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In partnership with the Postsecondary Value Commission, we conducted a thought experiment on the costs of inequality in the US education system. Our simulation found that the US economy misses out on $956 billion dollars per year, along with numerous nonmonetary benefits, as a result of postsecondary attainment gaps by economic status and race/ethnicity. "The Cost of Economic and Racial Injustice in Postsecondary Education" finds that closing these gaps would require an initial public investment of at least $3.97 trillion, but the benefits would outweigh the costs over time. Equalizing educational attainment without increasing student debt for low-income adults could also boost GDP by a total of $764 billion annually. [During the writing of this report, Kathryn Peltier Campbell, Ban Cheah, Megan L. Fasules, Artem Gulish, Michael C. Quinn, Jenna R. Sablan, Nicole Smith, and Jeff Strohl received funding from the Institute for Higher Education Policy for work done on behalf of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.]

"The College Payoff: More Education Doesn't Always Mean More Earnings" explores how lifetime earnings vary by education level, field of study, occupation, industry, gender, race and ethnicity, and location. The lifetime earnings of a full-time full-year worker with a high school diploma are $1.6 million, while workers with an associate's degree earn $2 million. However, at least one quarter of high school graduates earn more than an associate's degree holder. Bachelor's degree holders earn a median of $2.8 million during their career, 75% more than if they had only a high school diploma. Master's degree holders earn a median of $3.2 million over their lifetimes, while doctoral degree holders earn $4 million and professional degree holders earn $4.7 million. However, one quarter of workers with a bachelor's degree earn more than half of workers with a master's or a doctoral degree.

"If Not Now, When? The Urgent Need for an All-One-System Approach to Youth Policy" makes the case that the United States' disjointed approach to youth policy has failed young people. In the current fragmented system, pre-K-12, postsecondary education, and the workforce operate in silos that allow many young people to fall through the cracks. In its place, the country needs an all-one-system approach that supports youth on their journey through education and training and into careers.

Affirmative action critics argue that race-conscious admissions policies are keeping Asian American enrollment numbers unfairly low because Asian American students are held to higher admissions standards than applicants of any other race or ethnicity. "Selective Bias: Asian Americans, Test Scores, and Holistic Admissions" evaluates the common arguments made by them and Students for Fair Admissions, which is suing Harvard University and has lawsuits pending against the University of North Carolina and the University of Texas at Austin over their admissions practices. The report finds no strong evidence of discrimination against Asian American applicants in admissions to highly selective colleges.

This is the executive summary for the report, "The Dollars and Sense of Free College." Policymakers have debated the specifics of free-college programs--including whether free-college eligibility should extend to students at four-year public colleges as well as community colleges, and whether it should be universal or targeted to low-income and middle-income students. Free-college proposals generally reflect support for some form of publicly funded program that makes college attendance affordable for a majority of students. Joe Biden endorsed a free-college plan that was originally part of the party's platform in the previous election. This plan would make public community colleges tuition-free for all students. It also would make four-year public colleges and universities tuition-free for students with family incomes under $125,000, which would mean that approximately 80 percent of in-state undergraduate students at public four-year colleges and universities would not have to pay tuition. The federal government and state governments would share the costs of this program, with the federal government contributing $2 for every $1 contributed by a state. While the Biden plan has immediate relevance to the 2020 election, there are other ways to design free-college plans. This report discusses a variety of free-college models and assesses their relative costs and benefits. [For the full report, see ED608985.]

Education beyond high school is now the preferred currency for workers seeking economic opportunity in the US labor market. Since the 1980s, the bachelor's degree has been the gold standard for stable employment and lifetime earnings and the most promising route to the middle class. The new rules of the college and career game confirm that education level matters, and that more education is generally better when it comes to earnings potential. What is less well known is that program of study and major matter even more to potential earnings than education level. As a result, less education can often be worth more. In fact, some certificate holders can earn more than those with an associate's or bachelor's degree, and some associate's degree holders can earn more than those with a bachelor's degree. In other words, certificates and associate's degrees--credentials on the middle-skills pathway--can be viable routes to economic opportunity. Workers who have taken this pathway to jobs are doing so with certificates, associate's degrees, noncredit education, certifications, licenses, and a host of emerging microcredentials such as badges or coding and technology boot camps. But, while pockets of opportunity exist, not enough is known about the risks and rewards of the particular education and training programs available. Today the combined number of certificates and associate's degrees awarded by colleges is roughly equivalent to the number of bachelor's degrees, around 2 million per year, with certificates and associate's degrees each accounting for about 1 million. The students earning the vast majority of these credentials attend public two-year colleges. While certifications, licenses, microcredentials, and noncredit education are also important options on the middle-skills pathway, much less is known about the workforce outcomes of these options because no data source consistently captures this information. Due to limitations in the data, this report focuses on certificates and associate's degrees.

