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Early Childhood Education

W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research

Upjohn Institute Policy Papers

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A Benefit-Cost Analysis Of Tulsa Pre-K, Based On Effects On High School Graduation And College Attendance, Timothy J. Bartik, William T. Gormley, Sara Amadon, Douglas Hummel-Price, James Fuller Sep 2022

A Benefit-Cost Analysis Of Tulsa Pre-K, Based On Effects On High School Graduation And College Attendance, Timothy J. Bartik, William T. Gormley, Sara Amadon, Douglas Hummel-Price, James Fuller

Upjohn Institute Policy Papers

This paper presents new benefit-cost estimates for the Tulsa universal pre–K program. These calculations are based on estimated effects, from two recent papers, of Tulsa pre–K on high school graduation rates and college attendance rates of students who were in kindergarten in the fall of 2006. In the current paper, educational effects from these prior papers are used to infer lifetime earnings effects. Our conservative estimates suggest that per pre–K participant, the present value of earnings effects in 2021 dollars is $25,533, compared with program costs of $9,628, for a benefit-cost ratio of 2.65. Compared to prior benefit-cost studies of …