Beyond the financial benefits of a degree
- Summary
- Introduction
- Graduate job quality
- The health benefits of a degree
- Intergenerational effects
- Citizenship
- Positive attitudes
- Spillover to the wider economy
- Anything else?
- References
- Footnotes
Summary
Mark Wilberforce from the Department of Education and Skills gives a lowdown on the non-monetary benefits of a degree. Research suggests that:
- Graduates enjoy higher quality jobs than non-graduates.
- Graduates enjoy better health outcomes, by being less likely to smoke, more likely to exercise, and less prone to depression.
- Graduates’ children also benefit from the educational success of their parents: graduates tend to have a greater involvement with their child’s education.
- Graduates are more influential in the community, by being active citizens who are more likely to vote and participate in voluntary activities.
- Graduates show positive attitudes towards diversity and equal opportunities, such as on race and gender equality issues.
- Graduates, with their higher levels of skill, are a source of wider innovation and economic growth.
Introduction
Much has been said about the extra earnings power that graduates enjoy, and the ‘graduate premium’ is a well-researched field. But of course, getting a degree is not only about money – graduates, and society alike, benefit in a far wider and more profound sense from a high-skill workforce.
This article draws on a wide range of analysis, but the Department for Education and Skills (DfES)-funded Centre for Research on the Wider Benefits of Learning is the driving force behind much of this work.
Graduate job quality
It is well known that graduates earn more from their jobs than non-graduates, and they have a lower risk of unemployment. But job quality goes further than this: graduates are more likely to be in high-level positions using their university-acquired skills, and also have greater promotion prospects [1].
Graduates also receive more training than non-graduates. Figure1, from the Labour Force Survey (LFS), shows that 40-45% of graduates and post-graduates received job-related training in the previous 13 weeks, compared with just 25% of those holding GCSEs as their highest qualification.
The LFS also shows that workers with higher education qualifications have greater flexibility in their work. For example, graduates are twice as likely to work at home in their main job as those with level 3 qualifications (i.e. two or more A-levels or equivalent).
The health benefits of a degree
Graduates live healthier lifestyles than non-graduates. For a start, non-graduates educated to level 2 (ie five or more GCSEs at A*-C or equivalent) or below are 75% more likely to be a smoker at age 30, compared to a similar individual educated to degree level or higher [2]. Graduates are also more likely to exercise than non-graduates, and are less likely to be obese (with an average graduate having a 3% lower Body Mass Index compared with a similar individual educated to level 2 or below) [3].
Consequently, graduates enjoy better health outcomes (see Figure 2) [A]. Those educated to degree level or higher are between 70-80% more likely to report ‘excellent’ health, compared with a similar individual educated to level 2 or below, and those with level 4 sub-degree qualifications are around 40% more likely to report excellent health.
In addition, graduates are between 35% (women) and 55% (men) less likely to suffer from depression, compared with a similar individual educated to level 2 or below. Those educated to level 4 sub-degree are 40% less likely to suffer from depression. But compared with similar people with level 3 qualifications the effect is far smaller.
Intergenerational effects
The benefits of achieving a higher education qualification is not just enjoyed by the graduate, but there are knock-on effects to their children. Figure 3 displays raw data from the Youth Cohort Survey [4]. The first three measures show that graduate families (defined as families where at least one parent is educated to degree level) are more engaged with their child’s education – they are more involved with school work, more often read to the child at night when they were younger, and more regularly attend parents evenings. The last two measures show that their child is also subsequently more successful at school. They are more likely to have good attendance at school and are far more likely to do well at GCSE.
This evidence is also supported by more formal statistical analyses of other datasets [5]. It has been found, for example, that graduates are half as likely to see educational difficulties in their own children, compared with parents educated to below A-level, and also tend to own more children’s books.
Citizenship
Figure 4 shows that graduates are more likely to engage actively in their communities. Male (female) graduates are over 3.5 (2.5) times more likely to be a member of a voluntary organisation than someone educated to level 2 or below.
The chart also shows the association between having a degree and voting. Graduates are over 50% more likely to vote than those educated to, at most, level 2 (though only around 20% more likely compared with A-level holders). Related to voting behaviour, there is also evidence showing that graduates (relative to both A-level and below A-level holders) are significantly more likely to demonstrate a critical awareness of political issues. But note that the benefits of all these measures are less marked for those educated to level 4 sub-degree.
Positive attitudes
Degree holders are significantly more likely to have a positive attitude towards diversity and equal opportunities. Graduates are between 30% and 40% more likely to hold positive attitudes to race and gender equality, compared with a similar individual educated to level 2 or below [B]. There is also found a positive effect for those educated to level 4 sub-degree, but, again, the association is weaker.
Spillover to the wider economy
Employers benefit from graduates through a more productive and healthy workforce, but also there is some evidence that highly-skilled workers more quickly adapt to new tasks and technologies, and are themselves a direct source of innovation [6]. Further, there is compelling evidence to show how education investment results in higher economic growth rates for the economy as a whole, and one report attributed tertiary education as being the most important in OECD countries [7].
Anything else?
Using evidence linking income levels and criminal activity, it has been suggested that there are savings to be made through reduced property and vehicle thefts - though much of this research focuses on improving income levels at the lower end of the wage distribution [8].
In summary, whilst graduates still continue to earn significantly more than non-graduates, it is very easy to forget the wider benefits. But whilst this article summarises what we know about these effects, many of the more potent benefits of higher education may be intangible, or more subtle, than those shown here.
References
1. Higher Education, Skills and Employment: careers and jobs in the graduate labour market, K Purcell et al, Employment Studies Research Unit (ESRU)/Institute for Employment Research (IER), 2004.
2. Revisiting the Benefits of HE, J Bynner et al, Bedford Group for Lifecourse and Statistical Studies, The Institute of Education (IoE), 2003; p23. This uses the Birth Cohort Study - which follows a cohort of individuals born in 1970. Note that where the analysis compares ‘similar individuals’, formal regression techniques have been used to strip-out characteristics of graduates and non-graduates which might otherwise bias the results.
3. ibid p25
4. Internal analysis of Cohort 10, Sweep 1.
5. The Wider Benefits of HE, J Bynner & M Egerton, report by IoE for the Higher Education Funding Council in England (HEFCE) and the Smith Institute, 2001. HEFCE report 01/46.– see p47.
6. Human Capital Investment, R Blundell et al, Fiscal Studies, vol. 20(1), p.14, 1999, Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).
7. The Returns to Education: macroeconomics, B Sianesi et al, Journal of Economic Surveys, Vol 17, No. 2, 2003.
8. Quantitative Estimates of the Social Benefits of Learning, 1: Crime, L Feinstein, Wider Benefits of Learning Research Centre, 2002.
Footnotes
[A] Figures 2 and 4 show the odds of people with different qualification level having a particular characteristic of outcome, relative to a similar individual educated to level 2 or below. So if graduates have a value of 2, then they are twice as likely to have the characteristic or outcome, compared to a similar person educated to level 2.
[B] This is measured by examining survey responses to a series of questions, such as 'are mixed race marriages alright?', and 'should there be more women in important jobs?'
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