduates misses that key fact.