The Rant
Measuring Value in California Higher Education with Michael Itzkowitz, HEA Group
Get behind the data and value of higher education as I engage in a focused conversation with Michael Itzkowitz of the HEA Group. Together, we dissect the College Futures Foundation commissioned "Golden Opportunities" report, delving into the intricacies of California's higher education investments and what they mean for students from low-to-moderate-income economic backgrounds. You'll emerge from this episode with a nuanced understanding of how data is revolutionizing both the transparency and the economic success rates of colleges and universities, offering essential guidance for students charting their academic futures.
The staggering $1.8 trillion student debt crisis is more than just a number; it symbolizes the delicate balance between education as an avenue to a better career and the financial burdens it imposes. This episode takes a hard look at the economic benchmarks and the heightened scrutiny on the value of higher education in the wake of skyrocketing tuition costs. Michael and I scrutinize the public's hefty $21 billion investment in California education, advocating for increased accountability from institutions, and consider the implications for learners and policymakers alike.
Lastly, the financial journey of students at Cal State Polytechnic, Humboldt serves as our case study, putting a spotlight on the true cost and potential returns of their educational investments. We explore the factors that sway these outcomes, such as the impact of degree completion and choice of major on post-graduation earnings. Moreover, we address the challenges faced by the 'some college, no degree' demographic, emphasizing the importance of clear pathways to success for all students. Tune in for an eye-opening exploration of how education pays off in the long run, and what that means for today's learners.
Get behind the data and value of higher education as I engage in a focused conversation with Michael Itzkowitz of the HEA Group. Together, we dissect the College Futures Foundation commissioned "Golden Opportunities" report, delving into the intricacies of California's higher education investments and what they mean for students from low-to-moderate-income economic backgrounds. You'll emerge from this episode with a nuanced understanding of how data is revolutionizing both the transparency and the economic success rates of colleges and universities, offering essential guidance for students charting their academic futures.
The staggering $1.8 trillion student debt crisis is more than just a number; it symbolizes the delicate balance between education as an avenue to a better career and the financial burdens it imposes. This episode takes a hard look at the economic benchmarks and the heightened scrutiny on the value of higher education in the wake of skyrocketing tuition costs. Michael and I scrutinize the public's hefty $21 billion investment in California education, advocating for increased accountability from institutions, and consider the implications for learners and policymakers alike.
Lastly, the financial journey of students at Cal State Polytechnic, Humboldt serves as our case study, putting a spotlight on the true cost and potential returns of their educational investments. We explore the factors that sway these outcomes, such as the impact of degree completion and choice of major on post-graduation earnings. Moreover, we address the challenges faced by the 'some college, no degree' demographic, emphasizing the importance of clear pathways to success for all students. Tune in for an eye-opening exploration of how education pays off in the long run, and what that means for today's learners.
Hi, this is Eloy Ortiz-Oakley, and welcome back to the Rant, the podcast where we pull back the curtain and break down the people, the policies and the politics of our higher education system. In this episode, we get to take a deep dive into data the data behind return on investment in post-secondary education and talk specifically about a recent report that was published through a collaboration between the HEA Group and College Futures Foundation. The title of the report is called Golden Opportunities Measuring Return on Investment in California Higher Education for Low and Moderate Income Learners. I'll put a link to the report at the bottom of the YouTube page here and, for those of you who are listening in on your podcast platform, you can always just go to collegefuturesorg and you can get the report there. So with me to talk about this report and specifically return on investment, or ROI, is Michael Iskowitz.
Speaker 1:Michael heads the HEA group and he has had a long history and background in post-secondary data. We're going to talk about ROI, we're going to talk about value in post-secondary credentials and we'll talk about this report specifically. Michael's experience extends all the way back to the Obama administration, where he led the effort to create the college scorecard, something that we take for granted now those of us in post-secondary education. But at that moment in time, the college scorecard was a new and big deal and like that, we here at College Futures want to make this return on investment report the latest big deal in how we think about measuring post-secondary education, because that's certainly how our learners think about it. As I welcome Michael today, we're going to talk specifically about that work and the work that he is engaged in throughout the country.
