Graduates not only get better jobs - they are likely to be healthier and happier than people who don't go through higher education.
Their children do better at school and they are less likely to be assaulted or involved in accidents.
The economic advantages of a university degree - better pay and less danger of unemployment - are well known, but a study published today by the Higher Education Funding Council for England demonstrates much wider benefits, including greater engagement in voluntary organisations and more enlightened attitudes to race and equality.
These benefits are not due to the fact graduates tend to be cleverer and come from better-off families in the first place, insist John Bynner and Muriel Egerton, of London University's Institute of Education.
Their research, based on the huge database of the National Child Development Study, which has followed the lives of about 16,000 people born in March 1958, controlled for background factors, such as social class and intelligence, when comparing graduates with their contemporaries without A-level qualifications and those who gained A-levels but did not go on to university or college.
Dr Bynner found the chances of having a professional or managerial job were much higher for graduates, especially women, and the chance of being out of work was much less. Graduates reported more skill improvements - in computing for instance - over the past 10 years than non-graduates.
Graduates were much more likely to see themselves as in excellent physical health than non-graduates, although the most important factor for health is family background (measured by father's occupation and whether children had free school meals). Mature graduates also showed health benefits.
When it came to mental health, graduate men were half as likely to suffer depression as people without A-level qualifications, but among women the effects of childhood circumstances were more marked. Taking these factors into account, graduate women were no less likely to suffer from depression than the group without A-levels. Mature female graduates seemed particularly well protected from depression, however, possibly because they have passed the early, more stressful stages of family building.
University drop-outs seem to lose a lot of the benefits of higher education, according to the Bynner study. Men who failed to complete their degrees were as prone to depression as those without A-levels, and women who dropped out reported the same extent of violence from a partner as those without A-levels.
Higher education produced a boost in well-being, said Dr Bynner. "There is a psychological, self-esteem and confidence building part of higher education that has spin-offs in personal terms. Dropping out from an experience that offers so many opportunities must be very damaging."
The graduate lifestyle made them less likely to be affected by assaults and accidents, and higher education appeared to have a knock-on effect on the next generation.
Graduates' children were less likely to have educational problems and more likely to own 50 books. Many graduates were able to give their children advantages they themselves lacked.
"While these results are preliminary, they suggest that higher education may have a role in breaking the cycle of educational disadvantage," said Dr Bynner.
Voting was slightly more common among graduates, but markedly more so among mature graduates. They were more likely to be active in voluntary organisations, and much less cynical about the political process - some of the most striking evidence of the social benefits stemming from higher education, according to Dr Bynner.
Graduates are less likely to be racist or hold negative views about women's equality. "Higher education appears to make a distinctive contribution to increased tolerance of diversity, to commitment to equal opportunities and to resistance to political alienation," he added.
Sir Brian Fender, chief executive of the funding council, said the research provided definite evidence of what people had long suspected, but which had been hard to confirm - that higher education offered benefits far beyond the simple economic advantages of having a degree. "Clearly higher education is a profound force for social good, and this research shows why plans to widen higher education to all those who can benefit from it are so important."
