Is concurrent enrollment the answer? Part 2

Yesterday, I wrote about the academic advantages of concurrent enrollment. I believe that beyond the advantages of keeping more kids in school and allowing them to graduate sooner, there are also advantages to society at large. I haven't bothered to do the calculations so far, but perhaps I'll think more about it in the future or allow an economist who gets paid to do these things have at it.

So, here is my list of economic advantages:

• States pay less overall for education as students spend approximately two fewer years in college
• Students add two years of earning power
• The economy adds additional workers and consumers

A universal concurrent enrollment system would likely decrease the number of teachers needed, which is a downside for individual teachers, but an upside for a system that has a difficulty finding good teachers. Assuming that the 25% reduction in the number of teachers (combining 8 years of education into 6 years) can be done by eliminating the least effective teachers, education should improve as well as graduate more students.

This is an overly simplistic calculation. I understand that, but certainly one that bears consideration, especially as we wrestle with both funding issues and the difficulty of attracting high quality teachers to the profession.