POLITICAL SCIENCE 364CAPITALISM AND ITS CRITICS

EDUCATION POLICY AND HUMAN CAPITAL INVESTMENTIN THE UNITED STATES

SAMIR S. BHALA

11/21/2011

Education matters and the disparity correlated with differentlevels of education attainment is what make education matter.This paper describes the different approaches to curbing thisachievement gap through United States education policy. Itargues that increasing human capital by expanding access tohigher education through increasing funding for grants and

supplementary educational programs provide robust alternativesto domestic education policy. This paper uses as case studies

the Pell Grant and Head Start programs.

Education matters and the earnings disparities correlated

with different levels of education attainment is what make

education matter. According to a population report released in

2009 by the US Census Bureau, workers with bachelor’s degrees

earned, at the median, approximately $20,000 more than

counterparts who only possessed a high school diploma ($46,805

versus $26,894) (Crissey, 2009: 9). Statistical evidence also

suggests that education attainment facilitates significant

economic mobility. A study spanning conducted by the Pew

Charitable Trust determined that the 45 percent of adult children

born to parents in the lowest income quintile and who lacked a

college degree – twice the expected percentage – remained in the

bottom stratum (Haskins, 2008: 4). Comparatively, only 16

percent of the adult children from the same socio-economic

stratum that attained a college degree could not escape their

relative poverty (Haskins, 2008: 4).

The Puzzle

1

Free-marketers and welfare-statists alike share the view

that an adequate education policy facilitates increases in

economic growth and decreases in income inequality (Corrales,

1999: 4). Yet significant differences exist in the details that

might comprise such a policy. One approach, argues that

accountability and efficiency in education policy, in conjunction

with appropriate sanctions, produce for all optimal education;

this mindset provides the foundation for such policies as the No

Child Left Behind Act (Klaf and Kwan, 2010: 195). Another view

treats education as an investment, suggesting that this

investment “becomes a part of man” and contributes to “human

capital,” defined as the skills or knowledge possessed by an

individual (Schultz, 1960: 371). This view seeks to expand human

capital through increasing access to higher education and

preparation to those at the lower end of the socio-economics

spectrum. This paper views reforms to US education policy as a

debate between increasing accountability versus increasing

access.

To facilitate this debate going forward, I segment this

paper into four unique sections. This paper first examines 2

recent education policy; it surveys the accountability approach

through examining the No Child Left Behind Act, and then offers

two critiques of the policy that demonstrate that the

accountability approach does not invest in human capital.

Second, this paper offers a unique argument. In this paper, I

argue an alternative to the accountability approach and advocate

for the access approach. Specifically, I argue that an effective

education policy in the US must focus on cultivating human

capital by increasing funds, specifically directed toward

increasing access to higher education and preparatory programs.

The third section explains this paper’s methodology. The fourth

section situates the alternative arguments in two distinct case

studies: the Pell Grant and Head Start programs.

Literature Review

Past Policy

This paper deems it necessary to understand the status quo

in education policy before proposing its own policy prescription

that could allow us to do better. The predominant approach to

education reform follows an accountability methodology. The

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accountability mindset attempts to make schools answerable to not

only their students, but to parents and to taxpayers as well.

The approach thus focuses on measuring whether schools ‘fail’

students; it attempts to determine whether or not schools equip

all of their students with the necessary skills and education to

thrive in the dynamic economy. If data show that public schools

cannot provide their students with these students, the

accountability mindset promotes the introduction of private

alternatives like charter schools and voucher initiatives at the

expense of public education institutions (Steinberg, 2011: 159).

This section analyzes the policy born out of this mindset and

offers two specific criticisms of it. These criticisms thus

inform my own specific solutions.

