Cover story for The College Magazine, Arts and Sciences at lndiana University, Fall 2A11.

SPOTLIGHT

Is a College Degree Worth the Cost?

A conversation between Larry Singell and Jamsheed Choksy, moderated by Richard Miller
by Bruce Lilly

cost of college is a hot topic, and for good reason. Tuition costs have climbed steeply Wlflq .,o*.f goverypent support both for students and educational institutions has fallen sharply.

Th.

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trmes

'q..^qlhqlynavg less mo19y avajlable to spend on education. The 0ccupy move,ment syyeeping the nation has focused attention on the massive debt burden canied by many students. Segments of the movement are pushing for ways to make education accessible to all and to have all student debt forgiven. ' , ,$l!" . 'l Larry D. SingellJr., who became dean of the College of Arts and Sciences on July 1, and Jamsheed Choksy, professor of Central Eurasian Studies and History, recently wrestled with the issues in a conversation moderated by Richard Miller, professor of Religious Studies. Singell is an economist whose
research focuses on the economics of higher education; Choksy is a US presidential appointee to the
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many families

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National Council on the Humanities, and Miller is director of the Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics
and American

lnstitutions.

photos:ZachHetrick

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poliry Coming from IU, I could point to all the foreign languages
we teach here. Say that you are atwar and you drop troops on the

ground in a foreisn countrv.

If

those soldiers have some knorn'ledge

of the language and the culture, if they know something about the people they will encounter, there are higher survival and succes$

i*

rates. So, ther e art- very practical returns,

eve

n though those

practical returns may derire from this larger aspect of knowing the world and being engaged in it. So I think that's how we should be approaching it.

ffi
What
eTperigqgg

RM: Let's look to the future. How sustainable do you think the current rnodel used by higher education is today?

/
at y'ou

I-S: Change is inevitable and so institutions have to adapt to it. Iior example, we're much more concerned about financial aid than we
were previously: Consider the Pell Grant. It's the largest form

realized was that yau a.re what you lenoes. Your

of

mo"iry thro"gh

understand. Knowledse makes it so much richer.

federal support for college students and it hasn't kept pace r,vith the rising cost of college, This is making education much less accessible to many people. trVe also have to look at the lvay in which r,ve require people to apply for financial aid. They have to filI out a form called the FAFSA, and it turns out that the FAFSA form is more complicated than the IRS's 1040 tax form. Univ'ersities are going to have to transform, just like every other segillent of our society. That's the nature of it. Is it sustainable?
,{.bsolutely. T}rere are some difficult questions we're going to have to answer but

JC, Your examples are fascinating in patr, because I grew up in

Colombo, but beyond that, what you're pointing out with your father and the geographer is how knowledge provides connections

bridging of cultures, abilities to understand others in good times

and bad, in peace and in war.

connections between people, connections between societies,

I'm relatively confldent that there are

answers.

RM: We've been thinking in terms of the benefits to individuals, but what about the benefits to soci ety at large? What are they? Do we have a"way of meas*i*g thern?

lf you look at the job market today, fifu percent of the jabs
"

did not exist twenty years ago.

IS. There
are social renrrns and some are measurable. Economists have estirnated the

It's impossible to prepare for

those Wpes af jobs by going and getting a trade. What you need to do is fo learn how to
F

return to sociefy that goes beyond the private return to the individual is between 2 percent and
5 percent. Here are some

of the ways that plays

out. Education lowers unemplo)lnent rates. The unemplo)irnent rate of college graduates is about a quarter of that of high school graduates. When
the percentage a tow:n goes up, the wages

think logically, act creatively,

and live ethically
those things that

of college-educated people within of non-college educated

people also goes up. College graduates are less likely to be smokers, less likely to be overweight, and more likely to exercise, so their healthcare
costs are

all of a liberal

J*\

b-

arts education helps

lower

you to do."

College graduates are also more likely to vote

and volunteer. ThomasJefferson said, "When people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government." The value of better citizenship is not
easily quantifiable, but

so

JCt There is the

taxpayer

I believe it is clearly there.

JC, Think about this

-- higher education helps us have more

of
these people may be

people who speak foreign languages. Some

issue of the role of the state 4n otherwords, the in the funding of education. Each and everv individual taxpayer ultimately does benefit overall from the university system, so what contribution should they be making to sustain the system? Should the government be pulling away funding if education

able to negotiate an agreement that will increase trade or prevent a war. The trade may be quantifiable, but horv much rvill he saved by avoiding the cost of war? In March, I was asked to justifiT the humanities before Congress. I was asked what relevance the humanities had in foreign

underlies the economic growth that states rely on?

