By: Edona Hadzovic ’19, Olivia Moshier ’18, Jessica Baldasaro ’20, and Erin Grace Carey ’20

Guest Writers

Educational attainment has long been associated with a more enriching and fulfilling life. However, it is commonly thought that college is not worth four years of stress and debt. The cost of a higher education continues to climb and commands a hefty price tag.

Many families and prospective students must weigh the costs and benefits of pursuing further education. Time after time, higher education pays for itself with not just a greater income, but also with better health, longer life expectancy, and a happier life. Taking these factors into consideration, college is always worth the investment.

However, despite the increasing value of college education, the rise in its cost is difficult to ignore. From 1987 to 1996, average college tuition nearly doubled, increasing from $6,665 to $13,250. Today, the cost of attending college is, on average, around $12,500 to $20,000 per year. However, the cost of attending St. Lawrence University is roughly $66,000. Next year, tuition will increase to $68,980 per year.

With increasing costs, many have begun to wonder if college is a wise investment. Seventy-five percent of Americans believe that because of the price tag, college is not worth their time. However, many college graduates continually maintain that this is not the case.

In one Current Population Survey, 2,002 adults reported their income and attitudes regarding whether or not college was beneficial. 90 percent of individuals who had a bachelor’s degree felt as if their degree had benefited them or that it would benefit them in the near future.

In comparison to high school graduates, college graduates that attended a four-year program make around 60 percent more money, while graduates with advanced degrees, such as masters, doctoral, or professional, can make two to three times more. Lifetime earnings of people who had some college, but no degree was 18 percent higher than those with a high school diploma alone. Other studies have found that an individual with an associate degree makes about 20 percent more than a high school graduate.

The benefits of a college education extend from income to health benefits. Numerous studies have supported the relationship between educational attainment and a healthier life due to less disease occurrences.

On average, higher levels of education improve people’s access to better jobs, which are associated with both extrinsic and intrinsic rewards. These rewards have been shown to increase psychological and health outcomes. Unemployment may limit access to quality healthcare, expose workers to poor working conditions, and prevent individuals from purchasing disease-fighting food.

Higher education also typically provides individuals with the ability to acquire more and better information regarding healthy lifestyles and access to healthcare. They use preventative medical care and exercise more, both of which help prevent a variety of chronic and acute disease including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and Alzheimer’s disease.

In addition, general cognitive abilities acquired from education give individuals feelings of control and facilitate the acquisition of positive social, psychological, problem-solving, and economic skills, which optimizes one’s ability to make better health related choices. These individuals, therefore, tend to perform fewer risky behaviors that lead to acute and chronic disease and generally poor health.

For example, lower educational attainment has a strong correlation with higher smoking rates. The prevalence of GED smokers is a striking 41.9 percent compared to a much lower 9.1 percent of college graduate smokers. Other risky behaviors include binge drinking and not wearing a seatbelt.

One’s health not only impacts how they feel short term, but also directly corresponds with their longevity. In 2000, Duke and Macmillan found low education to be the cause of about 245,000 deaths in the United States. Due to this finding, public policies now include “education policy as an important element of health policy.”

Between 1990 and 2010, the life expectancy gap between low and high education levels doubled for men and tripled for women. Those with less than 12 years of education experienced a drop of 3.1 years for women and 0.6 years for men.  For example, women with less than 13 years of education are five times more likely to die from heart problems and 10 times more likely to die from pneumonia than women with more education. Educated men and women are expected to live almost 12 and nine more years, respectively, than their counterparts with less formal education.

College changes not just physical health, but also mental health. Starting in their early to mid-30s, people that are more educated are proven to be happier than those who have less formal education.

The results show that people in their 40s who have acquired an education level higher than high school are happier compared to people in a similar socio-economic class with a high school level education or lower. Additional evidence can be seen in a sample of 25 to 45-year-olds from the General Social Surveys between the years of 1972 and 2000, which show that as education levels increase, happiness increases.

The results revealed that 89 percent of those who graduate high school with no college education label themselves as happy. The proportion increased to 90 percent for individuals who have had at least some college education. People who obtain a bachelor’s degree or higher are shown to have a greater proportion of 94 percent.

A possible explanation of these findings are the diverse job opportunities that comes with a college degree. One hypothesis could be that, on average, highly educated people may have more interesting jobs and more active cultural lives. Educational attainment helps people get more diverse types of jobs and obtain promotions.

In addition, obtaining an education allows people to have greater independence and can reduce constant routines. Castriota also finds that participation is greater when making decisions when one has a higher level of formal education, and those people are more likely to feel that they have a say in certain situations.

A shocking finding pertaining to psychological health reveals that in men and women 25 years and older, those with just a high school degree had higher suicide rates compared to those with a college degree or higher. Looking deeper into the long-term effects, it has been shown that middle class women aged 35-54 with a college degree had better protections against suicide.

The claims against pursuing higher education continue to fall short. Despite the price of attending college, the benefits prove to outweigh the costs. The evidence continues to grow regarding the increasing gap of income, health, longevity and even happiness, between those with and those without an education. A college education pays for itself.

(If you would like to see the sources for the information contained above, contact hillnews@gmail.com for a bibliography)