Abstract

Private economic benefit education exerts great influence on the choice of candidates seeking admission to higher education institutions, particularly universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education. In Nigeria, statistics place more emphasis on the provision and demand for universities and colleges of education than polytechnic education. This study was designed to investigate the private economic benefit of polytechnic education in the south-west of Nigeria to determine the influence of private economic benefit on demand for polytechnic education. This study adopted a descriptive survey research design. Stratified random sampling technique with equal allocation was used to select 1,064 HND students from federal polytechnic, Ado, Ado-Ekiti, Osun state polytechnic Iree and Lagos City Polytechnic, Lagos State, from the faculties of financial management/commerce and communication science, natural/applied sciences and engineering, and 101 and 63 HND and ND holders from public and organised private sectors in the south west, Nigeria were randomly selected through research instrument titled ‘Private Costs of Polytechnic Education Inventory’ (PCPEI) and the Workers Age-Education-Life-Earnings Inventory (WAELEI). In Southwestern Nigeria, average private cost of acquiring polytechnic education per session was N 267,956.05; average private economic benefit was N38.071, 399.40 while N 1,424,458.60.10 was the post-tax earnings differentials between an HND and OND holders. Governments and private owners of institutions should introduce measures that will reduce private cost of polytechnic education. This will increase the private economic benefits of polytechnic education.