Five Ways Ed Pays Houston Pilot

May 2011

Southwestern News

(From left) Kathryn Little and Christen Pollock of the College Board and HISD Superintendent Terry Grier

The College Board’s Advocacy & Policy Center and the Houston Independent School District are trying new ways to reach students with the message that “education pays.”

HISD is the first district in the country to partner with the College Board for the “Five Ways Ed Pays” campaign. The campaign highlights, in advertisements on posters, in brochures and on school buses rolling through the city, the benefits of higher education.

HISD Superintendent Terry Grier said, “Our students need to see what the research shows about the difference a college degree will make in their lives. It’s one thing to tell them, but it just carries more weight when you have the data to back that up.”

The campaign drives home five personal benefits of achieving a four-year college degree, including:

• Better Health. Individuals ages 25 to 34 with a four-year college degree are 70 percent more likely to engage in vigorous exercise than those with only a high school diploma.
• Closer Family. Parents with four-year college degrees are 68 percent more likely to have attended a concert or live show with their children than parents with only a high school diploma.
• Greater Wealth. Individuals with a four-year college degree earn an average of $22,000 more per year than those with only a high school diploma.
• More Security. Individuals with only a high school diploma are about twice as likely to be unemployed as those with a four-year college degree.
• Stronger Community. Individuals ages 18 to 24 with a four-year college degree were 75 percent more likely to vote in the 2008 election than those with only a high school diploma.

The campaign, aimed at HISD’s nearly 80,000 students and their families, as well as school counselors, is based on Education Pays 2010, one in a series of college affordability and financial aid reports issued by the College Board Advocacy & Policy Center to demonstrate the importance and benefits of college readiness, access and completion.

To read more about the campaign, click here.