The Impact of College Graduates on Bahamian Society: With Emphasis on Graduates from The College of The Bahamas

Society at large, both government and residents, invests in education, a process which is considered to reach its apex with a university qualification. Economically, education is typically seen to be both a private and public good, and so it is useful to determine the benefits to both the individual and society arising from this investment. This paper examines the economic contributions of university-educated Bahamians to society. Using information obtained from The College of The Bahamas and other official sources, the study demonstrates that having a populace with higher education has a beneficial impact upon the Bahamian economy.


INTRODUCTION
Politicians throughout the world make myriad promises to electorates with the objective that their agenda for the county will result in their being elected to government. A common promise made during elections is that of increased economic prosperity. Associated with this promise is that of greater educational opportunity, as it is appreciated that in today's society, unless one has the necessary educational qualifications one's work opportunities and income will be limited.
The inauguration of The College of The Bahamas was a manifestation of such political promises made at the time of Independence in 1973. At the opening of the College in 1975, the Prime Minister stated that the College would soon become a university; a promise which still remains unfilled. However, the government's commitment to transforming the College to a university was more recently restated in 2012 (Progressive Liberal Party, 2012, p. 139). This apparent ambivalence, or at least caution, towards higher education in The Bahamas may reflect a lack of awareness of the contribution which those who have university-level qualifications make to Bahamian society. While there have been studies undertaken elsewhere to show the impact of higher education on society (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2012), no similar study appears to have been done for The Bahamas, although a positive impact has been assumed and articulated by Keva Bethel (1999).
value of higher education to the Bahamian economy. I attempt to determine whether the promises of politicians are justified. Is public expenditure on higher education justified? Should public expenditure on higher education be seen as a priority? Education can be considered both a public and private good, so therefore, I shall explore the public and private benefits of Bahamians having a college/university education.

Funding the College of The Bahamas
The College is funded in part by a government grant of around $25 million dollars per annum. This represents only about half of the cost of educating students at the College in a given academic year as shown in Table 1. While this grant may appear to be a significant sum for a small country to spend on higher education, it represents only about 13% of the total amount spent by the Department of Education. As such, according to Altbach, Reisberg and Rumbley (2009) it is proportionately less than the amount spent on tertiary education in Barbados (30%), Jamaica (20%), United States (26%) and Canada (36%). The grant represented less than 1.3% of total government recurrent expenditure in 2012/13. Seen in this light, the investment by government does not seem large by international standards. The government grant is matched by funds obtained from various other sources to pay for students' education. Therefore, if education is seen as both a public and private good, the funding sources from both government and private sources reflect this in almost equal measure. The subvention per student has been about $5,100 in recent years. The subvention to the College assists in making a higher education available to those who might otherwise be disenfranchised. As adults have indicated, their level of education attainment was largely determined by the family's income, and so assistance beyond the family finances is clearly necessary if people are to obtain the education required by today's labour force (Table 2). Households in which family income has had a positive impact on educational attainment are able to enhance the potential educational attainment of their children as compared to children from lower income households (Exact χ 2 = 99.74, df = 32, n = 412, p < .001; This relationship still holds even when the data are adjusted for sex effect of respondents, as indicated by a Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel test for stratified tables).

What has been the College's contribution to educating the country?
Since the College opened, it has graduated over 12,000 students. In more recent years, it has focused on granting associate and baccalaureate degrees. Table 3 provides estimates that between 1990 and 2009 the majority of residents who obtained an associate degree did so from the College. During the same period, an increasing number of residents obtained baccalaureate degrees from the College. Between 2000 and 2009, the College of The Bahamas graduated almost 4,000 persons at the associate and baccalaureate levels. This represents a substantial proportion of those who had these qualifications in the country as seen in Table 4 below.  Given that the government invested about $25 million in the College in 2013, this represents a return of 140% on its investment. It should be noted that these estimated figures are based only on graduates with associate and baccaulaureate degrees from 2000-2009, so the yearly value added would be higher than this figure, as the College also produces graduates with certificates, diplomas and master degrees. It is clear from this conservative estimate that the College graduates generate more money than the government invests in the College per year.

Direct contribution of graduates to the economy
Several recent reports have indicated that the most important barrier to doing business in The Bahamas is a lack of an educated workforce (World Bank & International Finance Corporation, 2011). College and university graduates make a direct contribution to the economy through their labour skills. The various occupational groups require different skills, and unless there are people with the required skills in each occupation group, the economy and by extension the country will suffer. College and university graduates are to be found in those occupations that are more educationally based. It is clear from Table 6 that the cadre of college and university-educated persons play important roles in leadership and professional positions. This means that the country can supply its own demand for trained professionals, rather than turning to foreigners to supply the skills required by today's workforce.

