I’m currently tweaking my proposal for an Adult Student Basic Income (ASBI), which would provide $1000 per month up to six years total for adults enrolled at least part-time* in postsecondary education and training. My first order of business is to figure out how much an ASBI would cost per year, on average. The answer largely depends on how many adult students partake of the benefit.

Currently, there are around 43 million adult students in the US at any given time, with “student” broadly defined to include training program participants. Here’s how I came up with that number: 

Note that most of those counted in the above table are not year-round students. Likewise, many ASBI-eligible students would only attend school part of the year. Some college students would take the summer off and many education and training programs last less than a year, e.g., the average coding bootcamp is just four-months long. So how does one go from the number of current adult students to the number of ASBI recipients per year? After much research and wasted time, I’ve come to the conclusion: one doesn’t - because the calculations would be insanely complicated as not all adult students would receive an ASBI under the system I’m proposing and, besides, there’s a much easier way to arrive at a decent number.

On the first point, the number of ASBI recipients would be lower than the number of adult students because many adult students would have already used up the six-year ASBI benefit. Think about it: almost half of 18- 21 years olds are in college and average time it takes to get what is still being called a “four-year” degree is actually six-years.  That means millions of tomorrow’s college graduates would not receive an ASBI if they pursued further education and training, such as online certificate programs, college extension courses, or coding bootcamp.

So what’s the better way to calculate the average number of ASBI recipients per year? Easy: assume the vast majority of ASBI recipients are between 18 and 64, a span of 46 years. These individuals would be able to receive an ASBI for up to six years, which is 13% of 46 years. Now assume that all 200 million US residents between the age of 18 and 64 received an ASBI for six years total. That translates to the equivalent of 26 million year-round ASBI recipients per year, on average (13% of 200 million).  Of course, not everyone would use up all six years of the ASBI so the actual number of ASBI recipients in an average year would be even lower. But my rule of thumb when working out budgets is to guess high on expenses, so I’ll stay with the 26 million a year.  

How many ASBI recipients would not have pursued further education or training without getting paid for it?  I’m guessing millions of US adults who are struggling financially but have limited job prospects. These include many of the over 40 million adults in the US  with low literacy, as well as a good number of low-income individuals with okay literacy but limited education and skills, such as the 48 million adults with no formal education past high school. Then there are the 19 million immigrant workers who lack proficiency in English. Yes, some of these groups overlap, but it still adds up to a lot of people.

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* ASBI applicants would have to submit documentation that they had enrolled in a class or program that typically involves at least nine hours of school work or training time per week, such as a 3-unit college class. ASBI recipients would receive $1000/month if they are enrolled in an education or training program at least a month long and with documented time requirements of at least 9 hours a week of schoolwork, such as time spent in class, lab, in the field, doing homework and studying. Schools and training programs would have to verify continued enrollment once a month and submit documentation of completed coursework. Schools would be periodically audited to ensure they are compliant and their documentation accurate. Adult students risk temporary suspension of ASBI benefits if they are found to have received ASBI under false pretenses, e.g., faking enrollment/participation in collusion with a training provider.

References:

“98 Internship Statistics: 2020/2021 Data, Trends & Predictions” by Arthur Zuckerman/CompareCamp. May 26, 2020 https://comparecamp.com/internship-statistics/

“Coursera Statistics, User Counts, and Facts (2021)” DMRhttps://expandedramblings.com/index.php/coursera-facts-statistics/

“MOOC Enrollment Explodes in 2020” by Dian Schaffhauser/ Campus Technology. January 15, 2021. https://campustechnology.com/articles/2021/01/05/mooc-enrollment-explodes-in-2020.aspx

“Registered Apprenticeship National Results Fiscal Year 2020” Dept of Labor/Employment and Training Administration https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/apprenticeship/about/statistics/2020

U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, School Enrollment Supplement, Table 6.  Employment Status and Enrollment in Vocational Courses for the Population 15 Years and Over, by Sex, Age, Educational Enrollment:   October 2017. https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/school-enrollment/2017/2017-cps/tab06.xlsx

U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, School Enrollment Supplement, Table 1.  Enrollment Status of the Population 3 Years and Over, by Sex, Age, Race, Hispanic Origin, Foreign Born, and Foreign-Born Parentage:  October 2017. https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/school-enrollment/2017/2017-cps/tab01-01.xlsx

“What Is The Adult Education System?” World Education.  https://www.worlded.org/WEIInternet/us/adult-ed-facts.cfm   Accessed July 21, 2021

Registered Apprenticeship National Results Fiscal Year 2020 https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/apprenticeship/about/statistics/2020