Most of the information on tuition refers to published, or “sticker,” tuition. While that number is certainly informative since it is essentially the baseline cost, net tuition is a better measure of the actual cost to students and families. Net tuition is simply published tuition minus grant aid. Since grant aid (unlike loans) does not need to be repaid, net tuition provides a better understanContinue Reading »

The National Student Clearinghouse’s most recent analysis closes gaping holes in how we currently report college graduation rates. It gives us rates for full-time and part-time students, a distinction we haven’t previously had, and it counts students who transfer among institutions—a glaring omission in the federally managed IPEDs database. When these students are added to the equation, the natContinue Reading »

I just might have to pinch myself. One of my dreams for higher education looks like it is actually going to come true. On Wednesday, the Department of Education released an action plan to enhance postsecondary graduation rate data. If you’re not excited about this, you should be. For years, we’ve been using incomplete—woefully incomplete—completion data. And yet policymakers and researcContinue Reading »

Even though research has shown that a college education provides enormous individual and public returns on investment, steep tuition increases and a stagnant job market have left students, families, and taxpayers wondering whether a college degree is truly worth it. Why? Although consumers have good data on the value of college degrees in general, they have very little data on the value of specContinue Reading »

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The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) recently uncovered in an audit that 2.1 million taxpayers may have mistakenly claimed the American Opportunity Tax Credit (AOTC), a tax credit meant to help offset the costs of higher education. The result? Approximately $3.2 billion in erroneous tax creditContinue Reading »

Despite being our best indicator of institutional-level completion, the federal graduation rate has a number of limitations; problems that critics of the measure (or schools with low results) consistently bring up when asked to explain outcomes. There are three primary concerns about the federal graduation rate methodology:

The Chronicle of Higher Education’s default rate package this week has a chart showing 20 for-profit colleges that would be at risk for losing federal aid eligibility if a new calculation were in place today. It’s a fine chart, but it also encapsulates a huge weakness in the way cohort default rates are calculated.

The U.S. Department of Education uses two main ways to identiContinue Reading »

There’s been a lot of different higher education things going on lately, so here’s a few figures to consider:

Let’s say you’re a long-established industry that enjoys enviable immunity from the rigors of the free market. Demand for your product is rock-solid, you don’t pay corporate taxes, government subsidies pad your finances, you raise prices every year with relative impunity, and while your members compete with one another, barriers to entry are so high that no new competitors eveContinue Reading »

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a new version of the federal Higher Education Act yesterday. The floor debate included a lot of back-and-forth about student loans, spiraling tuition costs, affirmative action, and other hot-button issues. Little attention was given to the following provision, which was added last year by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce:

SEC. 13Continue Reading »