Social Benefits Of Higher Education example essay topic

What Education Means to Me by Nicole Garzaniti, Staff Writer Education... How can you explain education in just mere words? Education is anything and everything. It is singularly the most important thing we can do for ourselves. As we near the 21st century, life continues to grow more advanced and complex. The only thing that separates us from complete insanity and utter poverty is the fact that because we can read and because we can write, we can handle and persevere in our jobs, our families, and in our everyday lives.

As a fourteen-year-old, I have yet to fully experience these responsibilities and obligations, but because I do live in a competitive world, and because I am constantly fighting to be the best and the brightest, I must go above and beyond all barriers and expectations if I want to achieve my goals. No sports scholarship or funding will get me into Harvard or a successful law firm. If I want to reach these goals, it is all up to me. When I do achieve my goals, it will be because of the opportunity and determination that a good education has provided me.

To plan and achieve your goals in life is the best lesson you can learn and the most rewarding gift to yourself. Achieving life-long goals is the most gratifying and utterly satisfying thing any one person can accomplish. Quotes on Education The educational process has been the subject of much comment by academics and writers. Their observations range from praise to cynicism, mostly the latter. Education is an easy target for criticism because its stated aims are often so nobly ambitious that they have little chance of being realized. It should give us pause that so many people who have made their mark in the world of ideas, who have been acknowledged leaders and innovators, have held formal education and educational institutions in low regard.

We have collected here a variety of thought-provoking observations on education. First, some definitions of education. Education is... One of the few things a person is willing to pay for and not get.

William Lowe Bryan Hanging around until you " ve caught on. Robert Frost One of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought. Bertrand A. Russell (1872-1970) English philosopher, mathematician, and writer. Man's going forward from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty. Kenneth G. Johnson A form of self-delusion. Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) American author, editor and printer.

[A process] which makes one rogue cleverer than another. Oscar Wilde (1856-1900) British poet and dramatist. The inculcation of the incomprehensible into the ignorant by the incompetent. Josiah Stamp [Education] consists mainly in what we have unlearned.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer. Education is what remains when we have forgotten all that we have been taught. George Savile, Marquis of Halifax (1633-1695) English statesman and author. Education is a progressive discovery of our ignorance. Will Durant (1885-1981) U.S. author and historian. A succession of eye-openers each involving the repudiation of some previously held belief.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British dramatist, critic, writer. Education is a state-controlled manufactory of echoes. Norman Douglas Education is the process of casting false pearls before real swine. Prof. Irwin Edman ABOUT EDUCATION From clever definitions we move on to comments about education. The whole object of education is... to develop the mind. The mind should be a thing that works.

Sherwood Anderson Education seems to be in America the only commodity of which the customer tries to get as little he can for his money. Max Forman The chief wonder of education is that it does not ruin everybody concerned in it, teachers and taught. Henry Brooks Adams (1828-1918) U.S. historian and writer. The Education of Henry Adams.

Public schools are the nurseries of all vice and immorality. Henry Fielding (1707-1754) English novelist, dramatist It has been said that we have not had the three R's in America, we had the six R's; remedial read in', remedial 'rit in' and remedial '. Robert M. Hutchins Part of the American myth is that people who are handed the skin of a dead sheep at graduating time think that it will keep their minds alive forever. John mason Brown Education... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading. G.M. Trevelyan (1876-1962) British historian We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82) U.S. essayist and poet. A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education he may steal the whole railroad. Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American president But, good gracious, you " ve got to educate him first. You can't expect a boy to be vicious till he's been to a good school. Saki (H.H. Munro) (1870-1916) Scottish author Education does not mean teaching people to know what they do not know; it means teaching them to behave as they do not behave. John Ruskin (1819-1900) English critic They say that we are better educated than our parents' generation.

What they mean is that we go to school longer. They are not the same thing. Douglas Yates Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English philosopher, mathematician and writer. You don't have to think too hard when you talk to teachers.

Jerome David Salinger (1919-) U.S. novelist and short-story writer. The average schoolmaster is and always must be essentially an ass, for how can one imagine an intelligent man engaging in so puerile an avocation. H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American editor, critic and writer. Everyone who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) British poet and dramatist.