Speaker 1:Before we get started, I do want to take a moment and thank College Futures Foundation, who has decided to support the Rant podcast as a sponsor, and particularly as we roll out this work. That is, the collaboration between HEA Group and College Futures Foundation. This gives us an excellent time to bring that partnership together. So I want to thank College Futures Foundation for their support and for helping us get the Rant podcast out to hundreds, if not thousands, more listeners and viewers. So, with that backdrop, let me welcome Michael.
Speaker 1:Michael, welcome to the Rant. Thanks for having me, eloy. Well, it's great to have you, michael. Good to see you again. Michael, you have been looking at student-level data for a long time. As I mentioned, you were involved in the design of the college scorecard in the Obama administration and now at HEA Group, you routinely dissect federal student data. What changes have you seen over those years in terms of the types and the availability of data today, and what are some of the biggest changes that you've witnessed in the ability to determine the return on investment, both at the institutional level and also at the program of study level?
Speaker 2:Once again, thanks for having me. It's funny to hear when you say once upon a time I was involved in something that was a big deal, but it's awesome to hear that folks are still using it and it's exciting to think about where we are today. And to your point, back when I was a younger man, it was about 10 years ago that we actually started to get actual employment information on institutions of higher education across the United States. Way back in the day, I think we had a general idea through the Bureau of Labor Statistics. You know, if you get some college, you're going to typically earn more than someone without college, and if you get a bachelor's degree, you're going to typically earn more than someone with an associate's degree. But we never really had actual student level data or student data that showed us well, if you attend a specific type of institution, how much are you actually making? Or if you major in a specific field of study, what are your chances of economic success? So I was at the department from 2010 to 2016. In my last couple of years, I did get the opportunity to work on the college tour card itself and if folks aren't familiar with that, it's basically the main database that provides thousands of data points on institutions of higher education about 6,000 institutions across the United States and I would say that it was about in the early 2010s that the department started to think about how can we get actual student data and this kind of spurred out of a regulation, something called the gainful employment rule. There was something in the law that said that graduates of career education programs need to get some sort of gainful employment after they attend that specific type of program, and at the the time that sounded great, but the department didn't really know exactly how to obtain such information without speculating. So smart folks there ahead of my time decided to forge a partnership with the Social Security Administration and for the first time, we were actually able to get student data at a subset of programs that said how much are students earning after they graduate from a specific career education program. That was in the early 2010s.
Speaker 2:Technologically, in 2013, president Obama announced the college scorecard at a State of the Union address as a tool that parents and students can use to where they can figure out how to get the best bang for their educational buck, and at the time this was a simple tool we didn't have. There wasn't much information on it. It was literally just what's the graduation rate, what's the cohort default rate, how much debt are students taking out? How much does college cost at each institution? And then there was a box down below that said employment information to come at a later time. So it wasn't until 2015, with the relaunch of the college score course, college scorecard 2.0.
Speaker 2:That was the first time that we had actual data on how much students make after they attend an institution of higher education. So you can see if you went to University of Florida, the UC system, any school in the UC system, and you can see specifically how much those students make. And we've come a long way since then. In 2019, the department actually started to produce actual data on every college program across the United States. So you can not just see if you went to a specific institution, but if I majored in sociology or engineering at a specific institution, how much did those former graduates make. So that sort of brings us to today, and there's been a lot of great folks who are utilizing this to create ROI metrics, like Georgetown Center for Education Workforce Third Way that I worked with before. A lot of popular news publications are also incorporating this earnings data as critical pieces to think about how they evaluate colleges. And obviously we're taking the next step here in California to think about how we can do the same for low and moderate income students.
Speaker 1:It's interesting that you bring up the work you did in the Obama administration because, as I think back to those days, there was quite a bit of controversy that you were creating this scorecard. Just the name the scorecard riled a few folks and ruffled a few feathers in higher education and the notion was how can you boil down this great and noble aspiration of going to higher education, to economics? Of course, what you all tapped into in those days was that the public in general that's how they measured investments. I mean, they certainly thought about what they were investing in when they bought a car or they bought a home and in many ways, and particularly for low-income learners, their higher education investment is going to be one of their largest investments that they make in their life. So what do you think has changed since those early days in the Obama years till now, when everybody's sort of asking these questions?