An hour
and, a

half is not enough time to cover this topic. The discussion

continues online; Iog on to http;//collegeworth.blogspot,com and tell us what you think.

the curpntsta.te
prdEEing

SPOTLIGHT

Nchard Miller: I thought we'd begin by ,, ^ Ipg.of education gives you specific human capital. It raises your asking the question, "Why are we having flFnii$a*ti.,ity in a particular setting When times are uncenain "' olwhen there is a significant amount of change, it's the general this conversation now?" Whatjs-it atout---.-

of,affairs-fury{S

Qcialljbpotdci{y4

today?

that rnakes this issue

so

human capita.l that allowsyou to respond to economic changes. That's one of the reasons why I have such a strong belief in the \'alue of a liberal ans education. If vou look at the job market today, fifty percent of the jobs did not erist twentv vears ago. It's impossible to prepare fbr those types of jobs bv going and getting a trade. Whatyou need to do is tn learn horv to think logic_allv comryunicgre clearh act creative} and

Iar'ry SingelL' I would begin with the obvious. In 19+A, about 5 percent of the population got a
college degree and

in 2006, it was approximately

28 percent, so a big part of it is the fact that there

\{'U ltr;
g,t

are more people going to college. Also, the cost has

y@t's

Uffif

those,h,"$that
an essentiai part of gene

been rising betrveen 7 percent to

I percent since the 1930s while the

RM: Let's break open this idea of worth and focus first on finances. Farnilies lrray spend around $2001000 over four yezrrs. Students rnay walh away with $251000 in debt. What can we say about the value of a college degree in finanoral terms?
LS. College graduates now earn on average berween $ I million and $ I .5 million more than high school graduates over the course of their careers. So

state is reducing the support that it provides for a ccllege education,

so the cost of college has increased in a relatively precipitous way, much hghql I!AI] the rate of inflation and other goods.

"Both trade schyl and

a broad-based education

will serue you well and

il

keep you comfortable

if you do the calculations just on purely

of education
is

economic

grounds, it's unambiguous. The cost

not only worth

in good times, but wide knowledge functions as

it, it's actually abargarn.

'Win
i :

badtimes."

JC,I
debt, years.

agree completely. W'hen we talk about $25,000 in student it strikes me that the cost cf an average new car in the US is

roughly about $30,000. You're going to use )CIur car far only a few A college education lasts a lifctime. Of course, when you buy a new car, you drive it off the lot. There's immediate satisfaction. l{hen students graduate and have their degrees in hand, th.y

e
Jurnsheed Choksy.'Even though the modern college system dates back to the Middle Ages, n'e have the emphasis on education
and on higher education all of the way back to the dawn of civilization. The same islues seem e e other social stress. \'!hen times are e_qgglqtq downtqtns

naturally antrcipaie an immediatepayback. trthat takes time to sink in is that it's a very gradual payhack over a lifetime. College o{fers a
different satisfaction.

to

RM: Let's look at worth nortr in non-econornic terms. What does a college degree bring besides econornic benefits?

edge. Should it be changing people questio, practical, as in trade schools and guilds, or should it be broad-based

L& Let me tell yCIu a story from my childhood. My father

was an

education? ++,\

That tuliiH we
whether the trirriunl

see

in ietters from the Middle Ages about

grammar, rhetoric, and logic as the basis of

academic and I joined him for a program called "Sernestr,r at Sea," One day rve tr\:ere safing from Colombo, Sri Lanka, to India and all of the professors spoke about their experiences in Colombo. I learned something prolound that day that led me to go into higher education. The first person to speak was my fmher. He was an urban economist. so he spoke about how the height and affangement of the buildings could provide indications of the income distribution, the culrural prohibitions, and the role of public transportation. Once he mentioned these things, I thought, "Oh. I see what you're talking about. I understand that in away I didn't get it before." There was a geographer who noted how green and lush it was near the coast, but that as you drive north o!'er a mountain range, it ltecame drier. From that he was able to tell what directions the storms came from and what the rainfall meant about the economy. had taken that same drive, but I had not even reallv noticed that.

educatio
tr&'e see

is best or whether one should go and work in a guild.

this among the Sumerians and even later iq the Persian empire. They seern to reach averyinterestingqonq@[: that both

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as

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hqq*-ledge funciions

"armor" in bad ti*.r, \rrA"sg ygu rur, chan.qing situationi. Thif@@tr iJ

you spectillze In a partlcular cralt.
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I.S; An economist will tell you a liberal arts education gives you general hurnan capital, It's the type of capital that raises your productivity in a vanety of different settings, whereas a trade