Indirect contribution of graduates to the economy
In common with studies from elsewhere, for example the United States (Cunningham, 2006), college graduates in The Bahamas contribute a number of far-ranging benefits to society. In 2010, only 4.6% of those who had a university education were unemployed, compared to 15.4% of those who had a secondary education (Bahamas Department of Statistics, 2011). This suggests that many of those educated to the secondary level do not have the skills to support themselves, and so they cannot contribute economically to society. The value of incomes lost to society through unemployment can be estimated at between $330-$347 million for those with secondary school education and between $56.4-$81.9 million in the case of those with a college or university education. Given that the unemployed cannot consume goods and services at a similar rate as the employed, the government revenue base is subsequently reduced and this has implications for its budget and expenditure. In this regard, to educate more people beyond high school is advantageous to both government and society. college or university education being less likely to be obese than those with a high school education, 23.0% vs. 36.3% (Brathwaite, Brathwaite & Taylor, 2011). According to a study in the United States the cost of treating an obese person is similar to the cost of treating a smoker (Thompson, Edelsberg, Colditz, Bird & Oster, 1999 Due to their higher incomes, homes headed by college or university graduates are able to invest more in the education of their children, not only when using private schools but also public schools, Table 7. The differential in money spent on items such as books and supplies is marked between the two types of household. However, in the public school system, graduate-headed households still spend more on extra lessons that those headed by those with only a high school education. It is apparent that children of those from homes headed by a college or university graduate can be expected to have a more privileged or a more advantaged education as a result of their home circumstances. Clearly this has potential long-term consequences for the country as it attempts to increase the level of education of the population.

Crime and education
Crime in The Bahamas is not so much fuelled by poverty but by the perceived need to increase earnings so that lifestyles can be enhanced (Stevenson, 2012). Stevenson's study reveals that only 6.4% of inmates at HM Prison Fox Hill had a college education. Given that overall, university educated persons account for 19.5% of the population aged 15 and over not attending school, it may be argued that persons with higher education are less likely to be criminals. With crime being a major concern of society and politicians, higher education can be seen as a useful means of reducing criminality (Lochner & Moretti, 2003).
In 2012/13 the government estimated the cost of running the prison service at $23,036,978 (Bahamas Ministry of Finance, 2012). In 2012, there were about 1,550 inmates at HM Prison Fox Hill (Prison Numbers Swell, 2012). This suggests that it costs $14,863 per annum to house an inmate. The cost to society of confining inmates (incarceration and lost income) can be estimated at between $4.6-$6.1 million per year for those with a college or university degree and between $50.5-$52.0 million per year for those with a high school education.

Domestic violence
It is difficult to assess the full cost of domestic violence in any society (National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, 2003); however, it is clear that the costs (financial and social) are not negligible. Further, in a county with a high incidence of rape (U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime & World Bank, 2007) the relative cost of violence may be even higher in The Bahamas than elsewhere.
In the absence of an offender's registry, we can only state that as domestic violence is more likely to occur in poorer households (Carroll, Fielding, Brennen, & Hutcheson, 2011) and so by association, where residents would not have higher education, those with higher education will contribute less to the cost of domestic violence than those who do not have higher education.

Creating a culture of education
Richer homes (i.e. those of college graduates) are more likely to rear children who obtain a post-secondary qualification (Table 8).
Consequently, the sooner, and the larger the number of people who can be educated beyond high school, the more rapidly the country can expect that future generations will be educated beyond high school. This process is essential if The Bahamas is to have a sufficiently large pool of labour with adequate skills to advance economic activity. Therefore, the future success of the country is dependent upon the success of higher education today.

Creating a culture of gender equality
Despite the inequality faced by women in the region (Seguino, 2003), The Bahamas has a positive reputation in gender equality with one of the better gender inequality indexes (United Nations Development Programme, 2011, p. 139). This occurs despite the workplace still offering higher rewards to males than females.
Education helps in removing some of the inequalities that exist between males and females in the workplace. As shown in Table  9, females need higher levels of education than males in order to maximise their earnings. While the graduation ratio in favour of females at The College is sometimes considered a cause for concern (Brennen, 2003), a College education is an important means by which females can boost their earnings. Without the opportunity to get a higher level of education, females would face disadvantages to an even greater degree than they now do. This potential economic hardship is demonstrated by the fact that female-headed households in which children live have to survive on lower incomes than equivalent households headed by males, 19.4% of households headed by males have an income of $20,000 or less compared to 34.8% of female-headed households. Consequently, higher education is an important means by which women can distance themselves from economic adversity.

