Higher Learning, Greater Good : The Private and Social Benefits of Higher Education

by McMahon, Walter W.

• ISBN13: 9780801890536
• ISBN10: 0801890535
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780801896781
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-02-10
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr
• More Book Details

Summary

A college education has long been acknowledged as essential for both personal success and economic growth. But the measurable value of its nonmonetary benefits has until now been poorly understood. Walter W. McMahon, a leading education economist, carefully describes these benefits and suggests that higher education accrues significant social and private benefits.McMahon's research uncovers a major skill deficit in the United States and other OECD countries owing to technical change and globalization. Yet a college degree brings better job opportunities, higher earnings, and even improved health. Higher education also promotes democracy and sustainable growth and contributes to reduced crime and lower state welfare and prison costs. These social benefits are substantial in relation to the costs of a college education.Offering a human capital perspective on these and other higher education policy issues, McMahon suggests that poor understanding of the value of nonmarket benefits leads to private underinvestment. He offers policy options that can enable state and federal governments to increase investment in higher education.

Author Biography

Walter W. McMahon is Professor of Economics Emeritus and Professor of Education Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is well known internationally as a leading economist of education and is the author of Education and Development: Measuring the Social Benefits.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
What Is the Problem?	p. 1
Challenges Facing Higher Education Policy	p. 40
Higher Education and Economic Growth: Jobs, Earnings, and the Skill Deficit	p. 69
Private Non-Market Benefits of Higher Education and Market Failure	p. 118
Social Benefits of Higher Education and Their Policy Implications	p. 181
University Research: Social Benefits and Policy	p. 256
New Higher Education Policies	p. 286
New Strategies for Financing Higher Education	p. 321
Appendixes
Correcting for Ability Bias in Returns to Higher Education	p. 331
A Simplified Dynamic Model with Higher Education Externalities	p. 347
Valuing the Effects of Higher Education on Private Non-Market Outcomes	p. 351
Higher Education and Growth, U.S. and OECD Countries, 1960-2005	p. 363
Valuing the External Social Benefits of Higher Education	p. 369
References	p. 383
Index	p. 405
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