Showing papers in "The Future of Children in 2013"

Making College Worth It: A Review of the Returns to Higher Education

Abstract: Despite a general rise in the return to college, likely due to technological change, the cost-benefit calculus facing prospective students can make the decision to invest in and attend college dauntingly complex. Philip Oreopoulos and Uros Petronijevic review research on the varying costs and benefits of higher education and explore in full the complexity of the decision to invest in and attend college. Optimal college attainment decisions are different for all prospective students, who diverge in terms of what they are likely to get out of higher education and what specific options might be best for them. Earnings of college graduates depend in important measure on the program of study and eventual occupation they choose. Students uninterested in or unable to complete a four-year college degree appear to benefit from completing a two-year degree. Prospective students may also face both financial constraints, which prohibit them from taking advantage of more education, and information problems and behavioral idiosyncrasies, such as reluctance to take on debt, which keep them from making optimal decisions about attending college. In their discussion of how student debt figures in the college investment, the authors note that some students borrow too little and, as a result, underinvest in their education. Carefully calculating the return on the college investment can help determine the "appropriate" amount of debt. Students are more likely to benefit from postsecondary education the more informed they are about the expenses associated with college and the potential options for financial aid, which can be extremely complex. To make the best college investment, Oreopoulos and Petronijevic stress, prospective students must give careful consideration to selecting the institution itself, the major to follow, and the eventual occupation to pursue. For any particular program at a particular school, anticipated future labor market earnings, the likelihood of completion, the costs, and the value of any student debt must all be factored into the assessment.

Student Supports: Developmental Education and Other Academic Programs

Abstract: Low rates of college completion are a major problem in the United States. Less than 60 percent of students at four-year colleges graduate within six years, and at some colleges, the graduation rate is less than 10 percent. Additionally, many students enter higher education ill-prepared to comprehend college-level course material. Some estimates suggest that only one-third of high school graduates finish ready for college work; the proportion is even lower among older students. Colleges have responded to the poor preparation of incoming students by placing approximately 35 to 40 percent of entering freshmen into remedial or developmental courses, along with providing academic supports such as summer bridge programs, learning communities, academic counseling, and tutoring, as well as student supports such as financial aid and child care. Eric Bettinger, Angela Boatman, and Bridget Terry Long describe the role, costs, and impact of these college remediation and academic support programs. According to a growing body of research, the effects of remedial courses are considerably nuanced. The courses appear to help or hinder students differently by state, institution, background, and academic preparedness. The mixed findings from earlier research have raised questions ranging from whether remedial programs, on average, improve student academic outcomes to which types of programs are most effective. Administrators, practitioners, and policy makers are responding by redesigning developmental courses and searching for ways to implement effective remediation programs more broadly. In addition, recent research suggests that colleges may be placing too many students into remedial courses unnecessarily, suggesting the need for further examining the placement processes used to assign students to remedial courses. The authors expand the scope of remediation research by discussing other promising areas of academic support commonly offered by colleges, including advising, tutoring, and mentoring programs, as well as supports that target the competing responsibilities of students, namely caring for dependents and balancing employment with schoolwork. They conclude that the limited resources of institutions and equally limited funds of students make it imperative for postsecondary institutions to improve student academic supports and other services.

Transitions from High School to College.

Abstract: The vast majority of high school students aspire to some kind of postsecondary education, yet far too many of them enter college without the basic content knowledge, skills, or habits of mind they need to succeed. Andrea Venezia and Laura Jaeger look at the state of college readiness among high school students, the effectiveness of programs in place to help them transition to college, and efforts to improve those transitions. Students are unprepared for postsecondary coursework for many reasons, the authors write, including differences between what high schools teach and what colleges expect, as well as large disparities between the instruction offered by high schools with high concentrations of students in poverty and that offered by high schools with more advantaged students. The authors also note the importance of noncurricular variables, such as peer influences, parental expectations, and conditions that encourage academic study. Interventions to improve college readiness offer a variety of services, from academic preparation and information about college and financial aid, to psychosocial and behavioral supports, to the development of habits of mind including organizational skills, anticipation, persistence, and resiliency. The authors also discuss more systemic programs, such as Middle College High Schools, and review efforts to allow high school students to take college classes (known as dual enrollment). Evaluations of the effectiveness of these efforts are limited, but the authors report that studies of precollege support programs generally show small impacts, while the more systemic programs show mixed results. Dual-enrollment programs show promise, but the evaluation designs may overstate the results. The Common Core State Standards, a voluntary set of goals and expectations in English and math adopted by most states, offer the potential to improve college and career readiness, the authors write. But that potential will be realized, they add, only if the standards are supplemented with the necessary professional development to enable educators to help all students meet academic college readiness standards, a focus on developing strong noncognitive knowledge and skills for all students, and the information and supports to help students prepare and select the most appropriate postsecondary institution.

