2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Most engineering programs require that students take a course in engineering economics. To better motivate our students to learn and apply the material taught in this course, we introduced an open-ended problem based on a real scenario involving social security. Using the data from two of the professors’ social security benefit statements, students were asked to determine the optimal age at which to start these benefits.

For those unfamiliar with the choices, social security benefits can start as early as 62 or as late as 70. And the longer one waits, the more one receives. For example, the table below shows the potential benefit received by each professor depending upon the age at which they start.

Starting Age to receive benefits Professor 1 Monthly Benefit Professor 2 Monthly Benefit
62 $2649 $2280
63 $2875 $2472
64 $3076 $2682
65 $3338 $2956
66 $3599 $3236
67 $3860 $3525
68 $4044 $3606
69 $4356 $3955
70 $4799 $4584

Students were first asked to individually make an argument for the optimal age to start for each professor, whether they were the same or not, and to account for both the potential life expectancy of the recipients and the assumed interest rate. Then students were put in groups based on these choices (3 groups were formed with the most common responses being early 62-64, middle 65-67, or late 68-70). They were then asked to refine their arguments, and the project culminated with an in-class debate.

The authors found that this problem-based learning exercise was very beneficial in motivating the students to better learn and apply the course material. And, as a bonus, the instructors had a much better idea as to when to start their social security benefits!