This report examines the relationship between authoritarianism and postsecondary education, including liberal arts education. This analysis rests on the idea that authoritarianism is part of human nature, but its influence waxes and wanes according to circumstances. Having entered a new era defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, the evidence suggests that there is good reason to worry about the future of democracy. Presenting enormous threats to physical and economic well-being worldwide, this contemporary emergency bears the hallmarks of a possible tipping point into authoritarianism. Key findings include: (1) College graduates are less inclined to express authoritarian preferences and attitudes than their peers with less education; (2) Higher education provides people with a greater sense of security. As a result, it can lead to the development of interpersonal trust, which is associated with a weaker inclination toward expressing authoritarian preferences and attitudes; (3) People with postsecondary education are more likely to be politically active, which in the United States is associated with a lower inclination toward expressing authoritarian preferences and attitudes; (4) Liberal arts majors in particular are less inclined to express authoritarian preferences and attitudes than majors in business-related fields and STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics); (5) People with postsecondary education are more economically secure than those without it, and people who are economically secure are less inclined to express authoritarian preferences and attitudes; and (6) Postsecondary education tends to expose people to secular values and cultures, leading them to be less inclined to express authoritarian preferences and attitudes. [Foreword by John J. DeGioia.]

The manufacturing workforce has been shaped by decades of industry transformation. Modern manufacturing requires workers with a diverse set of skills to perform functions such as research and development (R&D), product and production design, marketing and sales, and customer support. While workers with a high school diploma or less dominated the manufacturing workforce of the past, today, even production jobs have begun to shift to workers with postsecondary education. The result is that while manufacturing still has good jobs that pay well, they are now going to a downsized, better-educated workforce. This report describes five key trends that define the changing character of the manufacturing workforce: (1) Manufacturing, once the powerhouse of the industrial economy, now plays a smaller, less central role in an economy dominated by services; (2) Manufacturing, despite its decline, is still a source of good jobs for less educated workers; (3) While there are still good jobs in manufacturing, the structure of economic opportunity has shifted in favor of those with postsecondary education and industry-recognized credentials; (4) Manufacturing workers, like workers in other industries, now pursue education and training options beyond traditional degrees and diplomas; and (5) Current trends suggest that there will be no return to the glory days when good manufacturing jobs were plentiful for high school-educated workers. While it continues to be a top source of good jobs in many states, manufacturing is not expected to be a major job generator in the future. The industry's shrinking presence across the country means that it employs fewer workers, provides fewer good jobs, and creates smaller ripples in the surrounding economy. Production itself is being reshaped through new techniques, such as 3-D printing, robotics, and computer-based modeling and simulation. These trends, often associated with advanced manufacturing, have altered the mix of production and non-production functions needed by employers, reinforcing the demand for educated and skilled workers. This report details four suggested practical steps to bolster the economic vibrancy of manufacturing firms and workers: (1) Support research and technology development in manufacturing; (2) Build the capacity of small and medium-sized manufacturers; (3) Build the manufacturing workforce of the future; and (4) Improve worker transitions. Acting on these ideas will require a new understanding from policymakers and the public.