E-Learning in Postsecondary Education

Abstract: Summary Over the past decade postsecondary education has been moving increasingly from the classroom to online. During the fall 2010 term 31 percent of U.S. college students took at least one online course. The primary reasons for the growth of e-learning in the nation’s colleges and universities include the desire of those institutions to generate new revenue streams, improve access, and offer students greater scheduling flexibility. Yet the growth of e-learning has been accompanied by a continuing debate about its effectiveness and by the recognition that a number of barriers impede its widespread adoption in higher education. Through an extensive research review, Bradford Bell and Jessica Federman examine three key issues in the growing use of e-learning in postsecondary education. The first is whether e-learning is as effective as other delivery methods. The debate about the effectiveness of e-learning, the authors say, has been framed in terms of how it compares with other means of delivering instruction, most often traditional instructor-led classroom instruction. Bell and Federman review a number of meta-analyses and other studies that, taken together, show that e-learning produces outcomes equivalent to other delivery media when instructional conditions are held constant. The second issue is what particular features of e-learning influence its effec tiveness. Here the authors move beyond the “does it work” question to examine how different instructional features and supports, such as immersion and interactivity, influence the effec tiveness of e-learning programs. They review research that shows how these features can be configured to create e-learning programs that help different types of learners acquire different types of knowledge. In addressing the third issue—the barriers to the adoption of e-learning in postsecondary education—Bell and Federman discuss how concerns about fraud and cheating, uncertainties about the cost of e-learning, and the unique challenges faced by low-income and disadvantaged students have the potential to undermine the adoption of e-learning instruction. Based on their research review, the authors conclude that e-learning can be an effective means of delivering postsecondary education. They also urge researchers to examine how different aspects of these programs influence their effectiveness and to address the numerous barriers to the adoption of online instruction in higher education.

The demographics of military children and families.

Abstract: Summary Since the advent of the all-volunteer force in the 1970s, marriage, parenthood, and family life have become commonplace in the U.S. military among enlisted personnel and officers alike, and military spouses and children now outnumber service members by a ratio of 1.4 to 1. Reviewing data from the government and from academic and nonacademic research, Molly Clever and David R. Segal find several trends that distinguish today’s military families. Compared with civilians, for example, service members marry younger and start families earlier. Because of the requirements of their jobs, they move much more frequently than civilians do, and they are often separated from their families for months at a time. And despite steady increases since the 1970s in the percentage of women who serve, the armed forces are still overwhelmingly male, meaning that the majority of military parents are fathers.

Financial Aid Policy: Lessons From Research

Abstract: Summary In the nearly fifty years since the adoption of the Higher Education Act of 1965, financial aid programs have grown in scale, expanded in scope, and multiplied in form. As a result, financial aid has become the norm among college enrollees. Aid now flows not only to traditional college students but also to part-time students, older students, and students who never graduated from high school. Today aid is available not only to low-income students but also to middle- and even high-income families, in the form of grants, subsidized loans, and tax credits. The increasing size and complexity of the nation’s student aid system has generated questions about effectiveness, heightened confusion among students and parents, and raised concerns about how program rules may interact. In this article, Susan Dynarski and Judith Scott-Clayton review what is known, and just as important, what is not known, about how well various student aid programs work.

Resilience among Military Youth.

