Education as an Industry

This volume contains eleven papers that were presented at the National Bureau of Economic Research's conference, "Education as an Industry," which was held in Chicago in June 1971. As the name suggests, the focus of the conference was on the internal workings of the educational system—its production functions, cost functions, and productivity. Thus, the conference was a natural sequel to the 1968 NBER Conference on Education and Income, held at the University of Wisconsin, at which the papers, with one exception, dealt with the effects of education.
Part One of this volume contains four papers dealing with educational production. Part Two contains two early attempts to apply the methods of economic analysis to problems of compensatory education for disadvantaged students. Part Three contains studies of problems of higher education. In the concluding paper to this volume, Joseph Froomkin discusses policy issues that are illuminated by research that views education as an industry and suggests lines that further research should take.