President George W. Bush’s signature legislative

accomplishment during his first six-months in office, No Child

Left Behind, codified into federal law this mindset. It aimed to

close the achievement gaps between students at urban public

institutions and their suburban and private counterparts by

increasing accountability of schools to the taxpayer (Dee and

Jacob, 2009: 418). The law compelled states to create and 4

administer locally-specific standardized tests, whose results the

government used to determine which schools “failed” its students;

those schools classified as perennially failing lost funding and

their students received offers to transfer to other institutions

(Steinberg, 2011: 159). Proponents of the law have lauded it for

attempting to implement standards that ensured taxpayers would

not have to fund perpetually those schools that habitually

produced poor students, for reintroducing a localized influence

in national education policy through the implementation of

testing (Steinberg, 2011: 161). The law tracks the annual yearly

progress of schools, and places under-achieving schools on a five

year timeline for reform; this timeline allows the school two

years to improve before the state takes “corrective action,”

ranging from offering public school choice to parents to outright

shutting down the school and reopening it as a private or

chartered institution (Klaf and Kwan, 2010: 198).

Criticisms

Although No Child Left Behind’s policies assess the quality

of public schools, and this worthwhile knowledge could be used to

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hold administrators and teachers accountable, the program does

not improve the human capital of its students. This paper

examines two particular criticisms that illustrate how human

capital is a secondary focus of the accountability approach: No

Child Left Behind impinges on schools’ decision-making abilities

and their funding.

First, the measure denies schools’ abilities to make

independent choices because of it compels schools to implement

“test-driven standardized teaching” (Lipman, 2004: 170).

Administrator worried about the prospect of a school “failing”

may allocate the institution’s scarce resources differently;

often times this results in broad cuts to art, music, social

studies, and enrichment programs in favor of more intensively-

tailored programs in math and reading (Dee and Jacob, 2009: 419).

This is a forced trade-off depresses the human capital of certain

students by denying them a rich education and actually amplifies

inequality: administrators at traditionally “passing” schools can

offer to their students access to broader resources and programs

unavailable at under-performing schools (Jennings and Rentner,

2006: 111). 6

Due to the resource constraints at-risk institutions face,

the result of No Child Left Behind is a scholastic incentive to

teach to the test and focus attention away from those who “either

score proficiently or far below the margin” – schools direct

attention toward ensuring the broadest swath of children that can

pass the test, essentially choosing to ignore the extremes: those

who have either clearly demonstrated (Klaf and Kwan, 2010: 201).

Furthermore, empirical studies of No Child Left Behind conclude

that the law actually had the smallest effect on the schools most

likely to face sanctions, its targeted audience – students in at-

risk schools often times do not show improvement after the

imposition of No Child Left Behind’s policies (Ballou and

Springer, 2008: 23). Thus, the education at many under-

performing or at-risk schools continues to be unequal to that

offered elsewhere (i.e., suburban districts with means), a

blatant contradiction to entire the point of the program! In the

lens of this criticism, No Child Left Behind fails to raise the

quality of schools, and instead potentially decreases the human

capital of students.

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A second criticism levied at No Child Left Behind notes the

policy’s laser-like focus on lowering costs, and the related

implications. The program represents, in the words of former

Secretary of Education Margaret Spelling, “an attempt to move

beyond the welfare state’s ‘throw-money-out-hope-for-the-best’

strategy” (Klaf and Kwan, 2010: 204). It made aid for each

school contingent upon displaying results; this forced to meet a

new set of standards on public schools with little-to-no funding

to accompany the implementation of the policy (Klaf and Kwan,

2010: 204). If schools could not demonstrate that their students

could successfully pass tests, they would lose funding and

further deteriorate in aspects correlated with high performance –

these include class size, facility enhancement, access to library

books, and workplace attractiveness to younger would-be teachers

– and further be unable to meet students’ needs (Hursh, 2007:

297; Klaf and Kwan, 2010: 205).