Speaker 2:not from college, consumer students and parents. It was from institutional leaders. Right, and maybe rightfully so, I think. When you put out any sort of new tool or piece of information, you know people start to question and they want to understand what it is Right. And the way I described that at the time was institutional leaders sort of went through the five stages of grief. You know it was denial. You know this information isn't real, it's flawed, there's something wrong with it. Where are you getting this data from? And eventually you know they moved to bargaining. You know well, if you're going to use this graduation rate 150% of the time it takes students, why don't you use this graduation rate instead?
Speaker 2:And I think that we are getting to the stage of acceptance, Like people understand where it's coming from. People have accepted that it's a reality. So I think we've come a long way since announcing it in 2015. And, to your point, you know why. Why are people talking about ROI? I think it's kind of been the perfect storm. Obviously, folks have always thought about this for every purchase that they make, and when it comes to college, it's really a one-time purchase, but it's one of the largest purchases and investments that folks will ever make beyond getting a mortgage. So it's a pretty big deal and over the past couple of years, we've seen a lot of things happen at the same time. We have college costs have continued to, and over the past couple of years, you know, we've seen a lot of things happen at the same time. We have college costs have continued to rise over the past number of decades.
Speaker 2:We've seen that nationally and we hear stories from my parents or others where it's like when we went to CUNY, it costs $50, you know a credit and I was like thanks, mom, but you know credit. And I was like thanks, mom. But you know that's certainly not the case anymore. You know we've seen these, these cut, these costs continue to rise exponentially over the past few decades. We've also seen that. You know we've. We've heard a lot about the student debt crisis in higher education and we're at about 1.8 trillion now.
Speaker 2:Um, it's become a very real.
Speaker 2:Now most people are able to pay down their debt, but this has become a talking point to where people don't want to be flooded with educational debt and if they are, they want to at least be able to earn enough to pay down their debt over time.
Speaker 2:We also saw the pandemic you know, the unexpected pandemic to, where a lot of folks who are learning on campus eventually had to pivot and learn from home and, anecdotally, you know, they were working from their parents' basement while paying the same tuition, and they started to ask again what am I getting? You know I'm paying the same exact amount. What am I getting? What kind of ROI am I getting? So you know we've seen for years through the UCLA study that the number one reason why students attend college nowadays is for greater employability and to obtain a financially secure future, and also, interestingly, the number one reason why people don't attend college, the number one deterrent, is affordability, right, so you sort of mesh these two factors together and it's obvious that folks are trying to think if I'm going to spend the next couple years of my life and perhaps tens of thousands of dollars, where and how can I ensure that I get?
Speaker 1:a point here. We've seen learners and their families asking a lot of questions, demanding more and more answers. Learners today, in my view, have more agency than they've ever had. Learners walk into classrooms today and specifically ask the question what am I getting for paying for this class? Now, some of it is over the top, I get it, but these are the questions that you would normally ask whenever you invest in something, whenever you'd pick up your Consumer Reports magazine and figure out which stovetop am I going to buy, based on what is the greatest return on my investment. Now, one audience that is asking these questions more and more as well are policymakers local state government policymakers, federal policymakers. You mentioned the Gainful Employment Act. Of course, that was just a whole new round of gainful employment conversations a lot more focus on value In your work. Are you seeing policymakers, influencers, getting on this return on investment or value bandwagon and if so, what do you think are some of the reasons for that?
Speaker 2:We've seen this starting to gain steam since the earnings information was released in 2015. And I started, you know, I transitioned from my role at the department to actually being able to analyze the data myself. I was sort of managing a project at the department, but I never had the time or capacity to dig in and look at trends the way that I can now to dig in and look at trends the way that I can now. So I started to put out reports and in 2019, I put out a report I think it was called Higher Ed's Broken Bridge to the Middle Class and essentially it looked at college performance across institutions and I looked at earnings outcomes six years after students attended an institution, eight years after students attended an institution and 10 years. Six years after students attend an institution, eight years after students attend an institution in 10 years.
Speaker 2:And it was kind of nerve wracking to see, you know, after six years, if you measure our students just earning more than the typical high school graduate, what percentage of institution allows them to do so, and only about half were actually meeting that minimal economic benchmark. Now, when you measure them 10 years out, it came out to about a third and, yes, there are trends. These are specific types of institutions, often concentrated in the for-profit or shorter-term certificate area. But since policymakers have begun to see these outcomes for actual data, they're now starting to ask tougher questions to help ensure that students and taxpayers are getting that taxpayer dollars are being used efficiently and effectively. So, before you know this, we weren't sure of the outcomes. Now that we have more information, I think these questions are being asked more broadly and thought about. Should we have stronger accountability metrics, whether that be at the local, state or federal level?
