Contents by
Section: July 1998
Front
Page
Lead Story
They're talking on campus...
On the Road
ActionLine NEA
In the Know
From Capital to Campus
NEA Affilitates in Action
Higher Education News
Money Savvy
The Dialogue
Thriving in Academe
The Value of Going to College
Why should higher ed faculty and staff pay attention to the new report, Reaping the Benefits: Defining the Public and Private Value of Going to College?
Reaping the Benefits, a report from the New Millennium Project of the Institute for Higher Education Policy, details the economic and social utility of higher education.
The report notes that the public dialogue around higher education has shifted, moving from an understanding of the broad array of public and private benefits derived from higher education to an emphasis on only the private economic value.
What we need, the report stresses, is a renewed emphasis on the public and demo-cratic purpose and value of higher education.
The report's authors fear that the current emphasis on higher education's private economic benefits will weaken public support for investing in higher education as a fundamental social institution.
What's the overall purpose of the New Millennium Project?
The New Millennium Project on Higher Education Costs, Pricing, and Productivity, sponsored by the Institute for Higher Education Policy, the Ford Foundation, and the Education Resources Institute, is a multi-year effort to help reform the complex system for financing higher education.
Notes the report: "Higher education officials will need to develop new tools for managing transformation that protect the basic social and economic mission of collegiate higher education while simultaneously adapting to major change."
What does Reaping the Benefits say about the public value of higher education?
The report relates the size of the college-educated population to the health and prosperity of the national economy.
In 1994, for example, those with some college education paid 71 percent of all federal income tax. Other benefits: greater workforce productivity and flexibility.
But the report then goes on to note that higher education also strengthens civic life. Individuals with some college education demonstrate higher voting rates and greater participation in community service than those who did not attend college.
How does the report describe the private value of higher education?
The advantages an individual with some college will most likely enjoy, the report notes, include a higher salary and better working conditions.
Less celebrated benefits of higher education include longer life expectancy and more active participation in leisure activities such as reading literature.
To find out more, visit the Institute for Higher Education Policy Web site at: www.ihep.com.