As noted above, the final penalty for repeated under-

achieving resulted in school closure that would leave thousands

of area children without local access to education necessary for

building human capital (a counter-intuitive result of the program8

that aims to increase the quality of local schools) (Klaf and

Kwan, 2010: 197). Some educators have thus argued that No Child

Left Behind establishes “de facto ‘educational apartheid’ along

racial and class lines, whereby affluent children attend quality

schools and disadvantaged children are funneled into alternative,

failing public schools;” all the while the issue of actually

educating children becomes obfuscated in a race toward higher

accountability (Klaf and Kwan, 2010: 206; Hursh, 2007: 304). In

the haste to identify failing schools, the policy addressed

education reform only in the context of providing more efficient

services, with efficiency determined by total expenditures, not

the benefits of investing in the human capital of the student.

As these criticisms demonstrate, No Child Left Behind fails

to address the puzzle of adequate education reform since it fails

to address the human capital of students. No Child Left Behind

thus “merely adjusts the status quo, or worse still ends up

reproducing it” (Klaf and Kwan, 2010: 205). In summation, No

Child Left Behind attempts to increase the quality of schools,

but instead impinges on the ability of schools to function. It

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demonstrably and deleteriously impacts the ability of students to

build up their human capital.

Main Argument

Rationale

The accountability mindset toward education reform seeks to

specifically ensure that schools produce successful students, as

determined through testing. As demonstrated above, it does not

invest in the human capital of students. If education enriches

human capital, then expanding access to education ostensibly

enriches human capital in a greater sense (Benabou,2002: 484).

So, rather than approach the issue with an eye towards cost

efficiency, this paper argues that higher levels of spending

expand access to education; they are necessary to increase human

capital through education policy (Carrasso, Reynolds, Steurerle,

2008: 5). Because a college education so dramatically transforms

life trajectories, ensuring the most people have the opportunity

to pursue one provides an obvious starting point (St. John, 2002:

2; Haskins, 2008: 6). However, since education starts long

before individuals attend college, this capital investment must

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start at the earliest of ages and continue throughout students’

academic careers (Calman, et al., 2005: 1).

This section proceeds by, first, explaining the rationale

behind the argument for increased access and, then, identifying

the variables integral to carrying this argument forward, which

will flow into the next section on the methodology of this paper.

Proponents for expanding access fundamentally rely on evidence

that an increase of public education expenditures as a share of

GDP increases education quality (Keller, 2010: 54). The federal

government has at its disposal a wide “arsenal” of different

spending tools to equalize access to education for poorer

students, including grants, loans, and tax breaks, which remain

under-utilized (Haskins et al., 2009: 5). Options like Pell

Grants address the “unrealized potential” of poor children who

cannot afford college, and choose to forego higher education; as

noted above, the cost of foregoing a college education is hardly

marginal (Haskins et al., 2009: 13).

These options, however, are under-utilized. This paper

presumes that increased spending on grants invests in human

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capital by offering to more students the opportunity of a college

education (Haskins et al., 2009: 15). An effective federal

education policy, however, must also focus on the school

readiness of children so that they can attain future levels of

academic success (Puma, et al., 2010: 2). These programs,

exemplified by Head Start, offer to 900,000 children

opportunities for early education and development (Ludwig and

Phillips, 2007: 2). Those funds are as equally important as and

significant as spending on higher education (Haskins et al.,

2009, 39). This paper attempts to show that, in tandem,

adequately funding both college and early education ventures more

completely solves the puzzle that is US education policy through

raising human capital.

Variables

Human capital, as defined above, refers to the skills and

knowledge possessed by individuals. Capital, in a Marxist sense,

not only produces but also increases the ability to produce

(Marx, 1867: 280). So, an investment in human capital implies an

enhancement in the human ability to produce. Two proxy dependent

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variables emerge that foster human capital: access to and

effectiveness of educational programs. Access refers to the

extent to which opportunities for human capital enrichment exist

– the ability to pursue higher or supplementary education

programs – as influenced by descriptive independent variables

that explain how the program works and the extent of its short-

term effects. Effectiveness determines whether or not these

programs maximize their potential to expand access to education,

highlighting any potential obstacles that may impede expanding

access and, thus, human capital enrichment.