Speaker 1:Agreed. And if you think about it, if we just focus here in the state of California, the last budget that was approved and signed into law by the governor invested more than $21 billion in higher education here in California. That doesn't even take into consideration the amount of federal aid that went to learners in the public higher education system or the private nonprofit system here in California. So it's a tremendous amount of public investment, no matter how you look at it. And I think lawmakers, policymakers, people of influence are starting to ask the question, because they've seen the debt crisis, They've seen the challenges between the mismatch of what is happening at college and universities and the workforce. So there's also been a call for more accountability on behalf of the institutions. And look, I was an institutional leader. I know that some of this can be over the top, over-regulated. We are certainly over-regulated, but on these issues of ensuring that there is transparency on how much I, the institution, am charging and what my learners should expect particularly since we market this to learners this whole notion that they will be better able to earn not just a living wage but to be able to thrive in the economy that is the selling point for most institutions as we transition.
Speaker 1:Now let's talk about the report, specifically Golden Opportunities. You looked at 292 Title IV eligible institutions here in California public, private, private, nonprofit, private for-profit all the institutions that are on the main line to the Title IV program. Let's talk a little bit about those findings and before we jump into that, I want to focus on some of the assumptions and the data that you use, just so that people are grounded in where that data came from. My understanding is that it is publicly available data and you also made some assumptions about the time it took to finish a two-year degree or credential, or a four-year degree or credential, and I will say that we know that it takes learners much longer to complete those programs, but I think we intentionally began by being as generous as possible. So can you highlight some of those assumptions that you made and remind folks where the data comes from?
Speaker 2:So it was an absolute pleasure to be able to work on this project, and there's so much that states individually can do and to your point. Having this information available is really a critical first step, and I think that's what you and I discussed is we want this to be the beginning of a conversation and we hope that it provides as such. So we got all of our data from the US Department of Education. It does come from the college scorecard itself. We were able to look at 292 institutions of higher education in California. As mentioned. That includes private, public and for-profit institutions. It also looks at institutions of all different levels, whether that be an institution that primarily provides certificates, associate's degrees or bachelor's. So really as much of a scope that we could possibly get as a starting point for discussion.
Speaker 2:We also decided to specifically focus on low and moderate income learners. So within the data, we have information on the net costs that students pay, and that's essentially the cost. After all, grants and scholarships are deducted, whether those be state scholarships or federal scholarships. So how much are students whose families earn between $0 and $75,000 paying out of pocket each year to attend one of these institutions of higher education? Now we also looked at the earnings premium. And the way that we define earnings premium is are students earning more than the typical high school graduate with no college experience? Within California itself and through the American Community Survey, we were able to see that on average that typical student between 25 and 34 year old makes around $26,000 a year. So anything above that we would consider an earnings premium. If students come out of a specific institution, they're making $36,000. That would be a $10,000 earnings premium.
Speaker 2:So we did make some assumptions to your point and these are critical. But we tried to do this as fair as possible and there are trade-offs in any assumption that you might make. So we assumed that students would finish on time after attending a specific institution of higher education. If they went to an institution that primarily awards certificates, we assume they would finish in one year. Therefore, they would only have one year of net costs that are going into our ROI calculation for low and moderate income students. If they went to an associate's degree grading institution, we assume they would finish in two years and have two years of net costs. And if they went to a bachelor's degree granting institutions, we calculated their costs as being four years worth of costs. So these two numbers, the total net costs and the earnings premium, actually allowed us to be able to think about how long does it take students to be able to recoup their educational costs based off of this extra earnings premium that they're obtaining by attending an institution within the state of California?
Speaker 1:I want to highlight something that you mentioned. The report focuses on low and moderate income learners here in California, and that was a specific bias that we asked you to focus on, because we here at College Futures that is a demographic of students that we are focused on, students who have been underserved in the state of California and the learners that we know make up the bulk of working and middle-class communities here in California and are critically necessary for the health of the state of California. So this is true across every state, across the country. These are a demographic of learners that not only need access to higher education, but they need to complete and they need to have access to the economy in ways that allow them to thrive and to create the kind of intergenerational wealth that we want for these families and these learners. So, as you looked at these findings in the report, what were some of the things that popped out at you?