Judging from how much high school students and their parents worry about standardized test scores, one might presume that an SAT or ACT score is the primary factor in college admissions. But a look at the numbers reveals a different reality. A review of SAT and ACT standardized test scores among students in a recent class at the nation's 200 most selective colleges finds that if all students were admitted solely on the basis of their test scores and no new seats were added, 53 percent of incoming students at the nation's most selective colleges would no longer be attending. These students had median test scores that were 110 points below the median of all students at selective colleges (1140, compared to 1250). More than half of the students who would be ousted are affluent students-from families in the top quartile of socioeconomic status (SES). The problem however is that if those students were ousted and replaced by applicants with higher test scores, the student bodies of America's most selective colleges would become even more aristocratic. Now, 60 percent of incoming freshmen at selective colleges are from the top quartile of family SES, but that would increase to 63 percent if students were admitted based on standardized test scores alone. In addition to having more affluent students, selective colleges would become notably less racially diverse. The White enrollment would grow by about 14 percent. Meanwhile, the combined Black and Latino enrollment at selective colleges would be reduced by 43 percent, and Asian enrollment would decline as well-by about 9 percent. Researchers performed an thought experiment in which data that followed students entering high school in 2009, which includes information about those students' family socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity, standardized test scores, and college enrollment were examined. Students from the high school class of 2013 who enrolled at the most selective colleges and universities in the country were identified. Then all the prospective college students from that year who reported SAT or ACT scores were reviewed. Researchers sorted by score and took the highest-scoring students until every existing seat was filled in the most selective colleges. After filling all 300,000 existing seats, it was determined that no one with an SAT or SAT-equivalent score below 1250 would have been admitted to the 200 most selective colleges and universities if admissions were based on test scores alone. Findings from this experiment indicated that an SAT-only admissions process isn't the answer. If admission to the most selective colleges were based on SAT scores alone, those institutions would serve even more affluent White students than they already do, further perpetuating intergenerational race and class privilege. Results obtained from this experiment show that the current admissions system disproportionately benefits affluent Whites, and supports the argument that just as an SAT-only admissions standard isn't the answer, neither is an admissions process without any standardization at all. Researchers concluded that what is needed is an admissions system that is not only holistic (while still including some form of standardization), but also transparent. Without transparency, there is no way to ensure that the college admissions system is fair.

This is the executive summary for the report, "The Unequal Race for Good Jobs: How Whites Made Outsized Gains in Education and Good Jobs Compared to Blacks and Latinos." Between 1991 and 2016, White workers built on their past educational and economic privileges to attain bachelor's and graduate degrees in historically high numbers and consequently gained access to good jobs that demanded higher levels of education. As a group, White workers with bachelor's degrees and graduate degrees gained 10.6 million good jobs even as overall employment growth for White workers was modest: 1.9 million jobs. With the constantly growing demand for workers with postsecondary education and the disproportionate advantage that Whites have accrued in educational attainment. Black and Latino workers also sought and attained higher levels of education as a pathway to greater opportunity, but their gains have been far short of those of Whites. Black workers gained 1.9 million good jobs for workers with at least a bachelor's degree, while their employment increased by 4 million jobs overall; Latino workers gained 2.2 million good jobs for workers with at least a bachelor's degree even as their employment increased substantially, by 13.1 million jobs overall. [For the full report, see ED600048.]

This is the executive summary for the report, "Born to Win, Schooled to Lose: Why Equally Talented Students Don't Get Equal Chances to Be All They Can Be." Throughout their youth, relatively advantaged children enjoy protective and enriched environments that help ensure their success. Meanwhile, equally talented children from poor backgrounds are held back by material disadvantages. Stunningly, a child from the bottom quartile of socioeconomic status who has high test scores in kindergarten has only a 3 in 10 chance of having a college education and a good entry-level job as a young adult, compared to a 7 in 10 chance for a child in the top quartile of socioeconomic status who has low test scores. Thus, the likelihood of success is too often determined not by a child's innate talent, but by his or her life circumstances--including factors that determine access to opportunity based on class, race, and ethnicity. In short, the system conspires against young people from poor families, especially those who are Black or Latino. Among these youth, even those who "make it" and earn a college degree are less likely than their more affluent peers to get a good entry-level job as a young adult. [For the full report, see ED599947.]

Deciding how to spend the nation's education dollars is a tremendous responsibility. It's easy to forget that this responsibility falls primarily to district leaders (sometimes with input from principals). Sometimes those decisions go well and schools beat the odds on student outcomes. Other times, they do not, and student outcomes lag. Sometimes these decisions help ensure financial stability from one year to the next. Other times, district leaders commit to spending more than the district can afford, resulting in disruptive and destabilizing cuts to schools. There's no doubt, finance is a critical part of the job for K-12 leaders, from school principals to district officials to state superintendents. But there is growing evidence that these leaders are not getting the financial skills they need from the nation's colleges of education, where most get their training. This study explores what kind of finance training is offered among leading colleges of education and how well it meets the demands on today's K-12 leaders.