Methodology

Case Studies

To pursue its main argument, the paper will engage in a

qualitative review of the Pell Grant and Head Start programs.

The paper analyzes Pell Grants to discern the overall

transformative effect of higher education on human capital. It

scrutinizes Head Start to understand how early opportunities for

education at younger ages can also cultivate human capital.

Operationalization

13

As this is a quantitative analysis, other accounts and

reviews of the programs in question will provide the data for

analysis. Any operationalization that takes place will proceed

in this paper’s analysis of the Pell Grant and Head Start

programs ability to increase access, and to do so effectively, of

education.

Case Study I: Pell Grants

Overview

Increasingly, the pathway toward maximizing one’s human

capital leads to a school door. A strong correlation exists

between level of educational attainment and individual income,

adding a practical component to the answer as to why one should

pursue education (Haskins, Holzer, and Lerman, 2008: 7). The

likelihood of earning an income that places one within the top

two quintiles of earnings reaches as high as 75% to 81%,

depending on whether or not an individual has attained a college

education (Haskins, 2008: 5). Demonstrably, a college education

boosts the economic fortunes. However, beyond its economic

returns, higher levels of education correlates to more productive

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progeny, healthier living, more charitable giving and savings,

and lower crime rates (Haskins, Holzer, and Lerman, 2008: 10).

In several senses, then, education boosts human capital.

Significant research reveals, however, that for some the pathway

is impeded, the school door remains locked – lower-income

students face financial challenges and obstructions in their

quest to achieve a college degree (Allen, et al., 2003: 2). Thus

emerges the importance of the Pell Grant program.

Created in 1972 as an amendment to Lyndon Johnson’s Higher

Education Act of 1965, Pell Grants constitute the “largest need-

based federal grant program” available to those who seek

postsecondary education in the US (Wei and Carroll, 2002: 1).

The subsidy program reaches both far and deep. As of 2000,

approximately 36% of students who earned a bachelor’s degree

received at least one Pell Grant; as of 2007, the US government

awarded over $13 billion in Pell Grant funds to 5 million

undergraduates (Wei and Horn, 2009: 1). These essentially free

funds specifically target lower-income and traditionally under-

represented groups in higher education. Of those who received

funds, 77% of students’ families earned less than $25,000, the 15

lowest quintile in the distribution of income in the US;

comparatively only 2% of those students receiving funds had total

family incomes higher than the median level of $45,000 (Wei and

Horn, 2009: 1). This section reviews the Pell Grant program,

noting its ability to provide access to higher education through

subsidies. However, budget constraints on the program appear to

hamper the program’s effectiveness. Thus emerges a prescription

that policy-makers can pursue in order to maximize an investment

in the human capital of the lower-income citizenry.

Providing Access to Quality Higher Education

The supply of college-educated workers in the labor force is

severely dampened – some economists suggest that the rate of

return on a college degree would remain stable even if the

percentage of college-educated workers rose by as much as 25%

(Haskins, Holzer, and Lerman, 2008: 11). This gap is largely due

to students who are academically qualified to pursue a bachelor’s

degree choosing not to due to income constraints (St. John, 2002:

2). The Federal Government, through the Pell Grant program,

attempts to remedy buttress this supply: in 2006, it transferred

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over $23.5 billion to college students with no strings attached

(Carrasso, Reynolds, and Steuerle, 2008: 16). This allocation

helps address a fundamental problem in higher education that did

not exist a few decades ago.

Pell Grants provide lower-income and lower-income and

traditionally under-represented students with access to the most

competitive colleges and universities in the land. The raw

numbers demonstrate the extent to which Pell Grants facilitate

the pursuit of higher education. Since the program’s inception,

the government increased the number of recipients by a factor of

45, from 176,000 in 1974 to 8,094,024 to 2010; similarly, average

aid has increased from $270 to $3,706 over that time (US

Department of Education, 2010: 10). These figures clearly

illustrate that the Pell Grant Program has provided access to

higher education for several million individuals each year.

