Below are tools that grantees have developed to maximize college value in their focus states for prospective students. Also included are additional resources to inform a meaningful return on investment for postsecondary education.
Coming soon!
TOOLS
College Value/Return on Investment
College Scorecard: An interactive tool for students and parents that includes five key pieces of data about a college: costs, graduation rate, loan default rate, average amount borrowed, and employment.
College Measures: Makes available key data, including two-year and four-year college data tools, to enable users to make smarter decisions, and to help create a more efficient, productive and effective higher education system.
Indiana ROI Reports: Features both state-level and college-specific profiles, covering average cost of college and average student debt, top three industries of employment by college program one year after graduation, and average salary one, five and 10 years post-graduation.
Gallup-Purdue Index: Description of survey to study the relationship between the college experience and college graduates’ lives.
National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS) Information Center: Provides access to a variety of comparative higher education data as well as custom reports.
College Ranking and College Readiness
Brookings Institution: Beyond College Rankings: A Value Added Approach to Assessing Two- and Four-Year Schools: Analyzes the value of student outcomes resulting from higher education experiences to create rankings of institutions.
Economist: College Rankings: Ranking of U.S. four-year, non-vocational institutions based on an analysis of student earnings as compared to what they might have earned if they had attended a different institution.
Kiplinger’s Best College Value Rankings: List of the 300 best value public and private institutions based on cost and quality measures, including future earnings data.
New America Foundation: Mapping College Ready Policies 2015-16: A “data visualization project” offering a U.S. map showing state progress in ensuring alignment from Pre-K through higher education policies for college readiness. The study uses higher education policies for admissions, state merit aid and course placement, and rates each of these as a bridge, a detour or roadblock.
STUDIES
Pathways and Populations
Achieve: The College and Career Readiness of U.S. High School Graduates: An examination of state enrollment, persistence and remediation rates of high school graduates at two- and four-year colleges.
Center for Analysis of Postsecondary Education and Employment: How and Why Does Two-Year College Entry Influence Baccalaureate Aspirants’ Academic and Labor Market Outcomes?: A look at the impact of students transferring from community to baccalaureate colleges on success in attaining degrees and in the workplace
Fordham Institute: Career and Technical Education in High School: Does it Improve Student Outcomes?: An exploration of whether Arkansas students benefit from CTE courses aligned to workforce needs.
U.S. Department of Education: Fulfilling the Promise, Serving the Need: A look at the Obama administration’s efforts to support low-income students in postsecondary success.
Postsecondary and ROI Data Systems and Usage
American Council on Education: Evolving Higher Education Business Models: Leading with Data to Deliver Results: A look how data transparency within institutions supports genuine stakeholder engagement in shaping smart decisions that support improved return on investment in higher education.
American Institutes for Research: Toward Improved Measurements of Student Persistence and Completion: A comparison of completion rates calculated for 11 institutions using three different methodologies.
Gates Foundation: Answering the Call: A model postsecondary data framework designed with the Institute for Higher Education Policy to focus on access, cost and outcomes.
Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP): Leading with Data: How Senior Institution and System Leaders Use Postsecondary Data to Promote Student Success: A brief sharing lessons from senior leaders on using data to promote best practices in supporting students.
IHEP: Envisioning the National Postsecondary Infrastructure in the 21st Century: A series of 11 papers developed by experts in the national postsecondary data infrastructure landscape intended to shape policy discussions and decisions.
Lumina Foundation: Employing Postsecondary Data For Effective State Finance Policymaking: An evaluation of outcomes-based funding metrics, performance measures, and data availability in higher education systems across 31 states.
University of Chicago Journal on Human Capital: How Do College Students Respond to Public Information About Earnings?: The results from an “information experiment” examining the program-selection behaviors of college students receiving accurate population earnings information.