Episode 265: College is often judged by a familiar set of measures: tuition, debt, graduation rates, job placement and future earnings. But what if some of its most important benefits are harder to put on a spreadsheet?

In this episode of “The Ethical Life,” hosts Richard Kyte and Scott Rada look beyond the economic case for higher education and consider something less tangible: its role in teaching people how to live, work and build trust with others.

College, community college and other forms of postsecondary education can place young adults in environments filled with people they did not choose — roommates, classmates, professors and peers from different regions, cultures and backgrounds. Those encounters can be uncomfortable, but Kyte argues that they are also where important kinds of growth happen.

The conversation explores how shared spaces, friendships and everyday interactions can help people become more independent and more willing to trust others. Kyte recalls arriving at college from a small Minnesota town and meeting an Iranian Muslim student, an experience that broadened his understanding of people whose lives were very different from his own.

But that kind of interaction may be becoming harder to create.

Students today have more comfortable private spaces and constant access to entertainment and technology, which makes it easier to avoid face-to-face contact. Online courses add another layer. Although they can efficiently deliver information, Kyte worries that they often leave out the relationships and conversations that have traditionally been a major part of education.

That matters at a time when loneliness, social isolation and distrust of institutions are widespread concerns. The hosts discuss whether colleges should think more deliberately about creating places and experiences that draw students into relationships — and whether graduates may leave with greater trust in institutions, partly because they have spent years seeing how one works from the inside.