Although correlation is not causation, the several-fold increases

in recipients and average aid packages suggest that millions more

individuals today more comfortably derive the benefit of a

college education than was previously the case.

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The statistics discussed above offer insight into the

benefits of the Pell Grant program in expanding access to higher

education at a macro-level, that includes both two-year technical

and four-year academic institutions. A further analysis of Pell

Grants reveals that the program assists a significant portion of

lower-income individuals to fulfill their potential at

academically-rigorous colleges. In 2002, higher education

institutions on Barron’s list of the 145 most competitive

colleges in the US had enrolled 629,590 students, of whom 104,102

or approximately 17% received Pell Grants (Heller, 2002: 5). Of

note, 196, or 10.1%, of the 1948 students enrolled at Carleton

College received Pell Grants (Heller, 2002: 5). Again, although

correlation is not causation, the weight of these figures – as

many as two in five students in some highly-selective

institutions – indicate that Pell Grants provide an opportunity

for academically gifted, lower-income students to thrive, to

invest in their own human capital.

Segmenting the total population of college-going students

between Pell Grant recipients and non-recipients yields a wealth

of data as to the extent to which the program extends access to 18

traditionally under-represented groups in higher education.

Women and minorities comprised a larger proportion of the

population of recipients (60% and 37%, respectfully), than of

non-recipients (56% and 20%, respectively); the proportion of

recipients whose parents attained only a high school education

approximately doubles that of non-recipients (41% and 21%,

respectively) (Wei and Horn, 2002: 8). In total, these figures

demonstrate that Pell Grants extend access to higher education,

across income boundaries. These positive results demonstrate

that investment in human capital occurs through spending to

increase access to education, not raising the accountability of

beneficiaries.

Are These Resources Enough?

The previously-examined statistics demonstrate that Pell

Grants do indeed extend access to higher education. The benefits

of post-secondary education, as indicated above, are considerable

and indisputable. The investment these grants enable regarding

individual human capital crystalizes its worthiness as a national

education policy, as compared to the accountability approach

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reviewed earlier. However, that the Pell Grant program

demonstrably expands access to higher education does not imply

that the program as it stands is without fault. This section

outlines a major criticism of the Pell Grant program, namely that

the grant amount itself might be insufficient (Rubin, 2011: 675).

Data on the enrollment rates across income quartiles show an

vast gulf in the across the groups emerging between 1980 to 1993

– as tuition costs began rising three decades ago, the difference

in enrollment rate of students from the highest and lowest grew

by 12% (Kane, 1995: 6). This seems to indicate that, although

Pell Grants subsidize the cost of higher education for some

lower-income students and increase the number of those who seek

higher education, overall trends in tuition costs work against

efforts to expand access to education. Even given the above-

mentioned significant increases in average grant levels since the

its inception, that the average Pell Grant still only funds 10%

of a college education provides further evidence of this (Rubin,

2011: 676).

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However, precipitous rises in tuition costs do not pose the

only impediments to the long-term effectiveness of Pell Grants.

The tripling of college tuition over the past two decades,

coupled with the ceaselessly increasing costs of airfare, books,

board, and room, add additional burdens to all students, low-

income or not (Draut, 2009: 1). These costs increasingly

marginalize the significant sums spent on the Pell Grant program,

forcing up to 88% of its recipients to borrow to make up the

difference; comparatively, only 47% of the non-recipients seek

out loans to pay for college (Rubin, 2011: 688). Students

seeking to invest in their human capital through a college

education thus find themselves with two choices: take on

burdensome debt through signing for a loan, or forego a college

education. Recent empirical analyses reveal that the current

amount of given aid, unsurprisingly, does not actually increase

the probability of college-enrollment of lower-income students,

as students make a short-term cost-benefit analysis (Rubin, 2011:

685).