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of school districts have broken from tradition to offer pay outside of the rigid step-and-lane salary schedules. In particular, many districts are now offering flat-dollar raises or non-recurring bonuses, incentives to address long-standing recruitment and retention issues, or compensation to shape teacher behavior in other ways such as getting vaccinated. It's possible that these reforms are only temporary. The fall of 2021 was a remarkably tight labor market, especially for "low-skill" workers like instructional aides and bus drivers. Or, districts may be so flush with one-time federal relief funds that they're simply trying to spend their money quickly. Still, it's a promising sign that districts are being nimble with their funds at a time that calls for fast thinking, and some of these innovations in teacher pay may live on beyond the pandemic if district leaders find them effective. In this piece, the authors outline the types of innovations popping up, explain why they matter, and highlight some of the districts trying them.

This is the executive summary for the report, "Our Separate & Unequal Public Colleges: How Public Colleges Reinforce White Racial Privilege and Marginalize Black and Latino Students." America's selective public colleges should be among the great equalizers in our society. Funded primarily by taxpayers and carrying a relatively low price tag, these colleges are meant to be engines of opportunity for all. In reality, however, the doors of these colleges are open wider to White students than to their Black and Latino peers. Whites have almost two-thirds (64%) of the seats in selective public colleges even though Whites make up barely half (54%) of the nation's college-age population. Blacks and Latinos are making unprecedented gains in college-going, but the vast majority of Black and Latino students enroll in overcrowded and underfunded open-access colleges, primarily community colleges. Consequently, fewer Black and Latino students receive a bachelor's degree. [For the full report, see ED594576.]

This is the executive summary for the report, "Women Can't Win: Despite Making Educational Gains and Pursuing High-Wage Majors, Women Still Earn Less than Men." Gender wage disparities have always been an intractable problem in the workforce. Women are doing all the right things to close wage disparities--going to college in greater numbers than men, pursuing majors that offer higher incomes, and graduating college in greater numbers than men. A complex set of reasons has kept this gender wage disparity in place: (1) choice of field of study; (2) choice of majors within fields of study; (3) choice of occupation; and (4) discrimination. [For the full report, see ED594545.]

Over the past half century, the relationship between working and learning has changed in profound ways that have made it more difficult for students, especially students from low-income backgrounds, to attain the right mix of work experience and schooling necessary to qualify for entry-level jobs with a future. The need for formal postsecondary education and training as well as high-quality work experience has made the transition from youth dependency to independent adulthood more difficult for all young people. As a result, the age at which young workers begin to earn the average wage for all workers has increased from 26 in 1980 to 34 in 2017. These changes have put more economic pressure on students from low-income families, who are less likely than higher-income students to attain a postsecondary credential. This executive summary highlights several important findings from the full report: (2) The current structure of youth employment works differently for disadvantaged students compared to those who are better off; (2) Low-income working learners are different from their higher-income counterparts in many ways; and (3) New economic realities and policy changes are at the heart of the challenges facing working learners. Policy and practice recommendations from "Balancing Work and Learning: Implications for Low-Income Students" are also summarized. [For the full report, see ED590710.]

In the post-World War II period, workers with a high school diploma or less were able to attain jobs with middle-class wages in American industry. Good jobs were available in manufacturing and other blue-collar industries that employed large numbers of high school-educated workers. But as automation, globalization, and related phenomena have led to major structural changes in the American economy, economic opportunity has shifted toward more educated workers with higher skill levels. Whereas two out of three entry-level jobs in the industrial economy demanded a high school diploma or less, now two out of three jobs demand at least some education or training beyond high school. In this report, the authors write about the three pathways to good jobs, each defined by education and skills: the high school pathway, the middle-skills pathway, and the bachelor's degree (BA) pathway.

In a republic, the mission of higher education is to empower individuals to live fully in their time free from economic or public dependency. The mission endures, but times change. Because postsecondary education and training have become the most well-traveled pathways to middle class earnings, both students and the educators who serve them need to learn new rules of the college and career game. Students need to shop around for college because higher education is a student's first major investment in the transition from dependent adolescent to independent adult. Students deserve to know what they are paying for. The five rules presented in this report can help students navigate the college game in these uncertain times: (1) Education level still matters, and generally more education is better; (2) Education level matters, but program of study and majors matter even more; (3) While field of study is important, it does not control one's financial destiny--there is great variation in earnings within majors; (4) Less education can be worth more; and (5) Humanities and liberal arts majors never catch up with the highest earning majors.

