US postsecondary education and training have long been valuable assets to the country and to individuals. From the early days of the republic, American colleges and universities have conveyed skills that are foundational to our democracy. As the centuries have rolled on, these institutions have evolved to become equally vital to the US economy, undergoing a transformation in the 19th century to become drivers of American innovation and industry.
Through key legislation and investments—such as the two Morrill Acts, the GI Bill, and the Pell Grant program—policymakers have opened the doors of higher education to increasing numbers of students. Following World War II and the Civil Rights Act, enrollment in college grew rapidly with the recognition that American postsecondary education and training offer a ticket to a better life.
Today, a college degree remains the surest pathway to economic security. Economic projections suggest that workers will need more education, not less, to thrive in the labor market of the future. Higher levels of education correspond with higher earnings for workers, which translate to public gains such as higher tax revenues and less reliance on public services. Higher levels of education are also associated with a host of nonmonetary benefits, including greater well-being and more civic engagement. Across many monetary and nonmonetary dimensions, postsecondary education and training have significant value for individuals and society. And yet, our postsecondary institutions are facing a crisis of confidence.
Concerned about college costs and the content of the curriculum—and unsettled by growing doubts that postsecondary education prepares students for work—Americans no longer fully trust colleges and universities to teach the right things well and at a reasonable cost. The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) and its feared impact on the workplace have only heightened these concerns, leaving education and training providers under pressure to adapt to rapidly evolving technologies.
Individual students are prudent to exercise a degree of caution about postsecondary education. College can be expensive, and not all educational pathways provide the same level of access to economic opportunity. Students who take out large loans to fund their degrees, certificates, and other credentials may find that their investment doesn’t yield an adequate monetary payoff, and they may face financial precarity as a result. Some graduates may find themselves struggling to land their first job after completing a degree, or they may end up employed in a role that doesn’t use their college-level skills.
Policymakers realize that they need to protect students from poor financial outcomes, so many states and philanthropic organizations are working to define “credentials of value” according to monetary metrics. Additionally, federal and state governments are developing policies to hold institutions accountable for producing credentials that meet earnings or return-on-investment (ROI) benchmarks. These efforts recognize that Americans want—and deserve—to know that they are likely to benefit from their investments in postsecondary education. At the same time, regulatory efforts focused on credentials of value don’t capture the full value of postsecondary education and training. For a more complete assessment, we need to develop an approach that incorporates higher education’s many nonmonetary benefits.
This series of reports helps make sense of the complex challenge of conceptualizing and measuring postsecondary value. The public conversation about postsecondary value spans multiple points of view. Students and their families want to know that their investments in college will pay off. State policymakers want to know that public funding for education is put to good use. Educators and education advocates want to ensure that decision-makers recognize the complete value—monetary and nonmonetary— that postsecondary education and training provide. A more robust approach to assessing postsecondary value will need to grapple with multiple perspectives on what education offers to both individuals and society. I
n this report series, the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce explores the measurement of postsecondary educational value. Across three reports, we examine what various stakeholder groups expect postsecondary education and training to do, how these groups measure the outcomes of postsecondary education and training, and what changes in policy and practice need to happen next to ensure that postsecondary education delivers on its full potential as both a private and public good. The reports speak to different but overlapping audiences with their own interests and aims. In the following sections, we describe each report’s purpose and which stakeholder groups would most benefit from reading that report.
From Mann to Markets
The first report in the series, From Mann to Markets: Evolving Ideas About the Value of Postsecondary Education and Training to Individuals and Society, examines the historical and philosophical developments that have led policymakers and the public to focus on earnings and return on investment as the primary measures of postsecondary education and training success.
Measuring Postsecondary Value
The second report in the series, Measuring Postsecondary Value: A Model for Applying Research to Policy and Practice, provides a resource to help leaders identify and measure how investments in higher education support the production of credentials that lead to value for both students and society.
The report’s Postsecondary Value Model (PVM) organizes metrics into categories that generally align with educational inputs (e.g., investments) and outputs (e.g., credentials) that contribute to value-related monetary and nonmonetary outcomes. The PVM includes six categories of inputs, outputs, and outcomes: investment, education, employment, earnings, wealth, and well-being.
A Framework for Assessing the Value of Postsecondary Education and Training
The third and final report in the series, A Framework for Assessing the Value of Postsecondary Education and Training: State Guidance, provides practical direction for defining and measuring postsecondary value to policymakers, policy analysts, researchers, and practitioners at the state level, with particular attention to two major use cases. The first use case is assessing the broad value that accrues to each state from a robust postsecondary education and training system; the second is applying transparency and accountability metrics to ensure that institutions and programs deliver on the value they promise to students.
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