Economist Clive Belfield, testifying as an expert witness for the petitioners in the school funding trial on Wednesday and Thursday, said there is a large body of research demonstrating the economic and social benefits of educational attainment.
“The research shows a robust, large, significant positive relationship between education and adult outcomes – lifetime outcomes,” Belfield said.
Belfield, an economics professor at Queens College, contributed to that body of research by writing two expert reports for this case: one focused on the economic impact of high school graduation and the other on post-secondary attainment.
His research points to billions of dollars in potential economic benefits to Pennsylvania that could result from investments addressing the disparities in educational attainment that affect economically disadvantaged students.
Belfield’s testimony built upon census data showing that the lifetime earnings for both men and women increase dramatically with educational attainment. For example, lifetime earnings for a male high school graduate average $866,000 but grow to more than $2 million for those with a B.A. degree or more.
This more than doubling in individuals’ earnings also translates into what Belfield called “fiscal benefits” via growth in federal, state, and local tax revenues.
Belfield said these increases in earnings and associated tax revenue are not the only fruits of increased educational attainment. He identified a number of additional areas of economic and social impact that accompany increased educational attainment.
For example, he said, “there is a sizable, robust relationship between education and improved health status over the life course.” Other effects include a reduction in crime and associated costs, a reduction in welfare expenditures, and productivity growth.
Building an economic model that incorporates and analyzes all these effects for Pennsylvania, Belfield found that when you combine these social benefits with the earnings and tax increases resulting from more education, the effects of increasing educational attainment become quite large. He calculated that the net social benefit from an individual earning a bachelor’s degree, rather than just a high school diploma, is more than $770,000.
Belfield described his figures as “not precise cash numbers” but “a prediction of the likely resource consequences of that investment” in additional education.
Belfield also noted that for economically disadvantaged students vs. non-economically-disadvantaged students, there is a large gap in college enrollment rates (47% vs 69%) and in degree completion (22% vs 47%).
This prompted him to calculate what the benefit would be if the attainment gap for economically disadvantaged students could be closed. Taking just one cohort of Pennsylvania students (for example the graduating class of 2022), if the economically disadvantaged students could be boosted to the same level of success as non-economically-disadvantaged students in that cohort, he said the total social benefit would be $18.56 billion.
Belfield explained: “So the 22% degree completion rate and the 47% college enrollment rate [for economically disadvantaged students], those are low levels…. What these dollar amounts mean is that Pennsylvania is essentially foregoing these resources. It's essentially not investing in high-yield investments for the Pennsylvania commonwealth.”
Belfield calls the state’s failure to invest in increased educational attainment for economically disadvantaged students “inefficient.”
“Pennsylvania is looking at a series of high-yield investments and is not making those investments. That, by economic definition, is inefficient,” he said.
Questioned by Patrick Northen, the attorney for House Speaker Bryan Cutler, about the feasibility of achieving complete parity in educational attainment for economically disadvantaged students, Belfield said, “This is not a policy prescription. This is an illustration of the economic magnitudes that we're essentially foregoing. If we could get half of that back, that would be $9 billion, for example. That in itself would be a good thing.”
Belfield also responded to questioning about whether increased education spending was the most effective use of state funds. “There are lots of public investments that could be made,” he said. “The advantage of education is that health interventions only primarily affect health, and criminal justice interventions only affect criminal behavior, whereas educational interventions affect the labor market, health, and the criminal justice system. So you're getting kind of a three-for-one.”
Following Belfield on the stand Thursday afternoon was Dr. Rucker Johnson, who is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and a prominent education scholar on the role of sufficient funding in quality public education. Johnson’s testimony focused on the relationship between funding and academic performance, including disparities related to race and poverty. He is expected to complete his testimony Friday, and we will report on highlights.