Evidently, the Pell Grant system as it stands does not

maximize the expansion of access to higher education as much as 21

it could. That, despite the free money provided by the Pell

Grant program for the benefit of higher study, still about two-

thirds of the population seeks out higher education somewhat

corroborates this fact (US Department of Education, 2010). The

trajectory of higher education costs simply dwarf the

comparatively limited funds provided to students through the Pell

Grant system. Prohibitively high, these costs compel some

students to choose instead to forego a college education. This

missed investment in human capital, as evidenced from earlier in

this paper, carries with it great and potentially lasting

ramifications.

The Policy Prescription

The Pell Grant program clearly expands access to higher

education. Several million more individuals have attended

college more comfortably because of the subsidies the program

provides. These subsidies, thus, clearly have enabled low-income

and other traditionally under-represented students to invest in

their own human capital, to unleash opportunities once

unavailable to them. With regards to federal US education

22

policy, policy-makers have before them in the Pell Grant program

an initiative that works both theoretically and actually – and

offering subsidies for college education to students is also

simply good politics. The grant-based system also implements a

structure by which students can invest in their own human capital

with no burden to pay back any creditor. However, the

effectiveness of the program still remains in doubt due to the

relatively diminishing amount of funds in lieu of rapidly

accelerating costs in higher education.

To increase the effectiveness of the Pell Grant program,

then, little alternative exists policy-wise, but to increase the

amount of funds allocated toward Pell Grants in the federal

budget. In 2006, the Pell Grant expenditures – $23.5 billion –

signified less than 1% of the total US Federal Budget, wherein

$88.7 billion, or 3.4% of expenditures, accounted for funding in

“education and training” (Carrasso, Reynolds, Steurerle, 2008:

16). Five years later, and in a time when massive investments in

human capital are warranted, spending on the program has barely

increased $6 billion, to $29.6 billion (US Department of

Education, 2010: 10). 23

Two particular suggestions exist to increase the

effectiveness of Pell Grants. First, raising the amount awarded,

while keeping constant or even decreasing tuition would seem the

most apparent solution, but that “is extraordinarily unlikely”

(Rubin, 2011: 688). This leaves policy-makers with the

alternative option of increasing significantly the amount of aid

awarded, relative to the rising costs of tuition. Currently,

although the expected average grant for students in 2012 is

$5050, it amounts to less than 10% of the comprehensive fee to

attend Carleton College (Rubin, 2011: 688). For many lower-

income students, the subsidy proves negligible in the short-term

(Rubin, 2011: 686). Nevertheless, this evidence does suggest

that the Pell Grant program, if funded properly, does indeed

provide a step in the right direction, toward a more effective

approach of increasing capital investment in the students of

America. This is, therefore, a robust alternative to the

accountability approach, investing in the future by providing

individuals the chance to maximize their human capital through a

college education. In this specific case, the alternative to the

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accountability approach requires increased spending to subsidize

access to higher education.

Case Study II: Head Start

Overview

An effective education policy must promote investment in

human capital at every level of achievement. Although expanding

for all individuals in the United States the access to a college

education may ascend the highest of all virtue, its impact will

remain inhibited unless all children, including those from poorer

socio-economic backgrounds, develop readiness for school

(Haskins, 2008: 11). Furthermore, researchers suggest that a

child’s lack of preparedness manifests itself in both significant

and persistent disparities regarding cognitive development going

forward (Calman, et al., 2005: 17). However, despite the

apparently critical nature of early education, state governments

focused on budget cutbacks persist in slashing allocations for

educational development (Calman, et al., 2005: 1).

This belies the long-term benefit of quality early childhood

education. Longitudinal studies of the 1963 High/Scope Perry 25

Preschool Program in Michigan reveal that adults who had been

enrolled in the preschool program as children were more likely at

the age of 40 to have graduated from high school (65% to 45%),

and to have found gainful employment (76% to 62%), and to earn

higher incomes ($20,800 to $15,300) than their counterparts who

did not participate (Calman, et al., 2005: 12). Although these

data were derived from a sample size of one program that catered

to 123 individuals, this case exemplified to the Federal

Government the need for investment in childhood education.

