The Private and the Social Returns on Investment in Education: Some Results for Great Britain

This paper summarizes the results of two recent efforts to estimate rates of return to educational investment in Great Britain. Because there is no basic source of age-education-income data such as is available in the U.S., the analysis employs data which are by-products of several surveys conducted for other reasons. Consequently, rather extensive adjustments in the data were required. The rate-of-return results indicate that, while there is little evidence of social overinvestment in higher education, some social underinvestment appears to exist at the secondary level. However, the private rates of return tend to exceed those for alternative investment forms.