Over the past decade, higher education administrators, faculty, and students (not to mention taxpayers) have gained more access to information about college outcomes than ever before. Beyond mere acceptance and graduation rates, we can now answer the number one question students and families have before enrolling: “How much do students earn after they pursue a higher education?”
Several states, accreditors, college systems, and institutions are already incorporating post-college employment outcomes as a key measure of success. Texas has increased funding allocations to target community college credentials that demonstrate strong returns and align with high-demand fields. Large systems like the California State University have incorporated employment and mobility outcomes into their newly released three-year strategic plan. Accrediting agencies—such as the WASC Senior College and University Commission and the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges—are adding transparent ROI data to dashboards to ensure that accredited institutions meet sufficient quality standards. And institutions like Colorado Mountain College are actively designing program offerings around regional job openings and labor market outcomes.
Providing more and better information to inform college choices and offerings is quite sensible and apolitical. In 2006, the George W. Bush administration pushed the creation of a database of college outcomes to ensure global competitiveness. In 2013, Barack Obama’s administration launched the College Scorecard, a consumer website with over 2,000 data points for nearly every institution. Since then, even more information has been made available through successive administrations. Beyond institutional outcomes, students and families can now pinpoint how much graduates earn while pursuing different programs at different institutions across the United States.
Accepting employment data as a tool for improving student outcomes is not an endorsement of any political agenda. Rather, it offers a broad perspective on what’s working and where targeted interventions could benefit students seeking a return on their educational investment.
With declining confidence in higher education, this data goldmine can benefit every college leader looking to court prospective students. For many, it has been a goldmine. Yet others are stuck in the early stages of a grief-like process, before it’s accepted and becomes a critical tool for improving student success.
When institutional earnings data were first released in 2015, the response began with denial. “Our data must be different.” Then anger: “You can’t reduce education to dollars!” Followed by bargaining: “What if we adjust for demographics or geography?” Then depression when the numbers won’t budge. These stages—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and eventual acceptance—mirror the classic grief model because leaders are, in a sense, mourning an antiquated understanding of their institution’s impact and how they have historically communicated their successes.
But here’s the exciting part: The institutions and policy leaders that reach acceptance don’t just acknowledge reality. They begin to transform it.
The Breakthrough Moment
Acceptance, the final stage of grief, is where defensiveness gives way to determination. When leaders stop fighting the data and start working with it, remarkable things happen. And right now, we’re seeing more higher-ed leaders reach that acceptance phase. That’s where the real work begins.
We saw this firsthand, both nationally, with the passage of federal legislation, and through state-based organizations that created comprehensive, accessible tools to measure return on investment and economic mobility across the higher education landscape. The American Council on Education, which represents institutions across the United States, also released its own Students Access and Earnings Classification, which assesses colleges’ economic value based on the demographics of their student populations. These efforts didn’t just generate statistics—they sparked national conversations that engaged policymakers, institutional leaders, and advocates around a shared goal of “renewing the social contract for higher education.”
Most importantly, institutions started asking better questions. Not “How do we dispute these findings?” but “What can we do about them?”
That shift is happening in pockets across the country. These early adopters are charting a path forward through three key strategies.
First, they’re going deeper on program-level analysis. Too often, institutional data obscures what’s really happening. A college might show strong overall outcomes, while specific programs leave students drowning in debt with minimal earnings. And now, with federal funds only flowing to higher-earning programs, institutions are starting to pay more attention. Soon, we’ll see more institutions conducting granular audits that answer the question every student should be asking: “Will this particular degree, at this particular school, be worth it for me?”
This isn’t about shame; it’s about precision. You can’t fix what you can’t see clearly.
Second, they’re investing in the infrastructure needed to improve outcomes. Data without support is just noise. Higher education leaders are creating teams to act on their findings—frameworks for redesigning advising systems, protocols for aligning programs with labor market needs, and strategies for creating targeted support for students in struggling programs.
Think of it as going from diagnosis to treatment plan. But individual institutions can’t solve higher education’s perception issues on their own.
Third, they’re expanding state-level engagement. Accessible data and research in California proved that statewide data could reshape policy conversations. Statewide entities—such as college accreditors—have already begun sharing the outcomes of their member institutions with the general public. Other leaders across the country are now exploring how to replicate and refine these approaches—creating customized indices that reflect regional labor markets, institutional contexts, and state-specific priorities.
The Opportunities Ahead
There’s reason to be optimistic: we now see proof of concept in tangible forms. Increasingly, institutions are working together to use career outcomes as a metric for improvement, forming a critical mass that can drive systemic change.
These early adopters understand that accountability and support aren’t opposing forces—they’re complementary—that you can celebrate higher education’s transformative power while demanding that it transform lives economically as well as intellectually.
Students will also benefit, as better information leads to better advising and better outcomes because institutions choose to act on what the data reveals.
A Path Forward
The pathway is clear: Accessible data creates a shared narrative, rigorous analysis frames the questions, and technical assistance turns insight into implementation. This approach is now ready to be scaled.
In higher education, this represents an ongoing commitment to fulfilling the promise of economic mobility we’ve always made to students—a transformation that is already underway. The real question is not if data will reshape higher education, but whether more higher-ed leaders will deliver on that promise.
I believe they will.
