The Value of Honors: Defined by Quality and Cost

Authors

Christopher Kotschevar, South Dakota State UniversityFollow
Nicholas Arens, South Dakota State UniversityFollow

Date of this Version

2022

Document Type

Article

Citation

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council, 2022, 23(1): 111–13

Comments

Copyright © 2022 Christopher Kotschevar & Nicholas Arens

Abstract

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2022) collection of essays about the value of honors to its graduates (1967–2019), the authors reflect on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience.

Value, simply defined, is quality divided by cost. Cost, whether it be in terms of money, time, energy, or another expense, is relatively easy to measure. Conversely, quality proves challenging to measure, regardless of the context. Typically, measuring quality is pursued with the purpose of quality improvement, such as in manufacturing or healthcare, and/or for the purpose of comparison, as demonstrated by the ever-growing industry of consumer ratings and reviews. Thus, the question of what the value of honors education is requires us to define what the cost of an honors education is and, perhaps more importantly, how we define the quality of honors education relative to other higher education modalities.