Eighteen months later, the Federal Government created the Head

Start preschool program.

Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty initiative introduced the

Head Start program in 1965 to raise the primary school readiness

of low-income children (Puma, el al, 2010: 2). The middle of the

1960s proved to be a time of immense economic expansion in the

United States; legislators thus felt it the feeling “it was

immoral to allow [poverty] to persist amidst affluence,” setting

the stage for federal action (Kalifeh, et al., 2011: 39). The

program has “the ambitious mandate” of improving scholastic and

developmental outcomes for and meeting the cognitive, health, and26

social needs of lower-income children (Puma, et al., 2010:

xxxvii). Contemporary research reveals the necessity of the

program and its mandate. Despite their plasticity, children who

enter school “behind” their peers will likely stay cognitively,

developmentally, and emotionally behind their peers –these

difference both crystalize and persist (Calman, et al., 2005:

12). And several studies cite a robust return to this

investment, ranging from $4 to $7 accruing to public benefit for

every dollar spent on early childhood education (Calman, et al.,

2005: 16). This section reviews the Head Start program as an

education policy, noting the short-term goals and immediate

results of the program, as it expands access to higher education.

The longer-term cost-benefit analysis shows the program’s

effectiveness at investing in its participants’ human capital –

it depicts that these short-term investments do not prove

ephemeral, that the program is indeed effective. As such, this

case will demonstrate the power of the federal government to

craft effective education policy that expands access to education

opportunities.

Providing Access to Basics27

Head Start, in 2007, spent $7000 for the benefit of lower-

income preschool-aged children in the United States (Ludwig and

Phillips, 2007: 13). To qualify for the program, children must

come from families that are below the poverty line. From 1965 to

2003, 22 million children enrolled in the program (Puma et al.,

2010: 5). Comparatively, the program spends approximately twice

the amount per child for more than double the children, than does

the Pell Grant initiative as discussed earlier; though, an

examination of the mission of the Head Start program since its

inception shows it to be much more expansive of a program

(Kalifeh, et al., 2011: 40). Whereas the Pell Grant system

attempts to subsidize higher education and provide access to

human capital investment for lower-income students, the

initiatives in Head Start actively and dynamically combat poverty

and the barriers that impede human capital investment over time

(Kalifeh, et al., 2011: 42). Policy instruments have ventured to

provide health screenings and meals, accommodate students with

disabilities, and hire teachers with advanced degrees in

education were thought to allow children to “break out” of a

cycle of poverty (Kalifeh, et al., 2011: 43). This whole-child

28

focus minimizes and mitigates against factors that may distract

the child from work in the future, such as illness and

malnutrition. In this sense, the program allows children and

teachers to focus on academic enrichment and growth in human

capital.

In the short-term, the results of this enrichment are

significant. This evidence suggests that Head Start’s spending

increases access to education and opportunities for human capital

enrichment. Head Start provides to disadvantaged children better

educational services, from better-trained teachers to smaller

classroom sizes (Puma, et al., 2010: 318). Peer children who

participated in the program, as compared to those who did not,

scored an average 0.25 standard deviation higher score on

vocabulary tests within the Head Start group (Ludwig and

Phillips, 2007: 16). The program thus places children on a

higher academic track as compared to their peers, evidenced by

the higher test scores. Although, unsurprisingly, the Head Start

graduates attended schools with disproportionately higher levels

of poverty, the children appear to be less prone to hyperactivity

and have increased literacy and social skills (Puma, et al., 29

2010: 318). Finally, parents of children enrolled in Head Start

programs take a more active, and arguably productive, role in the

education of their children – the program correlates with an

increase in how often parents read to their children and a

decrease in spanking as a discipline tool (Puma, et al., 2010:

320). Thus, the program deters behaviors counter-productive to

accessing education, such as absenteeism among parents and apathy

among children. As an investment, it opens doors to lower-income

children previously thought to be locked. More than that of the

accountability approach, which ironically targets the same at-

risk population, the Head Start program illustrates in another

instance that spending results in an expansion of access to

education, which thus proves a fruitful investment in human

capital.

