Graduate wage data can help restore public trust in higher education

The Hill

2 days ago

President Trump's 'big, beautiful' budget reconciliation bill is now law, marking a watershed moment for higher education policy and renewing the debate about how to evaluate the return on investment of a college degree.
College presidents, myself included, are accustomed to communicating the many benefits of their institutions, Yet it is also true that our sector has often resisted measuring and improving the financial returns of a college degree.
Under the new policy framework adopted by Congress, it will no longer be possible for leaders to snub such disclosures. Despite the discomfort it will cause, I am hopeful that this policy transition will restore the public's trust in higher education through methods like those that Colorado Mountain College — the institution I lead — has employed for more than 10 years.
Methods to measure the return on investment of a college degree have existed for decades. Nearly 40 years ago, my mentor Larry Leslie published the book 'The Economic Value of Higher Education.' When I studied under him a decade later, calculating social and economic returns was routine and not particularly controversial, as student debt was relatively low and most college degrees provided noteworthy positive results (they still do).
More recently, the costs of college and average debt loads have grown dramatically, as has the pressure to demonstrate results.
Despite these shifts, the active use of labor market data among higher education practitioners remains uncommon. Michael Itzkowitz, former director of the College Scorecard, describes higher education leaders as going through the 'five stages of grief' when confronted with the economic outcomes of their former students. Through my experience working in state government and now, as the president of a public institution, I have witnessed this firsthand.
I distinctly recall being on the receiving end of one college executive dismissing a report my team and I prepared as 'lies.' Another prominent researcher called our findings 'deeply harmful,' arguing such data might discourage students from pursuing public-service degrees with lower financial returns.
Labor market data is not deceitful. It is silent on the quality of academic programs, but it can reveal an uncomfortable reality: Students often end up with vastly different outcomes depending on their field of study and the type of credential they pursue. My home state of Colorado was one of the first to match the records of college graduates with post-graduation wages. This data-driven approach has informed educational policy for years, but it is seldom used at the institutional level.
At our college, access to good-paying jobs isn't a luxury — it's essential. Our 11 campuses serve high-cost, rural-resort communities where many students work multiple jobs just to afford basic living expenses. For them, college is a pathway to financial stability and family security. Our students must weigh daily the varying opportunity costs of attending class or picking up an additional shift at work.
Nearly a decade ago, we embraced this reality and began using 'labor market-aware' practices. We incorporated initiatives to better align our certificates and degrees to match critical local economic realities. From dental hygienists and nurses to first responders and specialists in addiction treatment, the school invests in programs that allow graduates to achieve economic stability. We don't create new programs unless they enable graduates to earn good jobs in our communities.
The 'big, beautiful' law will, among many other things, tie federal funding to labor market outcomes at degree programs across the U.S. This new political reality may be disorienting to some schools, but given the rising costs of college, the ease with which students can accumulate significant debt and families' resulting worries about college affordability, it should surprise no one.
Fortunately, labor market data is increasingly available, as higher education organizations, federal agencies and state governments have been analyzing, publishing and disseminating it for years. For the most part, the foundation is built, we just need to use it.
Some national organizations provide accessible data on post-graduate earnings, identifying which institutions and programs produce strong outcomes and drive upward mobility — and which do not. Their work with states is helping scale these insights, filling a crucial gap in public understanding. The American Council on Education and the Carnegie Foundation also recently unveiled a new classification system that introduces labor market outcomes, giving policymakers and institutional leaders a new lens on social economic mobility, which should be a central goal of every college.
As an educational economist and college leader, I embrace statistics — even those figures that make presidents a little queasy — and am accountable for demonstrating positive outcomes for all interested parties. Without question, wages aren't the only outcomes worth evaluating, but I believe that the active use of labor market data will create transparency that will go a long way toward restoring the public's trust in our institutions.
I have questions about whether the Department of Education has sufficient capacity to manage program-level accountability. But I know that college presidents love their institutions and will do what is needed to deliver positive outcomes for their graduates.
This moment is an opportunity for us to lead, to play offense and stop playing defense — and to reclaim higher education's status as America's preeminent investment opportunity for enabling economic growth and mobility.
Matt Gianneschi is president of Colorado Mountain College, a local district Hispanic-Serving Institution with 11 campuses across the state.