Creating a more stable society
Marriage is generally seen to be a stabilizing structure in society. It is commonly accepted that there are advantages to children being reared in homes where the parents are in a stable relationship (Parke, 2003). Residents with college or university education are more likely to be married than heads of households with a high school education. This is the case for both males and females. Therefore, it can be expected that there are complex, if illdefined, social advantages to the nation resulting from higher education and its association with formal household units.
According to the 2010 Census data, 31% of those with a high school education were currently married compared to 49% of college and university graduates (Bahamas Department of Statistics, 2012).

Private benefits of higher education
In addition to the public benefits of higher education, there are also private benefits which, while most obviously benefitting the individual, also have wider implications for society.
As noted above, college and university graduates earn more than those with a secondary school education. Not only is it the goal of many people to own their dwelling (Rodgers, 2013) but there are also social benefits to home ownership (Rossi & Weber, 1996). Households headed by college or university graduates are less likely to reside in rented accommodation than households that are headed by persons with secondary school education, 30.0% vs. 39.0% (Bahamas Department of Statistics, 2012). Therefore, a college or university education is an important factor in helping people meet the goal of home ownership.
Living in one's own home provides stability to household units that rental accommodation may not.
Further, it represents a real buy-in to the community in which those householders live and so further advantages can be expected to accrue to society (Coulson, 2002).
For those heads of households who reported paying rent or a mortgage, the median cost, $890, was higher for college or university educated heads of household than for those heads who had a secondary school education, $586 (Bahamas Department of Statistics, 2012). The higher costs paid by college or university educated heads of households reflects the nature of the accommodation. While the majority of households headed by either persons with a secondary or college or university education had concrete as the material for the outer walls, 13.8% of homes headed by those with a secondary school education had outer walls made of wood, as compared to 3.7% of homes headed by those with college or university education. This indicates that dwellings occupied by household heads with college or university education are different to those occupied by heads with a secondary school education. Again when household heads had a college or university education, they lived in newer homes (28.1% built before 1980) than when the household was headed by persons with secondary education (34.2% built before 1980). So not only are the dwellings of those with a college or university education newer, but they are also larger than the dwellings of those headed by those with a secondary school education, typically having one more bedroom (Bahamas Department of Statistics, 2012). Incidental expenditure on furnishings, maintenance etc. point to additional economic activity as a result of university or college educated householders living in larger dwellings. The ability to occupy larger and newer dwellings indicates the important contribution of college or university graduates to the building sector of the economy.
Households headed by those with a college or university education feature more motor vehicles than those headed by persons with a secondary school education (Bahamas Department of Statistics, 2012). This makes the occupants of these homes more mobile, and more likely to consume items that are taxed by government and so adding to government revenues. In the case of motor vehicles, college and university educated members of society will generate proportionately more technical jobs than those with a secondary school education through their demand for services and repairs.
Modern society is technologically driven; one feature of this is access to the Internet. College and university graduates are more likely to have access to the Internet than those with a secondary school education. Many jobs involve some use of computer-related technology, and communication is, in many instances, by e-mail or text. The figures in Table 10 show not only differences of Internet access by level of educational attainment, but also notable differences between the sexes when educated to a secondary school level.

Conclusion
The Bahamas has been successful in educating its population as far as high school (Taylor, Gibson, & Fielding, 2013). However, in today's competitive economic environment this achievement is not sufficient to propel the economic development of the country. Businesses need more highly-qualified workers than the high school system is now producing. More people need to be engaged in post-high school programmes. One way of achieving this is to provide accessibility to a quality college or university education in the country. The need for locally-funded higher education goes beyond the teaching function of the higher education institution; the benefits of university and college graduates to the country outweigh the cost of educating them to a tertiary level. These graduates become the motor that will generate more graduates to sustain the future growth of the economy. Their higher consumption of goods and services provided by the private sector in turn creates jobs and wealth for the wider economy. At the same time, college and university educated headed households are proportionately less reliant on public services than those headed by persons with a secondary school education, and so are less of a burden on the government purse. It is apparent that public expenditure on higher education can be justified as an area of priority as it accrues benefits far beyond the initial government investment. Consequently, it can be appreciated that the well-being of society is enhanced by having a populace with a college or university education.