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There is overwhelming evidence that pursuing a college education provides substantial economic and non-economic benefits to students. But how much a degree is worth depends heavily on the institution a student attends. Unfortunately, value also is still influenced by a student's race, income, and gender, due to inequities in our higher education and workforce systems. Institutional leaders, federal and state policymakers, and other stakeholders all have a role to play in delivering equitable value: the economic and non-economic benefits that accrue to students, their families, their communities, and society. This report assesses economic value for students by using publicly available data to estimate the number of colleges that provide a minimum economic return for students and explores policy interventions that would increase equitable value. This analysis builds on the work of the Postsecondary Value Commission, which sought to define postsecondary value, measure postsecondary value, and develop an action agenda to expand and improve value, all while centering equity in postsecondary policymaking. The Commission focused on equitable value for Black, Latinx and/or Hispanic, Indigenous, underrepresented Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) students, students from low-income backgrounds, and women--as well as the intersectional identities within and across these groups (e.g., low-income White students and men of color). Evidence shows that the postsecondary education system currently fails to ensure that these students receive returns on their investments through equitable access, completion, affordability, and workforce outcomes. As part of its work, the Commission developed a framework that conceptualizes the economic and non-economic benefits that postsecondary education can provide to students, their families, our workforce, and society. That framework includes six economic value thresholds that measure individual outcomes and return on investment. This paper focuses on students' minimum economic return as measured by the lowest threshold.

We cannot continue to ask students -- and their families -- to make one of the largest and most important investments of their lives without clearer information about what their time and money will yield. Fortunately, support is broad across the country and across the political spectrum for a federal student-level data network (SLDN), which would streamline data reporting and answer key questions about students' postsecondary outcomes. Anticipating the questions that would fall to the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to answer in building and maintaining an SLDN, RTI International (RTI), a nonprofit research institute, joined IHEP, the leader of the Postsecondary Data Collaborative, both acting in an independent capacity to host a series of expert convenings to outline issues surrounding the SLDN's construction and implementation. "Implementing a Student-Level Data Network (Part III): Insights from Financial Aid Experts" is the third brief in the series emerging from those convenings to support the modernization of our postsecondary data infrastructure. The is based on individual conversations with 20 experts and a convening of 9 expert panelists from diverse institutional backgrounds, all with extensive experience in financial aid data and policy. Today's brief shares expert insights on data elements, institutional burden, timing of reporting, and use of data. [For Part II, "Insights from Institutional Representatives," see ED612952.]