President Speaks: 80 Years After the G.I. Bill, U.S. Needs a Similar Approach for College Students
New research shows a college degree brings greater wealth, health and happiness — and a bigger impact on communities and the world. How can colleges provide people with the necessary resources to reach this milestone? Read President Kathleen Harring's op-ed analyzing this critical issue, and find out what Muhlenberg is doing about it.Thursday, April 25, 2024 09:05 AM
This op-ed was originally published by The Morning Call on April 19 and is reprinted with permission in its entirety below:
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We are at an extraordinary moment in our nation’s history — an opportunity to make leaps forward in the health, wealth and happiness of the American people. We also have a problem: Seizing this opportunity requires a more highly educated populace. Yet many citizens don’t take advantage of our country’s world-leading higher education system.
First, some facts. The data continues to show that a college degree pays off financially. Last fall, The Wall Street Journal ranked Muhlenberg College, where I’m president, as having one of the highest returns on investment in the country. The wage premium for a college degree has more than doubled over the past three generations and, in 2022, college graduates earned 75% more on average than peers without a diploma.
But that’s only part of the story.
New research shows that earning a college degree brings not only greater wealth but also greater health and happiness. Those with bachelor’s degrees are more likely to engage in their communities, build meaningful relationships and live longer.
And not only does a higher level of education benefit the individual, it benefits the economy and society, adding value in the form of expertise, innovation, investment and income. Colleges themselves are economic drivers, and we’re doing our part with other Lehigh Valley colleges and universities to add more than 56,000 jobs and generate more than $3.4 billion of income to our region — the fastest growing of its kind in the nation.
At the same time, we are in a period of life-changing innovation: artificial intelligence, smart manufacturing, genetic sciences … the list goes on and on. Bloomberg estimates that generative AI will create a $1.3 trillion market for the technology by 2032. Not only do we need expertise in these fields, but also in professions that are key to bringing their benefits to the rest of society.
We need ethical leaders and thinkers — the people liberal arts colleges have been producing for centuries.
Yet, in Pennsylvania and nationwide, tens of thousands of young, qualified people pass up the opportunity to attend a top college or university — or any post-secondary institution. That’s no surprise given today’s low unemployment numbers and higher entry-level wages, which provide immediate income to many. Gainful employment is a good thing, of course, but over the long term, we need more of these students to enter highly skilled professions.
The question is this: How do we provide talented people the resources they need to achieve in the long term — the higher income, better health and bigger impact on the world that come with a college degree?
History offers some perspective.
Not since the introduction of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (the “GI Bill of Rights”) of 1944 has there been a larger pool of talented, underserved prospective college students or a greater opportunity to supercharge our economy. The GI Bill provided a range of education benefits and job training to the millions of veterans leaving service following World War II — including tuition, food and housing, books and supplies. More than 2.3 million enrolled in colleges and universities, increasing the number of Americans with bachelor’s degrees from 4.6% to 25% within 50 years.
Then, as now, a boom in knowledge and skill coincided with one of the greatest periods of innovation and economic expansion in history.
Reconnecting our nation’s talent to the opportunities a modern college education provides will require an expansion of our recruitment pool, a renewed emphasis on affordability, a powerful student experience, and learning opportunities that provide direct access to opportunities for professional success.
We need ethical leaders and thinkers — the people liberal arts colleges have been producing for centuries.
That’s why we have created a signature experience for students who have the talent and drive to excel at Muhlenberg College. It’s not the G.I. Bill, nor is this 1944. But it does provide the tools for extraordinary gains in health, wealth, and happiness for those who take us up on it. Here’s how it works:
First, our programming makes a Muhlenberg education possible by offering a range of financial aid and scholarships to the majority of our students. Nearly every Muhlenberg student receives some form of aid, and we’re one of 28 “high-fliers” in the American Talent Initiative, recognized by Bloomberg Philanthropies for national leadership in getting talented students into and through top institutions.
We’re also partnering with seven community colleges to ensure a smoother transition to four-year programs and address the inevitable challenges of credit applicability, affordability and a sense of belonging. Our students graduate with less student-loan debt than the national average.
Second, our new academic curriculum, launching next fall, takes our already robust engaged learning opportunities and amplifies them, requiring students to make an impact while still undergraduates, to do things that launch lives and careers of consequence: internships, graduate-level research and more. We offer scholarships and aid for these, too.
Students also will be able to earn one of several microcredentials — disparate courses that, when intentionally combined, address a core practice, theme, question or problem. The facility for this sort of thinking and problem-solving is at the heart of professional success and societal leadership.
Third, we make sure that every student makes the most of their time at Muhlenberg. Our coaching model, piloted this year, complements our academic program. From the moment new students arrive on campus, they work with three coaches: their academic adviser, a college life coach and a career coach. Their coaches help them understand and maximize their potential and support them on their way to success.
These programs are innovative, and yet the philosophy behind them is not new. It has been at the heart of a liberal arts education for centuries, and it’s more important than ever.
By the same token, while some of the problems we face as a nation and world are novel, the skills to address them are age-old: rigorous, critical thinking, deep subject-matter knowledge, a multidisciplinary approach, and the capacity to work productively and civilly across differences. No one is born with these abilities. The question is how we can train enough of them to achieve real gains for our economy and society.