Speaker 2:Because California is such a big state, our sample was gigantic right. Sample was gigantic right, so we really got a good sense of how these low and moderate income learners are succeeding in the workforce. There are actually 731,000 low and moderate income earners that we examined within the report. These institutions in total enroll about 1.9 certificate and undergraduate learners every single year, and I would say that we found some really encouraging news and, like any report, we also found some cause for concern or reason to dig deeper and learn more about. So the first thing we saw is that most California institutions allow their students to be able to recoup their educational costs in five years or less. Actually, about 79% of all institutions across California hit this benchmark for low and moderate income students, and 31% actually allowed them to recoup their educational costs in a year or less. So these are great numbers.
Speaker 2:I mean, these are things that should definitely be celebrated, but with one side of the coin, we obviously have to look at the other side of the coin, and that also means that 21% of institutions actually showed a payback period of more than five years for these students. So essentially, they're having trouble earning enough or their education isn't as affordable, or both. It's a kind of a mixture of both to where it's taking them a little bit longer. And one of the most troubling things that we see in any of these studies is that there were 24 institutions about 8% of all institutions throughout the state of California where the majority of students were actually earning less than the typical high school graduate. This is even 10 years after they've enrolled in the institution. So essentially, these students enroll, they take classes and they're still unable to earn more than someone with no college experience whatsoever. So these are some of the findings. We also ended up breaking out these numbers by the type of degree that the institution offers and by the sector, if you want to dig into that a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's talk about the sectors. In the report several of the Cal State universities pop out at the top of the list of having the best return on investment for low and moderate income learners. Some community colleges I saw UC Merced in there. Is that a common characteristic in this report or in other reports you've done in the state, or is there something going on at these public institutions that's a little different?
Speaker 2:So, as mentioned, we looked and we broke this down.
Speaker 2:We disaggregated it on whether an institution was public, private, nonprofit or for-profit, and a number that really stuck out in the state of California was that 99% of public institutions actually showed their low and moderate income students able to pay down their educational costs within five years or less. So when you get close to 100%, you think that that is unique and I would say throughout my previous research as well, this is something that is a unique factor within California itself due to the earnings premium, but also a lot has to do with the affordability factor. We also looked at private and for-profit institutions and saw that they took a little bit longer than public institutions for those types of students to recoup their educational costs. Almost a fourth of private colleges showed these students taking five years or longer to recoup their educational costs and more than half of the for-profits in our study showed the same result. So I would say you know we did notice concentrations depending on the sector of institution that was offering the education for these specific types of students.
Speaker 1:The slice that you took was focused on institutions that serve some of the highest percentages of low and moderate income learners, those institutions that really do the heaviest work, the heaviest lift for the largest number of low and moderate income students. What kind of institutions did you see showing up in that category?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think when we first ran the numbers, looking strictly at ROI for low and moderate income students, what we saw at the top of the list was a lot of more selective institutions.
Speaker 2:But then we noticed another number next to it and we saw that these students, while they may offer an amazing ROI for low and moderate income students, they really don't enroll very many of them whatsoever, especially in comparison to other kinds of institutions.
Speaker 2:So for the few and the fortunate who get in there, they're going to have an amazing ROI, but really they're not serving this type of demographic. And we were interested in our next slice, as you mentioned, to look at well, are there schools that are actually enrolling a broad base of low and moderate income students but also serving them really well? So we looked at institutions who were serving more than 50% of Pell Grant students, which is a pretty good indication that students are low and moderate income, and we actually saw that nine of these a lot of them, were concentrated in the Cal State system itself. Actually, these students were able to recoup their educational costs in one year or less, so that's really just a phenomenal attribute when you think about it. These schools are serving mostly low and moderate income students, providing them with an affordable education and providing them with a strong enough earnings premium to where they're able to pay down, pay back their educational costs within one year time and, essentially, after they do that, there's a strict return on their educational investment.
