Free education as a pathway out of poverty

Editorial Team SDG4
Sep 7
3 min read

I have long regarded education as a powerful lever in the battle against poverty, a conviction grounded not only in principle, but in hard data. Free education holds real potential to transform lives, but its success depends on precision in execution. Without sufficient funding, proper alignment with labour markets, and quality infrastructure, the policy risks becoming symbolic rather than substantive.

Measurable gains from free education

The economic returns to schooling are impressive. Cross-country reviews estimate a return of around 9 per cent per additional year of education, up modestly from 8.7 per cent before 2000. In specific settings like Tanzania, each additional year of schooling translates to a 9–11 per cent income increase.

In the United States, educational attainment has a dramatic impact on earnings. Bachelor’s degree holders earn 59 per cent more than high school graduates, while those with master’s degrees earn about 20 per cent more than those with bachelor’s degrees. On a lifetime basis, bachelor’s degrees add between €580,000 and €830,000 in median earnings for women and men respectively. Postgraduate degrees boost that figure to roughly €1 million for women and €1.4 million for men.

On the macroeconomic front, improvements in schooling, particularly in mathematics and sciences, are estimated to have driven three-quarters of global GDP growth between 1960 and 2000.

Social and developmental dividends

Beyond earnings, education delivers measurable social benefits. Maternal education is strongly linked to reductions in under-five mortality: each additional year of maternal schooling reduces child mortality by approximately 3 per cent. Over 12 years of maternal schooling, this aggregates to a 31 per cent reduction. Country-specific studies, such as in Malawi and Uganda, report child mortality reductions of around 10 per cent per year of maternal education. Historical analyses further suggest that between 1970 and 2009, increases in women’s education accounted for half of the decline in under-five mortality, saving over four million lives.

Nevertheless, abolishing school fees often exposes existing structural weaknesses. In sub-Saharan Africa, pupil-to-trained-teacher ratios remain alarmingly high, on average 58 pupils to one trained teacher at the primary level, and 43 to one at secondary level. This severely limits individual attention and erodes learning quality.

Financing also poses a significant challenge. Education can consume 15–20 per cent of national budgets in low-income countries, intensifying trade-offs with other critical sectors such as health and infrastructure.

Equally important is the relevance of what is taught. If curricula remain abstract and disconnected from local economies, even well-educated graduates may find themselves under-employed. In my view, vocational training, digital literacy, and financial education should form a core part of school programmes to ensure learners can translate credentials into livelihoods.

An integrated and strategic approach

For these reasons, I cannot view free education as a standalone solution to poverty. Poverty’s roots are multidimensional, spanning income, health, housing, and opportunity. Education can serve as a powerful multiplier, but only if paired with investment in teacher training, infrastructure, social protection, and alignment with market needs.

The Sustainable Development Goal on quality education rightly emphasises inclusivity and equity, but operationally the aim must be to ensure not just access, but access to transformative, high-quality learning.

Free education, a long-term investment in equity and growth

I remain convinced that free education is not merely a moral imperative, but a sound economic investment. Policymakers must resist framing it as a quick-win or electoral gesture. Instead, it should be treated as long-term human capital development, measurable in terms of earnings, civic engagement, health, and intergenerational uplift. Done right, free education can break structural cycles of poverty, not just as a slogan, but as a sustained engine of equitable growth.