Higher Learning, Greater Good

Contents

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pp. vii-

Preface

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pp. ix-xiii

This book sets forth a modern human capital approach to higher education policy in the United States but also in other developed OECD member countries. It emphasizes the nature, measurement, and valuation of the private and social benefits of higher education—with special attention to the non-market private and social benefits, direct and indirect effects, and short- and long-term...

1 What Is the Problem?

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pp. 1-39

The degree of privatization of higher education has been in - creasing since 1980, and even more sharply from 2001 through the present. As public funding of higher education per full-time student has declined, tuition has risen 29% in real terms net of increases in financial aid since 1996 at public institutions according to the College Board (2007a). For public an...

2 Challenges Facing Higher Education Policy

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pp. 40-68

This chapter begins with a review of basic human capital concepts vital to higher education policy. It then considers the standard current higher education policy issues from a human capital perspective and the implications. It introduces some tools and draws on empirical evidence, but it does not develop the analysis in depth or present the detail to be found in later...

3 Higher Education and Economic Growth: Jobs, Earnings, and the Skill Deficit

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pp. 69-117

The key question for this chapter is, Does higher education contribute significantly to jobs and to economic growth? And if so, what is the evidence? What are the powerful underlying economic trends to which higher education policy must respond, and how much does higher education contribute in relation to its rising...

4 Private Non-Market Benefits of Higher Education and Market Failure

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pp. 118-180

Higher education has become so expensive to students, their families, and governments that it has become essential to articulate what they are getting for their investment. An important part of these benefits are private non-market benefits that positively affect each graduate’s quality of life in ways other than just income. These are...

5 Social Benefits of Higher Education and Their Policy Implications

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pp. 181-255

Social benefits of higher education emphasize the benefits of higher education to the society that are externalities, that is, benefits that spill over to others, including future generations, that are beyond the private benefits of higher education to the individual. Social benefits are usually defined as the total benefits of higher...

6 University Research: Social Benefits and Policy

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pp. 256-285

“Those who look mainly to universities as a source of human capital often tend to be critical of the lack of obvious dividends from university research” (Sims, 1989). This statement highlights the often underestimated but extremely important benefit that universities provide to research by the creation, dissemination, and adaptation...

7 New Higher Education Policies

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pp. 286-320

Familiar higher education policy issues involve access, affordability, accountability, and the trend toward privatization. Dramatically changed conditions in the economy with enormous skill deficits due to globalization, a human capital perspective that has established the critical role of education in the knowledge economy, new research...

8 New Strategies for Financing Higher Education

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pp. 321-330

A modern human capital approach to higher education policy reveals a number of higher education policy gaps. But it also offers criteria suggestive of solutions that were considered in Chapters 3–7. These both permit some overall conclusions relevant to a new financing strategy to be...

Appendixes

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pp. 331-381

References

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pp. 383-403

Index

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pp. 405-415