Speaker 1:Moving forward, Right and you know, from our perspective here at College Futures, you know we have nothing against the more selective institutions here in California. They're just not serving the bulk of the learners that we care about, and you know lots of kudos to all my friends who are Stanford grads. Stanford does very well as a selective university in terms of return on investment, but for the kinds of learners that we care about there's so few. So if Stanford wants to pop up higher on our list, then enroll many more low and moderate income learners. I'm sure you'll do a great job with them. Let's take an example and sort of pick it apart, just so that our viewers and our listeners understand how this works. Michael, so in the report you highlight one institution here in California Cal State Polytechnic, humboldt. It states that the net cost to earn a credential at Humboldt is $44,526. Where does that number come from? Who reports that number?
Speaker 2:So the institutions report that number themselves and this is specifically based off of students whose families are between zero and $75,000 a year. So at Humboldt we did see it was about $44,500. That's over a four-year period. So if we average that out in our head, that's about $11,000 each year over four years. Out of pocket, these students and families are paying $44,526.
Speaker 1:So we didn't make up that number. That's a number that Humboldt State or Cal Poly Humboldt, forgive me reports reports. And so in your estimation, in your calculation, $19,526 was the earnings premium, which equaled 2.3 years to recoup their educational costs. That's pretty good by and large, but that's essentially how you did it. You take the total net cost of what the institution reports for that demographic of learner to complete a four-year degree, you look at the earnings premium and you come up with that ratio of how long it takes to recoup the cost.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yeah, so we can see it takes $44,526 for the typical student right. These are averages that we're looking at for the entire institution itself. These graduates are then earning a bonus essentially a premium of $19,500 more than the typical high school graduate. So they're able to use that $19,500 earnings premium to pay down that $44,500 in just 2.3 years time, and essentially we ran that for all 292 institutions within the state.
Speaker 1:Let's talk a little bit about what impacts these numbers. Clearly, cost of attendance impacts this number. The amount of money that learners and families have to actually invest in their education impacts how long it takes them to recoup their costs. So I would imagine that one of the benefits that California public institutions have over some of the others is the cost of attendance at a Cal State or a community college. Absolutely, I would imagine completion also matters In order for learners to actually gain the premium they have to complete, would that?
Speaker 2:be accurate. I would say that's very accurate. I mean, we noticed that a lot of the benefits from attending college ultimately wind up with a student earning their credential over time. We mentioned those stats from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to start with. These are for college graduates. Just typically, if you earn an associate's degree, you're going to earn more than someone without any sort of college education. If you earn a bachelor's, you're going to typically earn more than someone with an associate's.
Speaker 2:Completion is critical for that specific earnings potential. Another thing that I would say, because we mentioned student debt as being something that's on a lot of folks' minds nowadays, on a lot of folks' minds nowadays. A lot of the folks who are in most danger of defaulting on their loans really the worst case scenario are those who start college but never finish. They're ultimately three times more likely to default on their student debt. So it's really critical as one factor that students complete. Another factor that we all know is sort of correlated with earnings potential is what you choose to major in. Now, this doesn't mean that we are knocking schools know that some majors will ultimately have a different return in comparison to others, and we really want students to be aware of that, especially low and moderate income students who are making this hefty investment to begin with.
Speaker 1:So you hinted at some of the work that we're thinking about doing next, and I think if there's a difference between what we at College Futures are thinking about doing versus what other organizations have done is our role is specific here to California and this, as you mentioned earlier, is the beginning of a conversation. We asked you to be relatively generous in how you do the analysis of institutions. We asked you to sort of highlight some of the important issues related to return on investment, but there's also several other layers of information that we haven't gotten into. You mentioned one of them program of study. So at this point, you feel comfortable that you have enough data to go into program level data and look at the return on investment for various programs, regardless of the institution.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the US Department of Education has a very big database that looks at the specific major that students had concentrated in at each college across the United States and how much students are earning after they graduate within a specific field of study. So it's definitely something that we can look at. In California this covers most students across the United States. The department is still looking at smaller programs. Sometimes we have to manage and protecting the privacy of students who may graduate from a very small program. It may be more difficult to get that information, but for most students within the state of California at most colleges, this information is widely available. So I think it's critical for them, but also for institutional administrators, to have this in their hands as thinking about next steps and to ensure that they're providing good value for the students who enroll.
Speaker 1:That's absolutely right.
