Multiplying the Benefits of Higher Education by 50

State leaders are finding out what college and university presidents have long known: Higher education pays benefits at both the state and the national level.

The Investment Payoff: A 50-State Analysis of the Public and Private Benefits of Higher Education highlights the effect of state investment in higher education. The study, conducted by the Institute for Higher Education Policy and funded by Lumina Foundation for Education, reports that state benefits include lower unemployment rates, a decreased need for welfare assistance, higher voting rates, and increased volunteerism.

On a related note, the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education chronicled Michigan and Oklahoma's battles to move beyond their respective industrial and rural roots in separate articles in the winter 2005 issue of National CrossTalk. The solution for both states: Increase the number of residents with college degrees.

Oklahoma's higher education campaign centers on Brain Gain 2010, an effort to increase the percentage of state residents with college degrees by 40 percent from 1996 to 2010. Advertising campaigns (posters, videos, and web sites) aim to get students interested in attending college, and other programs address poor preparation, affordability, and helping students succeed once they are in college. So far, college graduation levels have improved only modestly: According to the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, 21.9 percent of Oklahomans over age 25 held bachelor's degrees in 2003, a slight rise from 20.1 percent in 1996.

Michigan's goal: to double the number of state college graduates by 2015. In a report released late last year, a commission appointed by the state's governor, Jennifer Granholm, concluded that a well-educated citizenry is most important to Michigan's future economic growth. According to the article, Michigan currently has an unemployment rate that exceeds the national average by nearly one-third, and almost half of its college graduates move out of the state before they celebrate their 30th birthdays.

The Investment Payoff is available at www.luminafoundation.org/publications/ InvestmentPayoff2005.pdf. National CrossTalks winter 2005 issue is available at www.higher education.org/crosstalk/ct0105/front.shtml.

Copyright American Council on Education Spring 2005
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