The Long-Term Effects of Head Start

Head Start in the short-run expands access of education to

lower-income students by providing supplementary opportunities to

break from the cycle of poverty. From minimizing the number of

disruptions to education to increasing the involvement of

30

parents, Head Start undoubtedly provides children opportunities

in the short-term that, without the resource, likely would not

exist. However, many wonder of the long-term effectiveness of a

program that provides education to a disadvantaged population

(Ludwig and Philips, 2007: 3). To gauge the effectiveness of

Head Start, this case now surveys the long-term benefits of the

program.

The benefits of Head Start participation as an investment in

human capital prove surprisingly clear. Significant evidence

suggests that Head Start participation actually correlates to a

higher likelihood of college enrollment. Caucasian students who

attended a Head Start preschool, as compared to siblings who

attended another alternative preschool, are 22% more likely to

complete high school and 19% more likely to attend some college

(Ludwig and Phillips, 2007: 8). Furthermore, increased funding

for the program itself correlates to a 15% higher likelihood of

college attendance of the program’s beneficiaries (Ludwig and

Phillips, 2007: 10). As it follows, if, in the long-term,

students who attended Head Start preschools have a higher rate of

31

enrollment into college, which, itself, increases human capital,

then Head Start effectively raises human capital.

The social benefits, too, demonstrate the remarkable effect

of Head Start. Other analyses have determined each additional

dollar spent on Head Start correlates to decreases in child

mortality and increases in educational attainment (Puma, et al.,

2010: 241). This seems to adhere to the broad, ambitious

mission of the program to ensure the mental, physical, and

emotional health of its participants as part of the schooling.

Thus, unsurprisingly, the likelihood of a Head Start student

experiencing childhood obesity also decreases with participation

in the program (Ludwig and Phillips, 2007: 11). Overall, the

increased access to capital enrichment is withstanding; the funds

spent on the Head Start program generate effective outcomes both

socially and with regards to educational attainment. Although

the system is by no means runs perfectly, this paper does not

propose any policy recommendations as to Head Start as it did

with the Pell Grant case; unlike what this paper previously

covered, the Head Start program demonstrates the power and

32

effectiveness of government spending to grant access to

education.

Conclusion

Inequities in educational attainment manifest themselves in

inequities in income; these persist and can potentially truncate

life trajectories. This paper attempts to bring clarity to the

jigsaw puzzle that is the United States education policy. The

dominant forces in recent policy favored an accountability

methodology in education, stressing an imposition of standards on

public schools, advocating for cutting costs, and reforming so-

called failing schools. Dissected in a literature review, the

policy initiated out of this mindset to education reform,

however, does not consider the very real repercussions of

impinging on schools’ abilities to make decisions and using

funding-based sanctions to remedy so-called ‘failure.’ Focusing

on increasing the accountability of schools fails to invest in

the human capital of students.

This paper, thus, has argued for an ideal that increases

access to education through investment in human capital. Two

33

programs – the Pell Grant and Head Start – demonstrate that

investment in education at the post-secondary and preschool

stages increase access to educational opportunities that can lead

to human capital enrichment. Whereas the Pell Grant is not as

effective as it could be in expanding this access due to a

limitation of funds, a review of Head Start, which applies twice

as many funds to double the recipients, reveals the fruit of

successful investment in human capital. To move forward, this

paper stresses the need for continued investment in education, at

both the higher and earlier levels. Doing so will clarify that

the pieces of the US education policy puzzle come together to fit

most effectively within the paradigm that expands access.

34

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