I think one way to measure cost is to track tuition revenues by semester. Some institutions track the numbers enrolled each semester but credit hours should be tracked as students are charged by credit hour.

Many thanks,

Debra

 An American scholar at Stanford, Eric Hanushek has written extensively on this issue.   You may find this book chapter, "The economic value of education and cognitive skills" helpful. The chapter addresses the issue using data from both developing and developed nations.  

http://hanushek.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/Hanushek%202009%20HndbEducPolicyResearch.pdf

 I  reread your first post. If I understand you correctly, in the latter stages of that post you were wrestling with the idea of trying to assess the economic value of an education in the recruitment process for new hires.  You suggested that you wanted to separate out related skills that a candidate might bring to the work and focus just on the value attributed to education.  In the US, there may be a value added in hiring an alum from a prestigious school not just because of  assumptions about the quality of the education or about evidence of their earning power through their working life but because they have a powerful network of alumni/ae upon which to draw throughout that working life.

In my life in the non academic world, those related factors that you would like to "set aside" for study purposes are very significant.  If candidates could not demonstrate though the interview process that they adaptable and flexible, creative thinkers, highly effective communicators with a significant degree of emotional intelligence, they would not be made an offer.

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Thank you Joseph Serico for recommending the book and also thanks for your valuable comments.

However, based on the later parts of your comments that you have made on my query in the first post, can it be said that formal and informal education create some by-products i.e. adaptability, creativity, communication skills etc. which add more value to education?

I think one way to measure cost is to track tuition revenues by semester. Some institutions track the numbers enrolled each semester but credit hours should be tracked as students are charged by credit hour.

Many thanks,

Debra

Hi Kabir,

If you aims at estimating the cost of a program or a course,  The first step is to ascertain which ingredients are required for a program / course. Most educational interventions are labor-intensive, so an initial concern is to account for the number and characteristics of personnel. It is important to stipulate whether personnel are part-time or full-time and the types of skills or qualifications that they need. Beyond this it is necessary to identify the facilities, equipment, materials, and other ingredients or resources which are required for the program / course.

 Once the ingredients have been identified and stipulated, it is necessary to ascertain their costs. In doing this, all ingredients are assumed to have a cost, including donated or volunteer resources.

In general, the value of an ingredient for costing purposes is its market value. In the case of personnel, market value may be ascertained by determining what the costs would be for hiring a particular type .of person. Once each of the ingredients is costed, these can be added to obtain a total cost for the program/course.

Since your  explanation to the question is of suggestive or argumentative, : Usually, educational effectiveness is measured in terms of achievement gains per student or some other per student measure. In that case also, it is necessary to convert total costs to a per-student cost figure. to determine what we term as Cost-effectiveness rather than cost!!

regards

Rathish

Cost effectiveness is estimated in lines with the objectives of the program/course and the determined measure of effectiveness for each program/couse.

for example, for the objective of Program completions - Number of students completing program will be a measure of effectiveness 

And

Reducing dropouts - Number of potential dropouts who graduate

Employment of graduates - Number of graduates placed in appropriate jobs

Student learning  - Test scores in appropriate domains utilizing appropriate test instruments

Student satisfaction - Student assessment of program on appropriate instrument to measure satisfaction Physical performance - Evaluation of student physical condition and physical skills

College placement - Number of students placed in colleges of particular types

Advance college placement - Number of courses and units received by students in advance placement, by subject

Hi!

Good Morning. In principle, to discuss your topic, I think we should speak in terms of retrorno on investment (ROI) of university studies, but also consider the opportunity cost involved studying to do so, or the cost of choosing an option rather than one that might be more profitable.

However, given to a person who already studied and is starting their working lives, we should see cash flow it receives, and here we get into another problem, what happens if the job you got is less than that for which it is prepared, as a matter of living in a country or region with poor economy?

Now, you want to calculate the cost of attendance, I think it should simply be paid for tuition, books, lab materials, transportation to school and back home, as well as those required workshops and conferences as part of the academic curriculum. Not enter here the investment in courses or workshops chosen by personal taste, not necessity of the program.

It is clear that a person with superior skills, should be better priced in the workplace, than the one with less preparation. However, in order to maintain fairness, I believe that you should only consider the costs involved to get your degree, like any other university could have obtained it.

On the revenue side, as I said, it is difficult to measure the return. Now, some professions, like aviation (to use an example), or surgery, are highly valued by experience, flight hours or successful interventions, this would affect the performance measurement. Since it is expected that a college graduate earn X salary, and annually it may be improving. But I can not think another, be considered as income occurs, one salary received by a professional work related to their career and considering their level of skills gained in the bachelor degree, someone who by their personal fears and the economic situation is underemployed and not will serve for your measurement.

I share these reflections, hoping to contribute to better clarify your panorama.

Regards

Calculating, the cost of education & the productivity of the graduates simultaneously, is not an easy task. This is because of variety of educational institutes as well as the different motions of graduates inside & outside a given country. As you know, a case "which involves many variables" is difficult to follow & to study. However, in an increasingly competitive world, educated persons have more chances to work & then produce than those who opt for not joining universities. Stating this, I do not claim that universities graduates are necessarily better than those who are not since there are careers in which the employee learns on site & gets experience upon practice.   

Well, based on the answers it is clear that the cost, at least the approximate one, of education can be calculated but the generated output from the utilized inputs of education is really a toughest thing to find. If it is true, then how different universities claim that they provide quality education?

In my little understanding what I believe is these claimed qualities are depended on the quality of the students of those universities. For example let us consider Cambridge or Harvard University. Will every student around the world get chance to admit themselves in these universities? Anyone gonna surely answer by saying no. To get the admission only the academic results of previous institutions are not sufficient. Students need to qualify additional requirements which are more important for admission. Students take different aptitude tests to prove themselves eligible for admission and hardly any regular academic curriculum covers those aptitude tests. That is why I believe that it is the credit of the students who take more individual preparation in addition to their institutional academic preparations. This is the reason of my believe that students actually uphold the name and fame of their universities by performing better than others who come from different other universities. If I hold this assumption true, then is it possible to deny any contribution of the universities? No, it is not possible.

To me, finding the output of quality education or measuring the true quality of education is a kind of  'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' story which is being told to some blind persons for knowing the 'Elephant', isn't it?