Learning empowers individuals to pursue their dreams and reach their potential in a wide range of measurable ways. As an economic elevator, quality education fuels pathways to greater opportunity and progress. Higher educational attainment is associated with higher earnings, longer productive lives, better physical and mental health, resilience and adaptability, and personal development and fulfillment. For the macroeconomy, education is a catalyst for human and social capital development, driving long-term economic growth.
Authors
- Acknowledgements and disclosures
- The author is grateful to Lauren Bauer, Wendy Edelberg, and Sarah Reber for their generous feedback. Victoria Yan and Zhengtai Zheng provided excellent research support.The Brookings Institution is financed through the support of a diverse array of foundations, corporations, governments, individuals, as well as an endowment. A list of donors can be found in our annual reports published online here. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions in this report are solely those of its author(s) and are not influenced by any donation.
- Published in
- United States of America
Table of Contents
- _Int_zxiokrTW 26
- _Int_CjJKs9Oh 27
- _Int_pR20aY7Y 27
- _Int_0xLMEyk3 27
- Contents 5
- Introduction 7
- Chapter 1: Where we stand in secondary education 9
- Student performance dropped after COVID-19 10
- Pandemic-related learning losses of US students were not as severe as those in other countries 11
- Racial gaps in high school graduation rates are closing 12
- Chapter 2: Where we stand in postsecondary education 13
- The share of people with college education increases, but racial gaps remain 14
- Online higher education is more common after COVID-19 than before 15
- The net cost of college attendance is lower than the published sticker price 16
- Earnings among those with more education have increased more over time 17
- Education pays more for men than for women 18
- Chapter 3: Innovation efforts in education 19
- Charter schools are more likely to serve Black, Hispanic, and economically disadvantaged students than traditional public schools 20
- The learning gains of charter school students have increased over time 21
- Investment in education technology (EdTech) spiked during COVID-19 22
- Investment in education research and development is crucial for innovation 23
- References 24
- Selected Hamilton Project papers on education 26
