Society benefits when people get more educated, period, including better voting decision, more civic engagement, and ability to build social ties across class, ethnic, and ideological lines.
All of those things are valuable to society, but not all of those things generate economic value. That is why I am saying it is a problem to conflate societal value with economic value. Schools don't exist solely to support the economy, so it would be a mistake to demand education reform on the basis of economics alone.
If you live in a society, you benefit from its education system even if you didn't attend it, as all the folks who were educated in that society's educational system are the rest of the folks who contribute to the economic system and its health and robustness.
Education seems like a big one. I know there are lots of big places putting in lots of money (eg Gates Foundation), but it's such a critically important part of every human beings -- well being. And I think there is this deep sense that it isn't working as well it could/should.
Completely agree, and that is also the reason I think education should be in a large part socially/government funded: I benefit from other people around me being educated. I’d expect there must be some research that indicates that for every euro spend on education by the government, society benefits more than that one euro.
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