Abstract: Much research on children in military families has taken a deficit approach--that is, it has portrayed these children as a population susceptible to psychological damage from the hardships of military life, such as frequent moves and separation from their parents during deployment. But M. Ann Easterbrooks, Kenneth Ginsburg, and Richard M. Lerner observe that most military children turn out just fine. They argue that, to better serve military children, we must understand the sources of strength that help them cope with adversity and thrive. In other words, we must understand their resilience. The authors stress that resilience is not a personal trait but a product of the relationships between children and the people and resources around them. In this sense, military life, along with its hardships, offers many sources for resilience--for example, a strong sense of belonging to a supportive community with a shared mission and values. Similarly, children whose parents are deployed may build their self-confidence by taking on new responsibilities in the family, and moving offers opportunities for adventure and personal growth. As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan drew more and more service members into combat, the military and civilian groups alike rolled out dozens of programs aimed at boosting military children's resilience. Although the authors applaud this effort, they also note that few of these programs have been based on scientific evidence of what works, and few have been rigorously evaluated for their effectiveness. They call for a program of sustained research to boost our understanding of military children's resilience.

How wartime military service affects children and families.

Abstract: How are children's lives altered when a parent goes off to war? What aspects of combat deployment are most likely to put children at risk for psychological and other problems, and what resources for resilience can they tap to overcome such hardships and thrive? To answer these questions, Patricia Lester and Lieutenant Colonel Eric Flake first examine the deployment cycle, a multistage process that begins with a period of anxious preparation after a family receives notice that a parent will be sent into combat. Perhaps surprisingly, for many families, they write, the most stressful part of the deployment cycle is not the long months of separation that follow but the postdeployment period, when service members, having come home from war, must be reintegrated into families whose internal rhythms have changed and where children have taken on new roles. Lester and Flake then walk us through a range of theoretical perspectives that help us understand the interconnected environments in which military children live their lives, from the dynamics of the family system itself to the external contexts of the communities where they live and the military culture that helps form their identity. The authors conclude that policy makers can help military-connected children and their families cope with deployment by, among other things, strengthening community support services and adopting public health education measures that are designed to reduce the stigma of seeking treatment for psychological distress. They warn, however, that much recent research on military children's response to deployment is flawed in various ways, and they call for better-designed, longer-term studies as well as more rigorous evaluation of existing and future support programs.

An Overview of American Higher Education

Abstract: This overview of postsecondary education in the United States reviews the dramatic changes over the past fifty years in the students who go to college, the institutions that produce higher education, and the ways it is financed The article, by Sandy Baum, Charles Kurose, and Michael McPherson, creates the context for the articles that follow on timely issues facing the higher education community and policy makers The authors begin by observing that even the meaning of college has changed The term that once referred primarily to a four-year period of academic study now applies to virtually any postsecondary study—academic or occupational, public or private, two-year or four-year—that can result in a certificate or degree They survey the factors underlying the expansion of postsecondary school enrollments; the substantial increases in female, minority, disadvantaged, and older students; the development of public community colleges; and the rise of for-profit colleges They discuss the changing ways in which federal and state governments help students and schools defray the costs of higher education as well as more recent budget tensions that are now reducing state support to public colleges And they review the forces that have contributed to the costs of producing higher education and thus rising tuitions The authors also cite evidence on broad measures of college persistence and outcomes, including low completion rates at community and for-profit colleges, the increasing need for remedial education for poorly prepared high school students, and a growing gap between the earnings of those with a bachelor’s degree and those with less education They disagree with critics who say that investments in higher education, particularly for students at the margin, no longer pay off A sustained investment in effective education at all levels is vital to the nation’s future, they argue But they caution that the American public no longer seems willing to pay more for more students to get more education They therefore urge the higher education community to make every effort to find innovations, including creative uses of information technology, that can hold down costs while producing quality education

For-profit colleges.

