Early Education Benefits Individuals, Society

Many advocates of providing universal preschool contend "it's the right thing to do," and few will argue it isn't. But preschool promises long-term and long lasting economic benefits to society, as well.    

An unlikely champion of early childhood education, Art Rolnick, senior vice president and director of research of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, says a good preschool can offer a 12 percent annual return, after inflation. (By 2007, Rolnick had revised that percentage return up to 16%.)

Rolnick has received national attention for a paper he published in 2003 on the topic with Minneapolis Fed analyst Rob Grunewald. That's better than the stock market, he notes, and any other social program.    

In "Early Childhood Development: Economic Development with a High Public Return," Rolnick and Grunewald write:    

"Early childhood development programs are rarely portrayed as economic development initiatives, and we think that is a mistake. Such programs, if they appear at all, are at the bottom of the economic development lists for state and local governments. They should be at the top. Most of the numerous projects and initiatives that state and local governments fund in the name of creating new private businesses and new jobs result in few public benefits. In contrast, studies find that well-focused investments in early childhood development yield high public as well as private returns."