UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools

Study’s Purpose:

California’s public schools face significant pressure to improve across a range of metrics, to improve educational efficiency and reduce inequities between student groups. One student support framework is the Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS), which includes screening of students’ needs, monitoring their progress, data-based decision making and a multi-level prevention system. MTSS has the potential to maximize student success. However, to set MTSS in context, it is necessary to calculate the full economic consequences of failing to invest in MTSS (and other educational support strategies).

Here we investigate the economic consequences of failure to graduate from high school; chronic absenteeism; and disciplinary sanctions (suspension, expulsion, and restraint). Applying a standard economic model, we calculate the burdens to society, families, schools, and the California taxpayer. We find significant burdens from each perspective and that these burdens vary by race and student disadvantage. For example, there are racial inequities in how many students get suspended as well as the economic burden of these suspensions.

Research Methods:

We model the economic burdens across these three challenges—high school failure, absenteeism, and disciplinary actions—using a life-course trajectory model (Boardman et al., 2018; Levin et al., 2018) to estimate the long-term financial burdens of high school failure, absenteeism, and disciplinary actions in California. By assigning shadow prices—reflecting society’s willingness to pay for improvements—the model calculates lifetime costs and fiscal impacts from the perspectives of students, families, schools, and taxpayers. These costs are monetized using 2023 dollars and discounted to present value. The analysis reveals significant societal and fiscal gains from high school graduation, and substantial burdens from absenteeism and disciplinary sanctions, especially due to their effects on educational attainment and long-term earnings.

Key Findings:

Summary results show a social gain of almost one-half million dollars per extra high school graduate. For a 3 percentage point increase in the state-wide high school graduation rate, California would gain almost $10 billion in total and $3 billion in taxpayer savings. Economic calculations (Table S2) show the substantial economic burden for students who are off-track or have been disciplined. For each student who is chronically absent, the burden is $5,630. Disciplinary social burdens are also high: for each expulsion, for example, the social burden is $70,870.

Conclusion:

These calculations provide compelling evidence that educational support strategies such as MTSS are needed and that there is significant potential for them to be socially efficient.