Abstract: For-profit, or proprietary, colleges are the fastest-growing postsecondary schools in the nation, enrolling a disproportionately high share of disadvantaged and minority students and those ill-prepared for college. Because these schools, many of them big national chains, derive most of their revenue from taxpayer-funded student financial aid, they are of interest to policy makers not only for the role they play in the higher education spectrum but also for the value they provide their students. In this article, David Deming, Claudia Goldin, and Lawrence Katz look at the students who attend for-profits, the reasons they choose these schools, and student outcomes on a number of broad measures and draw several conclusions. First, the authors write, the evidence shows that public community colleges may provide an equal or better education at lower cost than for-profits. But budget pressures mean that community colleges and other nonselective public institutions may not be able to meet the demand for higher education. Some students unable to get into desired courses and programs at public institutions may face only two alternatives: attendance at a for-profit or no postsecondary education at all. Second, for-profits appear to be at their best with well-defined programs of short duration that prepare students for a specific occupation. But for-profit completion rates, default rates, and labor market outcomes for students seeking associate’s or higher degrees compare unfavorably with those of public postsecondary institutions. In principle, taxpayer investment in student aid should be accompanied by scrutiny concerning whether students complete their course of study and subsequently earn enough to justify the investment and pay back their student loans. Designing appropriate regulations to help students navigate the market for higher education has proven to be a challenge because of the great variation in student goals and types of programs. Ensuring that potential students have complete and objective information about the costs and expected benefits of for-profit programs could improve postsecondary education opportunities for disadvantaged students and counter aggressive and potentially misleading recruitment practices at for-profit colleges, the authors write.

Economic Conditions of Military Families

Abstract: For military children and their families, the economic news is mostly good. After a period of steady pay increases, James Hosek and Shelley MacDermid Wadsworth write, service members typically earn more than civilians with a comparable level of education. Moreover, they receive many other benefits that civilians often do not, including housing allowances, subsidized child care, tuition assistance, and top-of-the-line comprehensive health care. Of course, service members tend to work longer hours than civilians do, and they are exposed to hazards that civilians rarely, if ever, face. The extra pay they receive when they are deployed to combat zones helps their families cope financially but cannot alleviate the stress. Though service members are relatively well paid, the military lifestyle takes a toll on the earnings of their spouses. Chiefly because the military requires service members to move frequently, spouses' careers are regularly interrupted, and employers are hesitant to offer them jobs that require a large investment in training or a long learning curve. More military spouses than comparable civilian spouses are either unemployed or work fewer hours than they would like, and military spouses overall tend to earn less than their civilian counterparts. Despite the military's relatively high pay, some service members and their families--particularly among the junior enlisted ranks--report financial distress, and a handful even qualify for food stamps. Moreover, precisely because military pay tends to be higher than civilian pay, families may see a drop in income when a service member leaves the armed forces. Finally, the pay increases of recent years have slowed, and force cutbacks are coming; both of these factors will alter the financial picture for service members, possibly for the worse.

Military children and families: introducing the issue.

Abstract: In this issue of The Future of Children, we seek to integrate existing knowledge about the children and families of today's United States military; to identify what we know (and don't know) about their strengths and the challenges they face, as well as the programs that serve them; to specify directions for future research; and to illuminate the evidence (or lack thereof) behind current and future policies and programs that serve these children and families. At the same time, we highlight how research on nonmilitary children and families can help us understand their military-connected counterparts and, in turn, how research on military children can contribute both to a general understanding of human development and to our knowledge of other populations of American children. These goals are timely and important. Since the war in Afghanistan began in 2001, followed in 2002 by the war in Iraq, the United States has seen the largest sustained deployment of military servicemen and servicewomen in the history of the all-volunteer force. As a result, more than two million military children have been separated from their service member parents, both fathers and mothers, because of combat deployments. Many families have seen multiple deployments--three, four, even five or more family separations and reunifications. Others have struggled with combat-related mental health problems, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD); physical injuries, including traumatic brain injury (TBI); and death, all of which can affect children and families for years. (1) Media reports about the wars and human interest stories about combat veterans and their families have made most Americans more aware of the challenges that military families and children have faced over the past decade. The history of military children, however, goes back much further in time and tells a complex story of the interrelationship among these children, their military parents and families, and the military and civilian communities in which they live. Though these children face many hardships, they also demonstrate health and wellness in many ways, and they live in communities with rich traditions and resources that strive to support them. The terms military child and military family have been used in various ways. President Barack Obama and the Joint Chiefs of Staff define military families as active-duty service members, members of the National Guard and Reserve, and veterans, plus the members of their immediate and extended families, as well as the families of those who lost their lives in service to their country. (2) However, researchers who study and collect data on military families and children typically define military families as the spouses and dependent children (age 22 and younger) of men and women on active duty or in the National Guard and Reserve. This is the definition we use here, although we broaden it to include the children of military veterans because the experience of military family life may continue to affect the growth and health of parents, families, and children long after service members leave the armed forces. Though we recognize that military service also affects parents, siblings, and other relatives of service members, our authors do not discuss these relatives in any detail, reflecting a paucity of research in this area. In addition, what becomes of military children when they reach adulthood, including their own greater propensity to volunteer for military service, is also of great interest and worthy of future research, but it is outside the scope of this issue. The articles here present considerable evidence about America's military-connected children and their families, but the authors also point to the limits of our knowledge. At this writing, in the second decade of the 21st century, we still need unbiased, basic information about what typically characterizes children's development in our diverse military-connected families. …

