Study Finds Education Extends Life, Saves Billions

Those who graduate from high school live 9.2 years longer than high school dropouts, according to a paper by Peter Muennig of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. His study, “Health Returns to Education Interventions,” examines the direct and indirect links between education and health. Muennig's research shows that educational interventions can make a dramatic difference in both individual health gains and government savings, up to $46 billion.

Researching Links between Education and Health

According the report, greater educational attainment has significant direct and indirect benefit. Indirect effects, such as improving income and occupation, can result in lower levels of life stressors, improved social networks, reductions in behavioral risk factors, and an increase in the possession of health insurance. Higher incomes may allow people to live in safer neighborhoods, and those with insurance are more likely to seek preventative health care. Furthermore, even attending school can build nepotistic connections, leading to new employment or shelter in times of need, and prestige that later brings income and self-esteem.

Poverty, in contrast, is associated with stressors like having “too little money,” “health problems,” and too much “environmental noise,” says Muennig. Sustained levels of stress can alter the body's function and increase the risk of heart disease, cancer, infectious disease, and diabetes mellitus. Education can mitigate some of these effects by strengthening social networks, reducing isolation, and improving environmental conditions.

More directly, Muennig says, the total knowledge and skills acquired by students also improve cognitive ability, which impacts an array of factors: health behaviors, medication compliance, navigating the health system, coping with stressors, participation in social activities, and decision-making skills. Greater cognition and health knowledge might enable people to make better decisions about harmful habits, like smoking, drinking, and eating poorly, and promote more healthful coping mechanisms.

Predicting Effects of High School Graduation

The report goes on to predict the health effects that can reasonably be expected to result from the upward mobility caused by an educational intervention. Muennig's first scenario addresses the effects when students are advanced from 11 years of education to a high school diploma. Although those with a high school diploma cost an extra $1,100 in lifelong health care expenditures, due mostly to lower premature mortality, their overall estimated increase in health is valued at $85,000 per person. Also, the total health loss of one cohort of high school dropouts is approximately $88.3 billion. Moreover, the enrollment in public health insurance drops from 15% to 13% of a cohort when high school diplomas are earned, resulting in a savings of $3,000 per individual.

The second scenario gives a broader national perspective, considering what happens when all 600,000 high school dropouts at age 20 in 2004 are advanced one grade, and those with 11 or more years of education graduate from high school. Under this scenario, medical expenditures would increase by $500 million, but because 570,000 quality-adjusted life years (i.e. life lived in perfect health) would be gained, a total of $46 billion is saved overall. The savings from lower enrollment in public insurance amount to $31.4 billion for the cohort, during their adult lives before enrollment in Medicare. Even greater funds are saved when students who would have dropped out at 10 th grade finish high school: the government saves $8,000 per student.

The paper also discusses the effects of a number of real world education interventions, like the Perry/High Scope preschool program and raising teacher salaries, and addresses costs associated with uninsured populations. Muennig presented his analysis at the 2005 Campaign for Educational Equity symposium on “The Social Costs of Inadequate Education.”

Prepared by Katherine Lu, December 12, 2005