Economic Impact of Early Learning | Early Learning

Studies show 7% return on investment Both Governor Chris Gregoire and event chair Charley Bingham quoted a study on the rate of return for early learning investments at the Children's Museum of Tacoma's annual Power of Play Lunch. Here are some more details. Senior Executives of the Federal Reserve Bank in Minnesota met with Washington Learns folks and presented the results of a 40 year study of two cohorts of children: one with consistent, quality care and one where the children bounced around without much security of quality care.

Quality care avoided a huge amount of social service costs and produced a dramatic difference in earnings from age 20 to 40. In constant dollars, the return on state investment in early learning was 7% compounded yearly for 40 years.

Here are a few resources for more details on the subject:

As States Tackle Poverty, Preschool Gets High Marks
Deborah Solomon, Wall Street Journal
August 2007

The ABCs of Early Childhood Development
Report from a conference on the economics of early childhood development.
December 2003

by Reena Hensley | Comments (0)

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