Military Children from Birth to Five Years.

Abstract: Because most research on military families has focused on children who are old enough to go to school, we know the least about the youngest and perhaps most vulnerable children in these families. Some of what we do know, however, is worrisome--for example, multiple deployments, which many families have experienced during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, may increase the risk that young children will be maltreated. Where the research on young military children is thin, Joy Osofsky and Lieutenant Colonel Molinda Chartrand extrapolate from theories and research in other contexts--especially attachment theory and research on families who have experienced disasters. They describe the circumstances that are most likely to put young children in military families at risk, and they point to ways that families, communities, the military, and policy makers can help these children overcome such risks and thrive. They also review a number of promising programs to build resilience in young military children. Deployment, Osofsky and Chartrand write, is particularly stressful for the youngest children, who depend on their parents for nearly everything. Not only does deployment separate young children from one of the central figures in their lives, it can also take a psychological toll on the parent who remains at home, potentially weakening the parenting relationship. Thus one fundamental way to help young military children become resilient is to help their parents cope with the stress of deployment. Parents and caregivers themselves, Osofsky and Chartrand write, can be taught ways to support their young children's resilience during deployment, for example, by keeping routines consistent and predictable and by finding innovative ways to help the child connect with the absent parent. The authors conclude by presenting 10 themes, grounded in research and theory, that can guide policies and programs designed to help young military children.

When a Parent Is Injured or Killed in Combat

Abstract: When a service member is injured or dies in a combat zone, the consequences for his or her family can be profound and long-lasting. Visible, physical battlefield injuries often require families to adapt to long and stressful rounds of treatment and rehabilitation, and they can leave the service member with permanent disabilities that mean new roles for everyone in the family. Invisible injuries, both physical and psychological, including traumatic brain injury and combat-related stress disorders, are often not diagnosed until many months after a service member returns from war (if they are diagnosed at all-many sufferers never seek treatment). They can alter a service member's behavior and personality in ways that make parenting difficult and reverberate throughout the family. And a parent's death in combat not only brings immediate grief but can also mean that survivors lose their very identity as a military family when they must move away from their supportive military community. Sifting through the evidence on both military and civilian families, Allison Holmes, Paula Rauch, and Stephen Cozza analyze, in turn, how visible injuries, traumatic brain injuries, stress disorders, and death affect parents' mental health, parenting capacity, and family organization; they also discuss the community resources that can help families in each situation. They note that most current services focus on the needs of injured service members rather than those of their families. Through seven concrete recommendations, they call for a greater emphasis on family-focused care that supports resilience and positive adaptation for all members of military families who are struggling with a service member's injury or death.

Building Communities of Care for Military Children and Families.

Abstract: Military children don't exist in a vacuum; rather, they are embedded in and deeply influenced by their families, neighborhoods, schools, the military itself, and many other interacting systems. To minimize the risks that military children face and maximize their resilience, write Harold Kudler and Colonel Rebecca Porter, we must go beyond clinical models that focus on military children as individuals and develop a public health approach that harnesses the strengths of the communities that surround them. In short, we must build communities of care. One obstacle to building communities of care is that at many times and in many places, military children and their families are essentially invisible. Most schools, for example, do not routinely assess the military status of new students' parents. Thus Kudler and Porter's strongest recommendation is that public and private institutions of all sorts--from schools to clinics to religious institutions to law enforcement--should determine which children and families they serve are connected to the military as a first step toward meeting military children's unique needs. Next, they say, we need policies that help teachers, doctors, pastors, and others who work with children learn more about military culture and the hardships, such as a parent's deployment, that military children often face. Kudler and Porter review a broad spectrum of programs that may help build communities of care, developed by the military, by nonprofits, and by academia. Many of these appear promising, but the authors emphasize that almost none are backed by strong scientific evidence of their effectiveness. They also describe new initiatives at the state and federal levels that aim to break down barriers among agencies and promote collaboration in the service of military children and families.