Speaker 1:We want policymakers to have much better information about the value institutions that they're investing in in states, how well they're doing. We want parents, families, learners to have that information and we also want to look at where some of the lost investment is and certainly, although your report doesn't pick up specifically on it, there are millions of learners in California who never completed that credential, who may be carrying the debt that you talked about. So what is the lost investment that we've made in those learners and how do we get them back? How do we get them to complete is another angle that we hear College Futures will eventually take. In your experience thus far, is that demographic of learner the some college, no degree, no credential population still a difficult demographic to get any data on?
Speaker 2:It is. It's something that we've asked for more disaggregation through the department and right now we're not able to slice and dice by this specific groups of learners as much as we would like. So we would like more information on whether or not you attended a specific institution you didn't complete. Then how much are you making? We can look at graduation rates and we are getting better information on students who transferred into an institution, as well as part-time learners and whether or not they're completing. So I think that we're making incremental progress at the federal level, but there's a lot of work to be done as well.
Speaker 1:Agreed and those two data points are going to be very important to us because, as you know and as we know, low and moderate-income learners they're the ones who are going part-time because they're having to work, raise families. They're also the ones transferring because they had to begin at a community college and then had to transfer to or for a university. And while all those on-ramps are great on-ramps, we want to make sure that we're looking deeply and broadly to make sure that value is being created, and highlight the practices and institutions, the policies that are actually leading to that value. Now let me ask you one last question as we begin to wrap up, and I'll put you on the spot a little bit here. Michael, you've seen a lot of data over your career and I know we've got a lot of folks listening in who are either institutional leaders, who are advocates for learners, policymakers. What are some of the things that you've seen in the data and over your time make some of the biggest difference to increasing return on investment for this demographic of learner?
Speaker 2:I think making the data widely available is one of the most important things that we can do.
Speaker 2:So you know, it's really a first step in terms of shining a light on things, providing it and making it publicly available.
Speaker 2:So having an understanding that this information is out there, you know it's being published I think that institutions themselves then start to react with understanding that there is incentive to get better.
Speaker 2:I've seen some more forward thinkers I would say now as well, who are not running away continuous improvement purposes. So, looking at the programmatic level, data is just critically important for states and institutions themselves to figure out which kinds of programs may be working really well and which ones aren't providing students with good economic value. And once you see the latter, it kind of just is a dig deeper sort of flag for leaders to look at and start asking questions about the department itself. To think about the career resource center Are we actively matching these students with employers in the area? Are we providing students with the necessary skills to where they're able to succeed? Or oftentimes there's also the question of are we actually offering credentials at our institution to where there aren't necessarily jobs within the geographic region that we're offering them? So I've seen a lot of folks who are now thinking about this a little bit deeper and using this information in productive ways and thinking about longer-term strategic efforts for improvement, not just for their institutions but obviously for the students who enroll.
Speaker 1:Well, just hearing you talk right now, Michael, just brings back memories of when we started introducing completion data widely.
Speaker 1:You know, when completion data about institutions and learners was first readily available, everyone cringed. People weren't sure how this was going to impact institutions. I know in my experience at community colleges the fact that people knew how our students were doing was a sore spot for many leaders in community colleges. But now we use that routinely. Institutions and leaders own that data. They use that data to make improvements and we've come a long way since the completion movement started and I view that very much the same way.
Speaker 1:I'm hoping that this set of data begins to spur a whole different conversation beyond completion Completion for what purpose? What's happening with our learners once they complete? What is the economic return on the investment that they're making? And how are we being transparent to the learner about what they're getting into and what they should expect? That doesn't mean that we're selling a product. That just means that we're giving more and better information to learners, to institutional leaders, to policymakers, on how to make every public dollar, every dollar that a learner invests, go further, farther and gives them a better opportunity to thrive in this economy. So, Michael, I really appreciate you coming on the rant. I appreciate the work that you're doing and the partnership you have with College Futures. So thanks for joining us. Thanks, Sheila, I appreciate it. All right, Well, thanks everybody for joining me here on the rant. I've been talking with Michael Litzkowitz, who heads HEA Group. We'll put their website in the podcast here if you want to visit and learn more about the HEA Group. Likewise, if you want to learn more about the College Futures Report, Golden Opportunities, I'll link that here as well.
Speaker 1:So thanks for joining me here on the Rant. If you enjoyed this episode, please hit the like button, subscribe to this channel, continue to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and we'll see you all soon. Thanks for joining us. Thank you.