The Decay of Lying. He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches. Maxims for Revolutionists. The average Ph. D. Thesis is nothing but a transference of bones from one graveyard to another. J. Frank Dobie You can lade a man up to th' university, but ye can't make him think. Finley Peter Dunne There is less flogging in our great schools than formerly-but then less is learned there; so what the boys get at one end they lose at the other.

Samuel Johnson (1709-84) English lexicographer and writer. It is little short of a miracle that modern methods of instruction have not already completely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry... I believe that one could even deprive a healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness if one could force it with a whip to eat continuously whether it were hungry or not... Albert Einstein (1879-1955) U.S. physicist I am not a teacher; only a fellow traveler of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead-ahead of myself as well as of you. The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without a teacher.

Teachers are people who start things they never see finished, and for which then never get thanks until it is too late. Max Forman Some men are graduated from college cum l aude, some are graduated summa cum l aude, and some are graduated mira bile dictu. William Howard Taft (1857-1930) 27th U.S. President (1909- 13) Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing-the rest is mere sheep-herding. Ezra Loomis Pound (1885-1972) U.S. poet. I'm sure the reason such young nitwits are produced in our schools is because they have no contact with anything of any use in everyday life. Petronius (d. circa 66 CE) The Satyricon.

True education makes for inequality; the inequality of individuality, the inequality of success, the glorious inequality of talent, of genius. Felix E. Schelling (1858-1945) American educator The principal goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done. Jean Piaget (1896-1980) Swiss cognitive psychologist. No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete. G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) British author The modern child, when asked what he learned today, replies, 'Nothing, but I gained some meaningful insights. ' Bill Vaughan Consider... the university professor.

What is his function? Simply to pass on to fresh generations of numskulls a body of so-called knowledge that is fragmentary, unimportant, and, in large part, untrue. His whole professional activity is circumscribed by the prejudices, vanities and avarice's of his university trustees, i. e., a committee of soap-boilers, nail manufacturers, bank-directors and politicians. The moment he offends these vermin he is undone. He cannot so much as think aloud without running a risk of having them fan his pantaloons. H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American editor, critic and writer. The only real education comes from what goes counter to you.

Andre Gide (1869-1951) French writer. I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education. Wilson Miner (1876-1933) American dramatist. Colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed. Robert G. Ingersoll, Abraham Lincoln. The things taught in colleges and schools are not an education, but the means of education.

The result of the educative process is capacity for further education. John Dewey (1859-1952) U.S. philosopher and educator. Courses in education given at... teachers' colleges have traditionally been used as a substitute for genuine scholarship. In my opinion, much of the so-called science of 'education' was invented as a necessary mechanism for enabling semi educated people to act as tolerable teachers.

Sloan Wilson (1920) U.S. journalist and novelist. Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. Walter Bagehot (1826-77) English economist, political journalist, and critic. Physics and Politics, 1879. Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly. Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-95) English biologist and writer.

Plastic ene and self-expression will not solve the problems of education. Nor will technology and vocational guidance; nor the classics and the Hundred Best Books. Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) English novelist, essayist, critic. He was so learned that he could name a horse in nine languages; so ignorant that he bought a cow to ride on.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, author, scientist, inventor and philosopher. A college degree does not lessen the length of your ears; it only conceals it. The only thing experience teaches us is that experience teaches us nothing. Andr'e Maurois (1885-1967) French biographer and writer. I'm still waiting for some college to come up with a march protesting student ignorance. Paul Larger (Chicago Tribune) A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry.

Hence University education. I am inclined to think that one's education has been in vain if one fails to learn that most schoolmasters are idiots. Hesketh Pearson (1887-1964) British biographer. The vanity of teaching doth oft tempt a man to forget that he is a blockhead. George Saville, Marquis of Halifax (1633-1695) English statesman and essayist. In the first place God made idiots.

This was for practice. Then he made school boards. Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run. I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. In England... education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and would probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. The Critic as Artist. You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) Italian physicist and astronomer. Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts. There is nothing so stupid as an educated man, if you get off the thing that he was educated in.

Will Rogers (1879-1935) U.S. actor and humorist. Education is that which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding. Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) U.S. journalist and writer. Learning makes the wise wiser and the fool more foolish. John Ray (1627?

