In the long-running and so far one-sided debate between the two major parties and the sector over the relevance and so-called social licence of the sector to operate, facts are mostly scarce.
All the more reason then, to set five minutes aside to peruse a recent Brazilian paper which seeks to quantify the impact of human capital produced by higher education institutions on local economic growth. In lay terms – how much are your graduates worth to the community?
Examining 37 public higher education institutions and 166 private institutions in northeastern Brazil, Leilyanne Viana Noguiera and Professor Felipe de Sousa Basos found a positive correlation between the efficiency of public institutions and local economic growth.
The authors noted that universities delivered more than human capital – for example also enhancing social capacity, but focused their model on comparing university efficiency (including number of graduates, student participation in extracurricular activity and student course evaluations) with local economic strength.
The modelling revealed, “evidence of a positive association between the teaching activities of public universities.” However there was not a significant correlation for smaller private universities and no observed relationship between research activity and growth.
The authors said the findings underlined the importance of Government focus on higher education quality.
An Australian version of this study, examining the relationship between universities and tangible measures of wealth or social benefit would certainly be valuable in demonstrating the value of higher education to Australian voters.
