Four-year-olds in a Chapel Hill classroom are learning how to share, work through issues, and tolerate frustration long enough to find a solution. It doesn’t appear to be an economic strategy. It appears to be story time and finger painting. However, scholars who have spent decades tracking kids like these through school, the workforce, and the adult life arc will tell you that this room may be doing more for North Carolina‘s economy than anything currently taking place in a boardroom or a legislative chamber.
A body of evidence that began to accumulate here decades ago has been quietly expanded upon by the state. One of the longest-running early childhood studies in American history, the Carolina Abecedarian Project followed low-income children who were given excellent care beginning in infancy. It was difficult to dispute the results, which were measured repeatedly as those kids grew up. They made better lifestyle choices, had lower rates of high blood pressure, remained healthier into adulthood, and had a much lower risk of heart disease. These weren’t favorable results. These were quantifiable, financial results concealed within health data.
This picture was further complicated by Duke University researchers who discovered that North Carolina’s investments in early care and education resulted in lower grade retention, higher test scores, and fewer special education placements through fifth grade. The last point is more significant than most people realize: prevention at age three is significantly less expensive than remediation at age eight, and special education is costly. Sometimes the sentimentality of discussing children obscures the financial logic at play here.
James Heckman, an economist and Nobel laureate, has put nearly shocking numbers to this reasoning. For underprivileged children from birth to age five, high-quality programs can yield an annual return on investment of 13%. Thirteen percent. That is not a figure of charity. A venture capitalist would feel more at ease after seeing that amount. For every dollar invested in early education, the White House Council of Economic Advisers calculated that future earnings, lower crime rates, lower public health spending, and less reliance on social services would all contribute to a return of about $8.60. The majority of states continue to treat this as a soft budget line, which is difficult to ignore.
Quality early programs significantly reduced the likelihood that at-risk children would be arrested for a violent crime by the time they were eighteen, increased their employment prospects, and increased their average salaries by about 33% compared to their peers who did not participate. Additionally, they were more likely to be homeowners and less likely to have unmarried children. These are not a program’s results. These are the results of a different course in life, one that was altered prior to kindergarten.
Even when lawmakers move slowly, business executives appear to understand this. According to a Zogby survey, 74% of business executives stated that having a skilled workforce is the most important component of success. The abilities they listed—critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, and teamwork—do not emerge overnight at the age of eighteen. They grow slowly in settings where young children are both supported and challenged. Programs for young children lay that groundwork. Everything else in the educational system either struggles because it doesn’t exist or builds upon it.
The initiative in North Carolina isn’t flawless, and it’s still unclear if the funding commitments will remain in place as political conditions change. Observing this, however, gives the impression that the state has realized something that most discussions about economic development still completely overlook: a highway or data center isn’t the most effective infrastructure investment you can make. Twenty years ago, the neighborhood needed a preschool, and this one is well-run.