-1705) English naturalist. A wise man is one who finally realizes that there are some questions one can ask which may have no answers. Anon He is to be educated because he is a man, and not because he is to make shoes, nails, and pins. William Ellery Channing (1780-1842) U.S. Unitarian clergyman and writer.

Education is too important to be left solely to educators. Francis Keppel Only the curious will learn and only the resolute will overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient. E.S. Wilson Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence. Robert Frost Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer. C.C. Colton, Lac on: Reflections, No. 322.

One must search diligently to find laudatory comments on education (other than those pious platitudes which are the meat of commencement speeches). It appears that most persons who have achieved fame and success in the world of ideas are cynical about formal education. These people are a select few, who often achieved success in spite of their education, or even without it. As has been said, the clever largely educate themselves, those less able aren't sufficiently clever or imaginative to benefit much from education. English historian Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) put it this way: 'The power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous. ' But those tempted to take the route of self-education should heed the warning of the old maxim: 'He who would educate himself should be a born educator.

' Benjamin Franklin, who largely educated himself, cautions: 'He that teaches himself hath a fool for his master. ' For those of us neither geniuses nor hopeless fools, formal education may be a useful thing-if approached in the right spirit, with an eager and open mind and a rationally skeptical attitude. This brief quote collection can be appropriately closed with some positive comments: Education: Being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't. It's knowing where to go to find out what you need to know; and it's knowing how to use the information once you get it. William Feather An educated man is one who can entertain a new idea, entertain another person and entertain himself. Sydney Wood Learning makes a man fit company for himself.

Anon The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one's mind a pleasant place in which to spend one's time. Sydney J. Harris (1917-1986) American journalist. The great aim of education is not knowledge, but action. Herbert Spencer Your Education is worth what You are worth. Anon When asked how much educated men were superior to those uneducated, Aristotle answered, 'As much as the living are to the dead. ' Diogenes Laertius (fl.

2nd century). Science Education There is a great danger in the present day lest science- teaching should degenerate into the accumulation of disconnected facts and unexplained formulae, which burden the memory without cultivating the understanding. J.D. Everett [In the preface to his 1873 English translation of Elementary Treatise on Natural Philosophy by A Privat Des chanel. (D. Appleton and Co.) ] This is the html version of the file web o o g l e automatically generates html versions of documents as we crawl the web. Google is not affiliated with the authors of this page nor responsible for its content. These search terms have been highlighted: advantage higher education personal THE SOCIAL BENEFITS OF HIGHER EDUCATIONThe wider benefits gained by adults returning to higher education JOHN BY NNER Paper presented to ESEA 2001 Wider Benefits of Learning: Understanding and Monitoring the Consequences of Adult Learning European Research Conference 13 - 16 September 2001 Lisbon, Portugal Director DfES Research Centre, Wider Benefits of Learning Institute of Education 20 Bedford Way London WC 1 H 0 AL United THE SOCIAL BENEFITS OF HIGHER EDUCATIONThe wider benefits gained by adults returning to higher educationABSTRACTThe economic returns to higher education are well established in terms of increased earnings. For mature graduates, i.e. those taking up degree courses after an extended period in the labour market, such gains tail off, and may turn into a deficit for particularly male mature graduates, because of the cost to earnings of leaving paid employment for a period. Earlier research using data collected in the 1958 British Birth Cohort study point however to substantial wider benefits gained by both male and female mature graduates.

These include improved physical and psychological health, active participation in community and voluntary organisations, and acquisition of skills of use in both the occupational and community spheres such at IT skills. The new research takes these preliminary results further using data collected in new surveys in 2000/2001 in the 1970 and 1958 British Birth Cohort studies (BCS 70 and NCDS), both of which have involved following up what are currently samples of over 11,000 cohort members since birth. The new data were collected by comprehensive interview when the cohorts were aged 30 and 42 respectively. Multivariate statistical techniques are used to model relationships between 'mature' graduation and a range of possible benefits in personal, domestic and community life, taking account of earlier circumstances and achievements prior to entering higher education. These benefits are set against the benefits for graduates who have obtained their degrees through conventional routes and those who enter higher education courses but fail to complete them. The results are reported separately for men and women.

