In these tough economic times, how can the Career Technical Education (CTE) community band together to show the value of CTE to individuals and society? Stakeholders in education and many other fields struggle to receive support through dwindling federal or state funds because they often lack the resources or sufficient data to provide strong evidence of program efficacy.

Widely used to evaluate cost-effectiveness, return on investment (ROI) studies in education specifically aim to evaluate the connection between spending and educational outcomes. Strategies that show more efficient overall use of funds demonstrate a higher rate of return on investment.

A new policy paper from the McGraw-Hill Research Foundation, an organization that advances 21st Century global education and knowledge, provides several examples of ROI studies that show a positive economic impact for adult education and training. The authors describe how increasing investments in adult education would actually save the government money by reducing societal healthcare, public assistance and incarceration costs in addition to providing direct economic benefits for individuals and society.

Read more about states and organizations that have made efforts to quantify the ROI of adult education in the full report.