Access and Success with Less: Improving Productivity in Broad-Access Postsecondary Institutions

Abstract: Achieving national goals for increased college completion in a time of scarce resources will require the postsecondary institutions that enroll the majority of undergraduates—community colleges and less-selective public universities—to graduate more students at a lower cost. Davis Jenkins and Olga Rodriguez examine research on how these “broad-access” institutions can do so without sacrificing access or quality. Research indicates that the strategies broad-access institutions have relied on in the past to cut costs—using part-time instructors and increasing student-faculty ratios—may in fact reduce productivity and efficiency. The limited evidence available suggests that some of the most popular strategies for improving student success are not cost-effective. New strategies to cut costs and improve college success are therefore imperative. Some believe that redesigning courses to make use of instructional technologies will lead to better outcomes at lower cost, although the evidence is mixed. Recently, a growing number of institutions are going beyond redesigning courses and instead changing the way they organize programs and supports along the student’s “pathway” through college. These efforts are promising, but their effects on cost per completion are not yet certain. Meager funding has so far hampered efforts by policy makers to fund colleges based on outcomes rather than how many students they enroll, but some states are beginning to increase the share of appropriations tied to outcomes. Jenkins and Rodriquez argue that as policy makers push colleges to lower the cost per graduate, they must avoid providing incentives to lower academic standards. They encourage policy makers to capitalize on recent research on the economic value of postsecondary education to measure quality, and urge colleges and universities to redouble efforts to define learning outcomes and measure student mastery.

Unlocking insights about military children and families.

Abstract: As this issue of the Future of Children makes clear, we have much yet to learn about military children and their families. A big part of the reason, write Anita Chandra and Andrew London, is that we lack sufficiently robust sources of data. Until we collect more and better data about military families, Chandra and London say, we will not be able to study the breadth of their experiences and sources of resilience, distinguish among subgroups within the diverse military community, or compare military children with their civilian counterparts. After surveying the available sources of data and explaining what they are lacking and why, Chandra and London make several recommendations. First, they say, major longitudinal national surveys, as well as administrative data systems (for example, in health care and in schools), should routinely ask about children's connections to the military, so that military families can be flagged in statistical analyses. Second, questions on national surveys and psychological assessments should be formulated and calibrated for military children to be certain that they resonate with military culture. Third, researchers who study military children should consider adopting a life-course perspective, examining children from birth to adulthood as they and their families move through the transitions of military life and into or out of the civilian world.

Time for Change: A New Federal Strategy to Prepare Disadvantaged Students for College

Abstract: If more children from low-income families graduated from college, income inequality would fall and economic opportunity would increase. A major barrier to a college education for students from low-income families is that they are poorly prepared to do college work. Since the War on Poverty of the 1960s, the federal government has funded several programs to help prepare disadvantaged students to succeed in college. Evaluations show that these programs are at best only modestly successful. We propose to consolidate these programs into a single grant program, require that funded programs be backed by rigorous evidence, and give the Department of Education the authority and funding to plan a coordinated set of research and demonstration programs to develop and rigorously test several approaches to college preparation.