THE SOCIAL BENEFITS OF HIGHER EDUCATIONThe wider benefits gained by adults returning to higher education Introduction Extensive research across many countries has continually shown a return to earnings from higher education, with the benefit greater for women than for men 1. The research ranges from cross-country comparisons of earning differentials across different groups defined by qualification level to self-reports of graduates of the value of their higher education experience to the work they do. Particularly convincing evidence of the earnings benefit in Britain comes from the work of Richard Blundell and colleagues at the Institute for Fiscal Studies 2. Using the National Child Development Study (NCDS) data set they demonstrated that, taking account of a wide range of family background and early educational performance indicators, the return to earnings of gaining a degree was sustained.

Compared to A levels, the proportional increase in earnings from gaining a degree held at 12% for men and at 34% for women - with a larger reduction for men than for women when the background factors were taken into account (9% reduction, men and 5% reduction, women). This points both to an increased benefit from higher education for women and an equalizing effect in the sense that family background and other factors have substantially less effect on the return to earnings for women than they do for men. Return to earnings can be described as a 'private' benefit to individuals. Evidence on the wider range of benefits claimed for higher education is more limited.

These include benefits to productivity at the company level and to the health of the macro-economy generally. Research demonstrating the Social Benefits is even more rare, i.e. benefits to do with the functioning of individuals and society as a whole. Benefits such as increased social cohesion may be seen as a worthwhile in themselves or in terms of their (indirect) effect on the macro economy, by for example reducing the costs of the Social Security and Criminal Justice systems. The five main kinds of benefit identified by economists are set out below Higher education benefits 1. Monetary benefits to individual graduates. 2.

Higher productivity of graduates. 3. External economic benefits: i.e. higher productivity in the economy as a whole. 4. Direct immediate or subsequent consumption benefits for students and graduates; it has been likened both to an immediate consumer good and as a durable consumer good. 5.

External non-monetary benefit: i.e. social and cultural and similar benefits to the community as a whole from the presence of graduates. Building on the work of IFS on the earnings return to higher education, the research reported here uses the same longitudinal data set (NCDS) to examine a selection of benefits in the fifth category - the social benefits. We address the question: Does Higher education, over and above A levels, increase the probability of a social benefit to those who receive it, taking account of earlier circumstances and attainment? Data Source The NCDS comprises all 17,000 individuals who were born in Britain in a particular week in March 1958 and have been followed up subsequently with surveys at ages 7, 11, 23 and 33.

At age 37 a 10% sub-sample of 1,700 cohort members was followed up in a special study of basic skills and employment. Data from all five panels are used in the analysis, giving contemporaneous information on family circumstances during childhood and adolescence, and information on early adult circumstances and achievements. In adulthood at age 33, attention focuses on employment, family life, health and citizenship. At 37 information was collected from the cohort members about their children's educational progress and the support they were being given. We use this to assess parenting outcomes. The full set of adult outcomes identified with social benefits analysed in this study are shown below.

Social benefit variables. Professional or management occupation class. Protection from the risk of unemployment. Skills development. Mental and physical well-being. Avoidance of accidents and assaults.

Absence of educational problems in children. Participation in community and voluntary organizations and voting, . Attitudes to gender equality and anti-racism, political cynicism and employment commitment Higher Education Effects? To assess the social benefits of higher education, we compare the age 33 outcomes across the six qualification levels shown below. Highest qualification by age 33.

Frequency %^ Below A-level 6572 59 A-level&Equivalent 1483 14 Non-completes 153 1 Sub-degree 1523 14 Mature degree 131 1 Degree & higher 1283 11 Total 11205 100 In almost all cases a strong social benefits gradient is apparent indicating a social benefit gained by those with higher education as opposed to those with A levels or less. But we cannot be certain whether this is due to the higher education experience as such or to the family background and other characteristics of those selected to enter higher education. To take account of this 'selection effect', we try to control as many of such characteristics as possible as identified in the NCDS data going back to birth. This in effect matches the higher education entrants with then non-entrants. The controls selected are shown below. Control variables.

Father's occupational class (when cohort member was 16): . Mother's education (age of leaving full-time education). Parental Interest in child's education (at age 11). Free school meals (at age 11). Overcrowding (number of people per room at age 11). Cognitive skill: (Tests of verbal and non-verbal ability at age 11)...

