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Why go to College? The value of an Investment in Higher Education

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The Economics of American Higher Education

Abstract

In 1759 Adam Smith published his first bookThe Theory of Moral Sentimentsin which he questioned the merits of higher education:

The education of boys at distant great schools, of young men at distant colleges, of young ladies in distant nunneries and boarding-schools, seems in the higher ranks of life to have hurt most essentially the domestic morals, and consequently the domestic happiness, both of France and England.… Surely no acquirement which can possibly be derived from what is called a public education can make any sort of compensation for what is almost certainly and necessarily lost by it. [Pp. 363-364]

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Authors
  1. William E. Becker
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Indiana University, USA

    William E. Becker (Professor of Economics) (Professor of Economics)

  2. University of Minnesota, USA

    Darrell R. Lewis (Professor of Educational Policy) (Professor of Educational Policy)

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© 1992 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Becker, W.E. (1992). Why go to College? The value of an Investment in Higher Education. In: Becker, W.E., Lewis, D.R. (eds) The Economics of American Higher Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2950-3_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2950-3_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-5310-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-011-2950-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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