The Value of an Education

Good news students! A new report from the OECD was able to measure how much more graduates can expect to earn compared to job seekers without a degree. In the U.S. the lifetime gross earnings of male graduates are almost $370,000 higher than those without degrees. This is a nice payback for the ever inflating  cost of  a university education. The trend is similar in other countries but perhaps the best value of an education should not be measured in terms of financial benefits but rather in terms of other personal and social benefits.  Knowledge in an ever complex world allows perhaps individuals to make better informed decisions on all sorts of matters and societies that are better educated may be a better steward of freedom and democracy. Knowledge and education however do not always guarantee those benefits, it may be worth to remember that while  many individuals without college education have achieved great success, a few highly read intellectuals have led humanity straight down to a path of madness (socialism, eugenics, etc).

The world gets a college degree

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), more students in ‘developed nations’ are going to college. In 2006, 56% of graduating high school studnets went on to university, up from 37% in 1995. In almost of all of the 30 OECD countries there have been rates increase in enrollments. This is good news and a broad trend despite the different approaches countries take to support graduate education. , and the extra cash needed has come from a variety of sources. Some countries, such as Britain, charge tuition fees, others especially in Europe use high tax rates to fund education. The United States, with the cost of college education increasing at a high rate, spends the most on each college student sustained by a large pool of private financing available. A university degree is not a requirement to leading a happy and fruitful life (the MBAs who ran Enron and a few Wall Street banks can certainly testify to that) but this is definitively good news for the world because an educated workforce is critical to economic growth and a more informed citizenry, one hopes, will lead to a more a more reasonable approach in international affairs and grobal integration.