Not working: (amount of time since age 16) o unemployed o full-time housework. Partner's education (age of leaving full-time education). Number of children The aim of the analysis is to determine the extent to which the higher education gradient for social benefits is sustained, is much reduced or disappears. when all these other influences that are implicated potentially in selection for higher education are controlled. Where the gradient is sustained, this increases confidence that the higher education experience has produced the social benefit rather than the other characteristics of the students who enter the system. We start with the more obvious employment-related benefits of higher education and then move on to the wider set of social benefits. Findings Occupational Attainment.

Graduates are much more likely to attain professional or managerial jobs than non-graduates. Mature graduates and non-completes (that is, people who entered higher education, but did not gain a degree) also show an advantage over A-level and below A-level qualifiers... Graduates are relatively protected from unemployment - particularly women. However such protection is less evident for mature graduates and does not occur at all for non-completes, who appear to be particularly vulnerable to unemployment. Skills. Graduates of both sexes report more skill improvement over the past ten years than people with lower qualifications, taking account of class of occupation, unemployment experience and / or engagement in full time home care The effects are particularly marked for mature graduates in verbal, computing and caring skills.

But there also sustained effects for "social skills" - organising, advising, instructing and for mature sub-degree women, caring skills. Health & Vulnerability. Graduates are at less risk of depression than people with below A-level qualifications. Their risk of depression is similar to A-level qualifiers. Non-completes have a higher risk of depression than A-level qualifiers... Graduates are relatively more likely to perceive themselves as in 'excellent' physical health.

This applies, but less strongly, to mature graduates... Graduate men were somewhat less likely to be victims of accidents or assaults than non-graduates, while graduate women were at a lower risk of assault from their partners in dissolving relationships. Family and Parenting. Graduate parents report fewer educational problems among their children. (Notably, 47% of graduate women had not had children by the age of 37). These children have more books on average than the children of non-graduate parents.

Active Citizenship. Graduates are more likely to vote than any other grouping. Male mature graduates have the highest rates of voting. Male non-completes have lower rates of voting... Graduates are much more likely to be members of and actively involved in community and voluntary associations.

Non-completes are more likely to be involved than A-level or below A-level qualifiers. Values and Attitudes. Graduates are more likely to have egalitarian attitudes to gender equality, and more likely to be anti-racist than lower level qualifiers. Women graduates and mature graduates are most likely to have egalitarian attitudes, perhaps related to employment in the public sector...

Graduates have more faith in the political process than lower lever qualifiers. This is most marked for mature graduates... Graduates are less committed to employment for the sake of it and place more emphasis on the quality of employment. This is most marked among mature graduates. Conclusion The analysis provides convincing evidence that higher education does produce social as well as 'private' economic benefits to individuals (in the narrow earnings sense). Besides providing the route to higher level professional and managerial occupations, and therefore relatively well paid employment (especially for women), a degree of protection is afforded against the likelihood of unemployment.

There is also a premium gained in improving a number of occupationally relevant skills (taking account of employment experience between 23 and 33), including writing, computing, organizing, advising and instructing. Both psychological health and physical health appear to be stronger in graduates than others. There is also less vulnerability to accidents and assaults. Graduates are also less likely to have children with educational problems. Citizenship, in the sense of memberships of political parties, participation in local community activity and voting in elections, are all more common among graduates as are 'democratic' values identified with gender and race equality and trust in the political system. These relationships stand-up when statistical controls are applied, in effect, matching the graduates and non-graduates for characteristics prior to their entering higher education.

However we need to be cautious in interpreting the findings. It is possible that some unmeasured characteristics that differentiate higher education students from others could still be found to explain away the difference. What we can say with confidence is that in the extensive analysis we have undertaken here, such characteristics did not emerge. This suggests that the Higher Education experience itself is a major cause of the benefits gained. Finally, other than comparing the benefits for women and men, we have not examined which groups among the graduates benefit particularly from higher education. For example, as other research has shown 3 the higher education institution attended, the subjects studied, the occupation entered, the particular home background and region from which the students come, might all help us to pinpoint where the benefits are gained most and why.

In the limited time available for the analysis, it was not possible to pursue this matter here. It remains a fruitful area for further research.