Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"Clearly, the individual student does benefit. I tell my students that probably the main reason they are here at the university is because they realize that getting a university degree is going to lead to more salary, more income for them down the road. They understand that. So certainly the student gets a lot of benefit from getting more education. But I think economists would argue that there are also public benefits. An educated worker is going to be more productive. That's going to make this state, for example, more attractive to businesses to come in. And lots of people can benefit from that. An educated worker with their higher salary is going to pay more taxes. They are likely going to use less public services. We also see links that studies have found between more educated citizens and better health, which therefore leads to lower health care expenses. So I think the point here is that education seems to be a key in improving life all across the board for many people. It provides these widespread benefits that go beyond just that for the individual. Therefore, there's public money involved in education."