BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

New Evidence For The Broad Benefits Of Higher Education

Following
This article is more than 4 years old.

Getty

Americans with a college education report they are happier, healthier and enjoying a higher quality of life than respondents with a high school education or less. That’s one of the main takeaways from the recently released results of the 2018 General Social Survey (GSS).

Begun by NORC at the University of Chicago in 1972, the GSS is now conducted biennially, based on lengthy personal interviews with a nationally representative sample of thousands of adults. The GSS is highly regarded and heavily used by social scientists as a measure of what Americans think about a host of contemporary economic, social and personal issues such as quality of life, race relations, the environment, gender, marriage, politics and civil liberties.

Because the results can be stratified by personal characteristics of the respondents, it’s possible to examine how age, race, social class, education and respondents’ beliefs about themselves and their families relate to their views on various social and economic topics.

Included in the hundreds of questions are several that tap individuals’ feelings about their personal lives and well-being, with responses broken out by highest level of education completed (less than high school; high school; and college, which included a two-year degree or higher).

Here are selected highlights from the most recent GSS:

Taken all together, how would you say things are these days? The percentages answering very happy:

College: 36.4%                                                                                                                                                                                                                       High School: 27.1%

Less Than High School: 29.9%

In general, do you find life exciting, pretty routine, or dull? Answering exciting:

College: 58.0%                                                                                                                                                                                                                         High School: 45.7%                                                                                                                                                                                                                Less Than High School: 42.6%

Do you feel that the income from your job alone is enough to meet your family’s usual monthly expenses and bills? Answering yes:

College: 55.6%                                                                                                                                                                                                                        High School: 43.3%                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Less Than High School: 45.6%

So far as you and your family are concerned, would you say you are pretty well satisfied with your present financial situation, more or less satisfied or not at all satisfied. Answering pretty well satisfied:

College: 39.0%                                                                                                                                                                                                                        High School: 28.8%                                                                                                                                                                                                                Less Than High School: 22.9%

On the whole, how satisfied are you with the work you do? Answering very satisfied:

College: 53.1%                                                                                                                                                                                                                        High School: 46.6%                                                                                                                                                                                                                Less Than High School: 42.1%

Would you say in general your health is excellent, very good, good fair, or poor? Answering excellent or very good:

College: 64.9%                                                                                                                                                                                                                            High School: 47.9%                                                                                                                                                                                                                Less Than High School: 34.1%

Thinking about your physical health, which includes physical illness and injury, for how many days during the past 30 days, was your physical health not good? Answering ten days or more:

College: 5.5%                                                                                                                                                                                                                           High School: 11.7%

Less than High School: 11.0%

Thinking about your mental health, which includes stress, depression, and problems with emotions, for how many days during the past 30 days was your mental health not good? Answering ten days or more:

College: 12.5%                                                                                                                                                                                                                         High School: 15.7%                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Less Than High School: 11.3%

In terms of civic participation, 80.7% of college graduates reported voting in the last presidential election compared to 56.5% of high school graduates and only 34.7% of individuals with less than a college education.

Compared to those with less than a college education, college graduates reported more confidence in the leadership of science, medicine, major business, the press and the Supreme Court. Only small differences emerged for expressed confidence in the military, organized religion, financial institutions, and the executive branch. College graduates expressed less confidence in organized labor, Congress, and -- surprisingly -- education (individuals not completing high school education were almost two times more confident in educational leaders than those with a college degree).

The survey cannot answer what specifically accounts for the education-mediated differences. They could reflect the additional knowledge and skills that are developed with greater education. They are consistent with the recent finding that a college degree conveys a 75% wage premium -- or about $33,000 per year -- compared to a high-school diploma. They might be associated with the fact that among adults in the labor force those with a high school education or less are twice as likely to be unemployed or underemployed as those with a B.A. or more. They could be due to the personal attributes and family advantages that enable successful completion of more education. They may signal cumulative preferences and privileges typically granted to the more highly educated. Most likely, they reflect the combined effects of these and other influences.

What is clear is the overall greater sense of well-being, self-efficacy and financial well-being reported by those with college degrees. It remains fashionable among some pundits to question the value of a college education, especially during this period where higher education has been rocked by scandals. But the data also remain undeniably true - college conveys broad benefits, highly desired by most Americans.