Colorado has the second most-educated adult populace, but largely because it imports college-educated labor from other states. Almost 56 percent of Coloradans have a high-quality certificate, associate's degree, bachelor's degree, or higher. Yet at the same time Colorado has the fifth lowest high school graduation rate in the nation. The state's 77 percent high school graduation rate puts it close to the bottom--the national average is 83 percent. Because the state is committed both to improving the quality of its workforce and to improving opportunity for Coloradans born in the state, it has set an educational attainment goal that by 2025, 66 percent of state residents will have a postsecondary credential. The majority of states have set overall postsecondary attainment goals, but Colorado has gone a step further by setting 66 percent goals for each significant racial and ethnic grouping. State leaders expect each racial and ethnic group in the state individually to reach this goal, but right now only Whites are on track to do so: Latinos and Native Americans are the farthest behind in reaching the goal (29% of each have a postsecondary credential), Whites are the closest (64%), and Blacks are in between (39%). Among the racial and ethnic subgroups, Latino high school students are the most underserved. Colorado's postsecondary attainment gap between Whites and Latinos ages 25 to 34 is the highest among the nine states that have at least one million Latinos. This report is a pipeline analysis of Colorado high school students attending public colleges in the state, since that is within the purview of what Colorado leaders can address in order to meet the state's educational attainment goal. Using state administrative data, it examines the postsecondary enrollment, completion, and earnings of White and Latino Colorado public high school graduates who earned a high school diploma between 2009 and 2011.

This report shows how state leaders are using technological advances to improve the use of data in five critical areas: (1) Helping economic and workforce developers, businesses, and colleges to reduce the high costs resulting from uninformed education and workforce decisions; (2) Assisting college leaders in making program-related decisions that take into account labor market needs; (3) Ensuring that postsecondary education and training programs strike a balance between learners' foundational knowledge and what they will need to know and be able to do in the workplace; (4) Enhancing high school counseling and college advising to make the process of exploring, entering, and finishing college easier for learners; and (5) Helping workers understand how to take advantage of postsecondary education and training options as they change jobs and navigate their careers. These five practices call for the integration of postsecondary education and workforce data to support individual, organizational, and policy decisions. Together, they represent closer alignment between the postsecondary education and workforce sectors. Alignment does not mean that the postsecondary sector becomes the pawn of the workforce sector, or vice versa; rather, the two sectors work in concert to contribute to a state's overall success. The tools featured in this report represent how leaders within and across eight geographically diverse states are using labor market information to build a more complete picture of what happens to learners and workers before, during, and after they complete their postsecondary studies. Each section of the report includes an overview and describes the data being integrated, as well as the intended audience for each of the Five Ways. Each section concludes with one or more state examples.

This executive summary highlights findings presented in the full report, "Latino Education and Economic Progress: Running Faster but Still Behind." The report reveals that Latinos have a long way to go in achieving educational and economic equality. Latinos' rates of high school graduation are improving, but they are still last compared to Blacks and Whites. As a result of their low high school graduation rate, Latinos are also last in postsecondary enrollment. However, Latinos' postsecondary enrollment is growing faster than White enrollment. Latinos initially enrolling in postsecondary certificate programs exceed both Blacks and Whites in their completion of certificates but have the lowest overall educational attainment. Due to their low educational attainment, Latinos have the lowest earnings. However, Latinos with at least some postsecondary education earn more than Blacks, on average. [For the full report, see ED590639.]

A college education is widely recognized as a gateway to economic opportunity and intergenerational mobility in the United States. Children from households with highly educated parents are three times more likely to get a Bachelor's degree than children from households in which the parents did not attend college. Today, at least some postsecondary education is a baseline requirement for anyone who aspires to enter the middle class. Deeper research has demonstrated that it is not just the college degree that matters; labor market outcomes also are tightly tied to what one studies and what job one gets. This report on The University of Texas System (UT System) Bachelor's degree recipients demonstrates that college, as one of the first big investment decisions a young person makes, has lifelong economic consequences. As is the case in the Center on Education and the Workforce's national research, the major that UT System graduates pursued in college is the biggest predictor of wage outcomes. Moreover, UT System graduates earn more, on average, than Bachelor's recipients nationally, as well as those currently working in Texas. Six key findings from the report are: (1) A UT System education is a worthwhile investment; (2) Major matters most; (3) Choice of major outweighs institutional selectivity; (4) All UT System graduates earned a wage premium, including students who received Pell Grants; (5) Access to particular occupations after college matters when examining earnings disparities by race or ethnicity; and (6) Women initially outearn men in majors dominated by women, but fall behind men over time. [This report was prepared in partnership with The University of Texas System.]