Postsecondary Education in the United States: Introducing the Issue

Abstract: Since the introduction of the GI Bill in 1944, college has been part of the American dream, in large part because it is viewed as a ticket to economic security. Currently, about 21 million individuals attend a postsecondary institution, and the vast majority of high school students aspire to earn a bachelor's degree or higher. (1) While the popular image of college may be dominated by Ivy League schools, flagship state universities, and elite liberal arts colleges, in fact only a minority of students attend such institutions. Many go to less-selective regional four-year colleges and universities and vocational institutions, and nationwide close to 40 percent are enrolled in open-access community colleges. A small but growing number of students are working toward college degrees mostly or entirely online. Students pursue postsecondary education for a variety of reasons. Some are looking for a broad liberal arts education, while others are more career focused. Still others enroll to take only a class or two to keep up their skills or simply for the joy of learning. U.S. postsecondary institutions serve not only those students with the best academic preparation but also those who were not well served in the nation's elementary and secondary school system and need a second chance. This range is reflected in the differing degrees of "college readiness" among entering postsecondary students and in the increasing proportion of students who are "nontraditional" in that they are older, from less advantaged families, financially independent of their parents, parents themselves, or working while going to school. As enrollments in postsecondary education have increased, so have private and public investments in education. Federal, state, and local governments combined contribute about 1 percent of the nation's gross domestic product ($160.9 billion in 2011) to postsecondary education, largely predicated on the belief that it addresses long-standing economic inequalities and leads to economic growth. (2) Namely, investment in education benefits the individual in many forms, including higher lifetime income, and benefits society by increasing labor force productivity, which in turn generates faster economic growth. Growing evidence backs these claims. For example, individuals with a bachelor's degree earn 50 percent more during their lifetime than individuals with no more than a high school diploma, and their unemployment rate is less than half as high. (3) Research also suggests that college graduates have higher job satisfaction and better health outcomes than those without a college degree. Finally, economists such as Enrico Moretti have documented significant benefits to the broader society: workers earn more in cities with higher proportions of college graduates, suggesting that more educated workers generate positive "spillovers" to other workers. In fact, he documents that cities with more highly educated populations are hubs of innovation and experience faster economic growth than those with less educated populations, again generating positive spillovers to all residents. (4) Increased globalization and advances in production technology suggest that postsecondary education will become even more important to the economic security of individuals and society in the future, as suggested by the work of economist David Autor. He has documented that the occupations that have grown over the past two decades require more "non-routinized" skills, many of which are associated with postsecondary education. (5) Despite these data, critics are starting to ask whether current high levels of investment in postsecondary education are still worth it. Nowhere is this question more starkly voiced than by Peter Theil, cofounder of PayPal, who two years ago began offering young entrepreneurs up to $100,000 not to go to college. His reasoning is that traditional postsecondary institutions do not teach the critical skills that individuals need to succeed in the "real world" of business. …

Afterword: what we can learn from military children and families.

Abstract: The wellbeing of military children and families in the United States has far-reaching signifi cance for the nation as a whole, in addition to its importance for military capabilities and individual service members and their families. The articles in this issue underscore this message as they update what we know and what we need to know about the challenges and opportunities of military life for children and their families. Although military life has unique hazards and benefits, there are also many parallels in the lives of military and civilian families. Thus, the struggles and achievements of military families and the systems that support them hold valuable lessons for all of us. Based on this issue of the Future of Children, this commentary highlights lessons we can learn from military children and families that have the potential to help many families outside the military. It also suggests ways to build on those lessons through additional research and dissemination.

Child Care and Other Support Programs.

Abstract: The U.S. military has come to realize that providing reliable, high-quality child care for service members' children is a key component of combat readiness. As a result, the Department of Defense (DoD) has invested heavily in child care. The DoD now runs what is by far the nation's largest employer-sponsored child-care system, a sprawling network with nearly 23,000 workers that directly serves or subsidizes care for 200,000 children every day. Child-care options available to civilians typically pale in comparison, and the military's system, embedded in a broader web of family support services, is widely considered to be a model for the nation. The military's child-care success rests on four pillars, write Major Latosha Floyd and Deborah A. Phillips. The first is certification by the military itself, including unannounced inspections to check on safety, sanitation, and general compliance with DoD rules. The second is accreditation by nationally recognized agencies, such as the National Association for the Education of Young Children. The third is a hiring policy that sets educational and other requirements for child-care workers, and the fourth is a pay scale that not only sets wages high enough to discourage the rapid turnover common in civilian child care but also rewards workers for completing additional training. Floyd and Phillips sound a few cautionary notes. For one, demand for military child care continues to outstrip the supply In particular, as National Guard and Reserve members have been activated during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the DoD has sometimes struggled to provide child care for their children. And force reductions and budget cuts are likely to force the military to make difficult choices as it seeks to streamline its child-care services in the years ahead.