WATTS: The value of a university education
“You get what you pay for.” Sometimes we forget that. It applies to universities as well as cars, houses and investments. Just when Texas is billions of dollars short in tax revenue, critics say we can spend less and get a better product in a higher university education. Everyone loves a bargain, but Texas, like everyone else, gets what it pays for.
A university education is a valuable experience for both the community and the individual. A university graduate makes more than $1 million more in the course of a lifetime than a high school graduate.
The farther one goes up the educational ladder, the higher, on the average, are ones lifetime earnings. For example, in 2007, professional degree holders earned $132,719, and high school graduates earned $46,001. During economic downturns, like we are facing now, university graduates are less likely to be laid off from work. According to Bloomberg News, in May, the unemployment rate for university graduates was 4.5 percent, but 14.7 percent for high school dropouts. And, it’s not just university graduates who benefit. For every year of college attended, income measurably increases. There are other individual benefits to a university education. Research studies find that college graduates are more likely to marry and stay married. They are more likely to be healthier, require less medical care and live longer. When a national sample was asked to rank their levels of happiness, university graduates ranked substantially higher than high school graduates on self-reports of happiness.
University graduates are good for their communities, too. Mirabeau B. Lamar, second president of the Republic of Texas, is quoted to have said, “A cultivated mind is the guardian genius of democracy.” Recent studies show that this statement is as true today as when first uttered 200 years ago. Studies find that college graduates are more likely than their high school counterparts to participate in civic life, both as volunteers and as leaders in their communities. University graduates vote at higher rates than others in the population.They participate in the lives of their communities, in civic organizations, sports and churches. In schools, parents who are college graduates tend to be more engaged with their children's education. Children of university graduates are more likely to go to college and graduate.
The question is how do you get more university graduates? Over a decade ago, Texas committed to Closing the Gaps, increasing college enrollments, graduation rates, excellence, and research to at least equal the other major states. Data from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board shows the number of undergraduates enrolled in Texas universities during the last 10 years has increased by more than 33 percent and the number of undergraduate degrees awarded by 41 percent. There is a lot of work to be done, however. Texas still lags behinds most of the larger states in graduation rates. And in research Texas lags trails behind Michigan, California, New York, Pennsylvania and even little Massachusetts for the moneyfunds received for research. Texas lags behind in the number of Nobel laureates and the number of members of the national academies. With only three Tier 1 research universities, Texas lags behind behind other major states.
Attacks on the workload of higher education faculty in Texas have become almost commonplace in today’s environment of tight budgets. Using preliminary, unverified data, critics have said that simply increasing the teaching load of senior faculty members, could lower the cost of a college education. Perhaps in the short run Texas could save tax dollars, but it would come with a price. It would mean less research, less innovation, less creativity and less of what the other states are doing to be ahead of Texas. Bottom line, you get what you pay for.
Like physicians, faculty members spend years in training, ignoring other opportunities to make money. Faculty members spend between six and eight years in graduate school, on top of four years earning a baccalaureate degree. During that time, they are paid, if at all, very poorly. While in graduate school, like medical school, they learn their craft of teaching and doing research. As graduate students, under the supervision of senior faculty, they teach students, sometimes lots of them. In a university, unlike a community college or high school, faculty members are expected to add to knowledge, to do research. Sometimes that work is funded by someone else. At UT Permian Basin, Chevron has funded Professor Mike Robinson's energy research, and the National Institute of Health funds Dr. Doug Henderson's research on artificial blood, for example. Some research, like Dr. Derek Catsam's work on the Freedom Riders, recently featured in a PBS documentary, is supported by the university and the sale of books he writes.
Research may lead to patents, new industries, and immediate economic growth. It may lead to a better way to teach students in our public schools, a better way to understand our world and our times. Students learn from these and other incredibly hardworking, committed faculty as they bring their research into the classroom.
In May 2011, Massachusetts had a lower unemployment rate than Texas. According to Gov. Patrick, it is because Massachusetts invests in education. Massachusetts is the state with the highest percentage of residents over 25 who hold a bachelor’s degree. Texas ranks 30th. Odessa is below the Texas average. Texas and the Permian Basin need more university graduates.
We need graduates who are well educated and ready to work. U.S. News and World Report ranks UTPB in the top tier for quality of Western universities that award the master’s degree. In 2008, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board ranked UTPB the number one public university in Texas for its graduates getting jobs or going on to graduate or professional school.
The legislature cut UTPB’s appropriation, but funded start up money for UTPB’s new petroleum engineering program. On behalf of the UTPB students, faculty and staff, my thanks to our legislative delegation, Rep. Tryon Lewis, Rep. Tom Craddick and Sen. Kel Seliger, for their recognition that public higher education costs money and is a worthwhile investment.
