My new piece on Forbes.com, entitled “Graduation and the ROI of Universities – Transforming Lives and Communities,” dives into the deeper meaning of the ROI for higher education. Across the country, many students have recently graduated. Researchers often cite the “ROI,” or return on investment, which states the benefit purely in economic terms. College education across all majors returns multiples of the costs for tuition and fees from increased earnings throughout a career. The ROI for college degrees at a public institution in 2021 was $174,000 after 10 years and $714,000 after 20 years. Over longer horizons, the return on investment exceeded $1,000,000 in all degree categories. Graduation speeches across the country feature celebrities, politicians, and intellectuals to give hope and inspiration to new graduates. But perhaps the most inspirational part of graduation comes in the stories of the graduates. In my new piece in Forbes.com, I review the economic return from a college degree, and also share stories from the commencement ceremonies of Soka University of America (SUA), featuring 127 students, and at Arizona State University, which includes over 20,000 students and families, as well as the Starbucks SCAP ceremony. For both the largest and smallest universities, the return on investment comes in the form of students who deeply understand their role in communities and give back to those communities in innumerable ways. The impact of transforming these students and their communities is also impossible to quantify.

The article also shares stories from Soka University of America – where I work. This includes a quote from Orlando Bloom’s address at the SUA commencement describing how SUA’s founder Daisaku Ikeda told him, “The playwright August Strindberg wrote: ‘The actor must control the role and not let the role control him.’” Ikeda continued, telling Bloom, “The important thing is to remain true to yourself … You don’t define yourself solely in terms of your profession as an actor, or your work — that world is not enough for you, for you are dedicating your life to others.” This quote is a great encapsulation of the deeper meaning of both higher education and one’s work in life.