Music Education’s ROI

People are smart. By and large, they do what is in their economic best interest, choosing to invest their limited time & money in those activities which deliver the highest Return on Investment (ROI).

Over the last quarter of a century, the cost of acquiring the benefits of many activities has fallen dramatically, largely due to the falling cost, and increasing power, of computing. The cost of finding and acquiring music, videos, and information has fallen to nearly zero. Video games are cheaper (after inflation) and more engaging than ever before, and have become more social. TV has zillions of channels. Chatting with friends – always a popular pastime – is cheaper, easier, and more convenient than ever, even if those friends are far away.

These competing activities almost certainly have lower ultimate benefits than music education, but they deliver those lower benefits with a much lower investment, therefore delivering a higher ROI. For example, imagine an activity that delvers only 10% of the benefits of music education, but does so at just 1% of the cost. Its ROI is ten times the ROI of music education. If a student were to invest her limited time & money in ten such activities, she would gain benefits equal to those of music education, at just 10% of the cost.

Because of music education’s declining relative ROI, people are making the rational decision to invest their (and their children’s) time in activities other than music education. They aren’t doing this because they are stupid, ignorant Philistines; rather, they are doing it because they are smart.

Many music education advocates have responded to this challenge by providing evidence that music education delivers many non-musical benefits, too. By increasing the perceived returns from music education, this activity increases music education’s perceived ROI.

However, this approach does not address the elephant in the kitchen, which is music education’s cost. That’s the biggie. If the cost of music education – in time & money – could be dramatically reduced without also reducing its benefits, then no “advocacy” of music education would be required. Consumers and schools would choose to invest their scarce time and money in music education, because doing so would give them an ROI that was highly competitive with alternative activities.

That’s where the ThumMusic System comes in. By enabling students to understand and play music in a shorter time, on less-expensive instruments, it can reduce the cost of music education dramatically, thereby increasing its ROI.