The Price of a Lost Education

By Sathya Achia Abraham

Nearly 20 percent of adults with some college education or an associate’s degree struggle to feed all the members of their household, according to a new report from the Virginia Commonwealth University Center on Human Needs’ Project on Societal Distress.

The findings, based on a major analysis of national data by the VCU Center on Human Needs, suggest that improvements to educational attainment could go a long way toward improving not only the nation’s economy, but also food security, stable housing, and health itself.

Last week, the VCU Center on Human Needs hosted a webinar featuring a panel of leading public health and economic experts who discussed the impact of education on employment, income, hunger, homelessness, health and longevity.

The webinar highlighted recent findings and a new publication series from the VCU Center on Human Needs’ Project on Societal Distress titled, “The Price of a Lost Education: How Education Affects Hunger, Housing, Wealth, and Health.” The report is the first in a series that will use national, and when possible, state-level data to analyze how Americans today are faring when it comes to basic needs - particularly in today’s difficult economic climate.

Panelists discussed the implications for public health and the economy. Nearly 150 participants attended the webinar, including government officials, and senate and congressional staffers. Steven Woolf, M.D., M.P.H., director of the VCU Center on Human Needs and lead author of the report moderated the webinar.

VCU findings

The report suggests that having a college degree makes a substantial difference for Americans - 6 percent of college graduates worry about not having the food they need for themselves and their families. Nearly 30 percent of Americans with no high school diploma face food insecurity.

Further, the report indicates that education level is directly linked to not only employment and income, but also to the quality of life of Americans – factors that include their likelihood of being homeless or hungry, their health and the health of their children and whether they may die prematurely from poor health. Read the full report here.

According to Woolf, professor of family medicine in the VCU School of Medicine, the existence of disparities in income and career opportunities between more and less educated Americans is not surprising. However, the degree to which inadequate education is affecting basic living conditions is increasing and concerning. A surprising finding is that people with some college education struggle more to meet basic human needs than those with four-year college degrees, said Woolf.

“This analysis clearly indicates that education level matters more than ever to Americans,” said Woolf.

“In today’s economy, education is obviously important to earnings and job growth, but our message is that it is also affecting the ability of families to meet basic needs like feeding their families and providing stable housing. These conditions are literally making it harder to live - these people are living sicker and dying younger, and at higher rates than their wealthier counterparts,” he said.

Impact of education cuts

According to Woolf, as policymakers struggle to contend with fiscal pressures and look for places to cut budgets, cuts to education to allay short-term deficits should be carefully weighed against the long-term economic and social costs that low education will eventually incur. Researchers cite the increased demand for food and housing assistance, higher rates of diseases and increased health care costs as possible long-term consequences of education cuts.

“It’s crucial that as conservatives and liberals debate the right way to manage budgets and reform the education system, they stay focused on the value of education not only to individuals but to society as a whole,” said Woolf.

“Companies and workers already know that education is important. Our message is that it goes much farther than paychecks and profit margins. It would be shortsighted to do anything other than invest in getting Americans the level of education they need to succeed in our modern economy and thrive in their daily lives.”

During the webinar, Woolf was joined by Jonathan Fielding, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., director of public health and health officer with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, and Ron Haskins, Ph.D., senior fellow of economic studies and co-director of the Center on Children and Families at The Brookings Institution.

The Center on Human Needs also launched a new website that provides detailed data on the prevalence of these problems in the United States and other resources about social determinants of health. It displays data on food security, housing, health, education, and income by age, gender, race-ethnicity, education, income and place—and it shows trends over time, including the recent effects of the recession. Visit the site at www.humanneeds.vcu.edu.

The Project on Societal Distress involves collaborators on the VCU campus. The data team for this project is led by Robert E. Johnson, Ph.D., in the Department of Biostatistics.

The event was funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.