Economic Impacts of Education Reforms

Quality education in many countries would require some education reform. The education reforms could bring significant economic impacts to the effected country. There could be many new developments that could be a direct product from education reforms. With an increase in knowledge among societies new innovation will be prevalent and certainly have economic impacts on the society. Researchers have done studies and released some of their estimates on the type of economic change. The studies focused just on the United States, but the type of impact could be expected globally if applied globally.

According to Eric Lerum in his article “The Economic Impact of Education Reform Could Be Huge”, he states,” Their estimates are staggering — at the national level, the low end of the range equates to an increase of $32 trillion to the U.S. economy in 2095 by simply bringing the lowest-performing students in each state up to the “Basic” level on NAEP.”(Lerum). Even though this is only applied to the United States, it could be expected that in developing nations that the relative economic impact could be of that same scale or even larger. These numbers are extremely large and the type of societal growth that can come from this is immense as well. The immediate costs of reforming education systems could be large and scare away prospects from the idea. The long-run payoff would exceed the up-front costs making the idea very appealing to some. This isn’t even factoring higher levels of education that people, especially in the United States, spend thousands of dollars on a year. If these systems are reformed and made in a way that taught people at the most cost-efficient manner the economic impacts of that would change the economy of the United States. People in todays United States already question if spending the type of money on higher education is even worth it. Victoria Sardelli writes in her Medium publication title Higher Education: Is it worth the cost? , “In 2014, 69% of students graduating from public nonprofit universities had acquired debt, averaging $28,950 per person. To add insult to injury, only 14% of college graduates from the class of 2015 had full-time jobs lined up after graduation.” (Sardelli). These numbers are alarming because this kind of debt bootstraps some people which ultimately have an impact on the economy, they are a part of. The economic effects of education reform are extremely important when considering the importance of quality education reforms.

Citation

Lerum, E. (2015, December 23). The economic impact of education reform could be huge. Retrieved March 11, 2021, from https://educationpost.org/the-economic-impact-of-education-reform-could-be-huge/

Sardelli, V. (2018, September 07). Higher education: Is it worth the cost? Retrieved March 11, 2021, from https://medium.com/@victoria.sardelli/higher-education-is-it-worth-the-cost-bca995912cb8

Travel & lifestyle stock photos: African child in a rustic school. (n.d.). Retrieved March 22, 2021, from http://randyplett.com/travel-photos/african-children-school.html