While the high cost of education draws headlines, the cost of not educating America's children goes largely ignored. The Price We Pay remedies this oversight by highlighting the private, fiscal, and public costs of inadequate education. Leading scholars from a broad range of fields—including economics, education, demography, and public health—attach hard numbers to the relationship between educational attainment and income, health, crime, and dependence on public assistance. They also explore policy interventions that could boost the education system's performance and explain why demographic trends make the challenge of educating our youth so urgent today.
Improving educational outcomes for at-risk youth is more than a noble goal. It is an investment, one with the potential to yield benefits that far outstrip its costs. The Price We Pay analyzes both sides of the balance sheet and suggests which policies are most likely to pay off.
Contributors: Sigal Alon (Tel Aviv University), Thomas Bailey (Teachers College, Columbia University), Ronald F. Ferguson (Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University), Irwin Garfinkel (School of Social Work, Columbia University), Brendan Kelly (School of Social Work, Columbia University), Enrico Moretti (University of California-Berkeley), Peter Muennig (Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University), Michael A. Rebell (Teachers College, Columbia University), Richard Rothstein (Teachers College, Columbia University), Cecilia Elena Rouse (Princeton University), Marta Tienda (Princeton University), Jane Waldfogel (School of Social Work, Columbia University), and Tamara Wilder (Teachers College, Columbia University).