The Value of Education in the Wasatch Front North

Tyson Smith, Economist

Although college tuition has increased at an meteoric pace over the last 50 years, the value of obtaining a college degree still outweighs the costs according to a new study from the Pew Research Center. In fact, the study argues that “On virtually every measure of economic well-being and career attainment—from personal earnings to job satisfaction to the share employed full time—young college graduates are outperforming their peers with less education.” Not only are young graduates economically better-off than their peers, but the disparity in financial well-being is greater for this generation than any other generation in modern history.

Click on Chart to Enlarge Image

You may be wondering, “What is the effect of educational attainment on people that work in my county?” While we don’t have access to the same data at the county-level that the Pew Research article uses, there are proxies that can illuminate the value of education in the Wasatch Front North. The U.S. Census Bureau publishes the American Community Survey (ACS), which includes five-year population estimates for areas as small as census tracts and block groups. The ACS collects data on employment, education, and income. We can use ACS data to estimate the economic impact of higher education for each county in the state.

The Wasatch Front North counties follow the same pattern as the national trend. College graduates earn significantly higher wages than high school graduates. Furthermore, the proportion of college graduates living in poverty is much lower than the percent of high school graduates or less.

The ever-increasing costs of pursuing higher education, and the perilous consequences of astronomical student debt, have been well documented. However, it appears that the benefits of graduating from college continue to outweigh the costs.

Note: For more analysis of the favorable influence of educational attainment in the State of Utah, click here.

Suburban Utah sees huge spike in poverty

A new book released yesterday shows that between 2000 and 2011, the rise in suburban poverty rose 64 percent, more than twice the growth rate of poverty in cities.

By 2011, almost 16.4 million suburban residents nationwide lived below the federal poverty level — now surpassing the number of impoverished city dwellers by 3 million, according to Confronting Suburban Poverty in America, written by Elizabeth Kneebone and Alan Berube of the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Program.

Surprisingly, the suburban areas of three Utah cities ranked among the book’s top 15 in terms of fastest-growing poverty: Salt Lake City came in third with a 142 percent jump, the Provo-Orem area ranked eighth with a 129 percent increase and Ogden-Clearfield came in 14th with a bump of 105 percent.

Berube and Kneebone see this rapid growth in suburban poverty as more than a temporary change caused by the recent recession. They attribute the rise to shifts in jobs and wages, population growth and immigration, collapse of the housing market and the foreclosure crisis. Salt Lake Tribune

Midtown Health Center to expand its headquarters

Midtown Community Health Center is adding 15,000 square feet to its headquarters to try to meet the demands for affordable health care in Northern Utah. The center will have 12 new exam rooms and 10 dental operation rooms ready for business Tuesday. In addition, the expansion will allow for two community-based training programs. Family practice residents from McKay-Dee Family Medicine Residency Program will use six of the new exam rooms for rotations in prenatal care, said Midtown Executive Director Lisa Nichols. Six of the 10 dental rooms will be used to train dental hygiene students from Weber State University.

The remaining dental rooms will be used to expand dental services. Midtown provides a full range of services, including oral hygiene, root canals, fillings, dentures and implants on a sliding-fee scale.In addition to the expansion, Midtown’s existing space was renovated to accommodate growth and expand pharmacy services. The center currently operates a discount pharmacy that fills 45,000 prescriptions each year.

Today, the center serves 25,000 community residents at six sites in Weber and Davis counties. Sixty-seven percent of those patients are uninsured, 89 percent live at or below the federal poverty levels, 35 percent are children and 55 percent speak a language other than English. Those languages include Spanish, American Sign Language, Cantonese, Tagalog, Marshallese and Japanese. Standard Examiner

Current Ogden shelter too cramped, new digs in the works

A plan for a new St. Anne’s Center A capital fundraising campaign will get under way in January to raise between $6 million and $8 million for a new three-building St. Anne’s shelter in lower downtown Ogden. The center would be built on city-donated land with an expected completion by spring 2012. The current three-story shelter and soup kitchen at 137 W. Binford Ave. is no longer keeping pace with the growing need. Salt Lake Tribune