Education is vital to America’s economic prowess

Most of my students at Montana State University are Montana kids. I’ve just met their competition at the Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) meeting in London. This experience
demonstrates why it’s critically important that Montana increase its investment in higher education. I’ll explain.

By Ramona Marotz-Baden
Bozeman, Mont.

European and American intellectual leaders founded the MPS in 1947. Its goal is to articulate and advance responsible liberty and economic progress. It has worked to build
the intellectual foundations for just and free societies. MPS was noted in a segment of the PBS series, Commanding Heights, as one of the world’s most important "unknown"
organizations.

Montana faces serious and persistent economic challenges. This is because the world has fundamentally changed. Past economic policies focusing on agriculture and
extraction no longer work well. Global forces are shaping new economic landscapes that do not favor our traditional industries such as mining and ranching.

As world economic coordination improves, commodities come from areas where they are most economically produced. Prices are instantly available on the Internet.
Competition reigns. Today, and even more so in the future, human capital is the key to success ­ and this largely depends on the quality of higher education.

A quality education is a major ingredient in the recipe for wealth. Human resources, such as talent, education, integrity, and ingenuity, are far more important than natural
resources, such as oil, land, and minerals.

Through the Internet, young people around the globe have access to ever-increasing sets of opportunities. For example, at MPS I met James Shikwati, a young Kenyan. He
was earning $2,000 per year as a high school teacher and regularly pedaled his bike some 25 miles to access the Internet. One site he contacted regularly, the Atlas
Foundation, was sufficiently impressed to give him a $5,000 grant to move to Nairobi and start a free-market institute.

He founded the Inter Region Economic Network. His motto is "Where a Free Human Mind is Capital," and his educational goal is to "free the human mind, the mainspring of
all development." Barum Mitra has had similar success in New Delhi with his Liberty Institute.

MPS sponsors an essay contest for each of its general meetings, held every two years. This year’s winners ranged from a Yale graduate working on an advanced degree at the
London School of Economics to a student from a Third World nation. MPS also nominates and invites promising young people as Fellows to its meetings. Shikwati and Mitra
were Fellows at the London meeting.

The 86 Fellows at this year’s general meeting came from 29 countries, including India and seven Latin American, three African, and four former communist countries. They
met some of the world’s top academic and business leaders. One attending MPS member was a Nobel laureate, and another, Vernon Smith, received this prize during the
meetings. (Eight members are Nobel laureates and others have been nominated for Nobel Prizes.)

Not all members were from universities. High government officials, present and former senior bank management, top company executives (including, Coca Cola, Ford,
Monsanto, and the Wall Street Journal), venture capitalists, and heads of think tanks from Europe, Latin America, and the U.S. participated in such discussions as "Freedom
and New Technology," "Rebuilding the Rule of Law," and "Learning from History."

Today’s best bets are not in mills and mines but rather in minds and good character. This requires substantial investments in education. In addition to being well educated,
Montana students must be highly motivated and eager for new challenges. If they are to exercise their potential, they must prepare themselves to compete with the growing
numbers of highly promising workers worldwide.

Montana’s youth are extremely fortunate to live in a state with far higher educational quality than implied by our low university tuition. Montana’s university system is surely
one of the best bargains anywhere. But global competition is relentless. For our youth to succeed we must continue and increase the excellence of their education.

Ramona Marotz-Baden is a professor of Health and Human Development at Montana State University and program coordinator for Gallatin Writers in
Bozeman.