The Rant Podcast
A bi-weekly podcast focused on pulling back the curtain on the American higher education system and breaking down the people, the policies and the politics. The podcast host, Eloy Ortiz Oakley, is a known innovator and leader in higher education. The podcast will not pull any punches as it delves into tough questions about the culture, politics and policies of our higher education system.
The Rant Podcast
College Programs That Pay with Michael Itzkowitz
Can higher education be the key to economic mobility for low and moderate-income learners in California? In our latest episode, we welcome back Michael Itzkowitz from the HEA Group to delve into this pressing question. Uncover the surprising findings of his latest report with the College Futures Foundation, "California Programs that Pay: Measuring Return on Investment Across Majors and Credentials." Discover how an impressive 88% of college programs in California allow students to recoup their educational expenses within just five years, with a significant portion achieving this feat in only one year. Michael shares invaluable insights into how different majors and credentials can shape the financial future of graduates, providing crucial knowledge for learners navigating the complex landscape of higher education.
The conversation takes a critical look at the role of for-profit institutions and shorter-term certificate programs, particularly in serving underserved communities like women and students of color. We tackle the potential risks these programs pose in perpetuating socioeconomic inequality while highlighting the necessity of transparency in educational investments. As education costs soar and student debt burdens grow, understanding the economic mobility metric becomes vital. We also challenge the notion of prestigious institution brands as the sole path to mobility, emphasizing the diverse opportunities available in California's rich educational landscape. Tune in to empower yourself with the insights needed to make informed choices that could shape your economic destiny.
www.CollegeFutures.org
Hi, I'm Eloy Ortiz-Oakley. Welcome back to the RENT Podcast, the podcast that pulls back the curtain and breaks down the people, the policies and the politics of our higher education system. In this episode we welcome back Michael Itzkiewicz of the HGA Group.
Speaker 1:As many of you recall, I had Michael on earlier this year to talk about a seminal report that he published in partnership with College Futures Foundation. It was called Golden Opportunities Measuring Return on Investment in California Higher Education for Low and Moderate Income Learners. That report looked at all of the Title IV eligible institutions in California and took a dive into measuring return on investment for low and moderate income learners of those institutions. Since that report came out, michael and College Futures have decided to partner again and we just issued another report that takes a deeper dive into program-level data. The report is titled California Programs that Pay Measuring Return on Investment Across Majors and Credentials. As many of you know, michael has a long history of looking at data, federal data in particular, since his time in the Obama administration overseeing the implementation of the college scorecard, to now working with the HEA group, where he helps states, institutions and organizations better understand what's going on with learners through looking at data. So with that backdrop Michael, welcome back to the Rent.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much for having me back. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Well, it's great to have you back, michael, and I know you've been busy. You've been busy continuing to partner with College Futures, so let's talk a little bit about that. So, as I mentioned to our viewers earlier this year, you partnered with College Futures to look at ROI in California higher education. Since that report came out, what kind of feedback did you get based on that data?
Speaker 2:Well, I think folks were genuinely excited to see it. You know this data has been available for quite a while. We started making earnings data specifically available through the US Department of Education in 2015. And I think when we started our discussions, you know it takes a while for these things and concepts to start resonating with people and having a clear understanding of what actually exists. So, you know, you and I decided to take a first crack at it and, specifically in California, look at low and moderate income students, the outcomes that they get in terms of employment relative to the cost that they're actually paying. So this was an opportunity that you and I had thought about and it came from a lot of dialogue that I think we both were having with legislators, advocates, institutions to say, hey, this is an amazing starting point. It provides us with a bird's eye view, but there are so much nuance within institutions themselves, so we would love a more detailed, robust report if you have that available, and that's what we started to look into, and the results were made public yesterday.
Speaker 1:So, before we dive into what was in the report, let's take a step back and just remind folks when we're talking about low and moderate income learners, what's that threshold for these reports?
Speaker 2:So you know we're pigeonholed in a sense. There are certain income brackets that our institutions report to the federal government and how earnings data is reported back from the federal government. So we decided to look at students whose family incomes are between zero and $75,000. Within that group of students, you know they pick a different amount than your average student or your more well-off student and in turn they also make a different amount.
Speaker 2:We know that, for a variety of reasons, that these students may come in with more obstacles, more systemic hurdles that they have to jump over just to be able to access college in the first place. And when they do, they can oftentimes be the first person in their family to attend college. So it's really important when we think in terms of economic mobility, this is a critical group for us to consider in terms of going, pursuing a higher education, earning a credential or a degree, and leaving them, these kinds of students, better off than the previous generation. I mean, I'm sure you and me, you know we all come from immigrants in some way, shape or form and that's sort of the hope and goes along with the quote unquote American dream is that we all want to leave our children better off than we are. So that's what we aim to measure looking at this specific group.
Speaker 1:Well, I appreciate the reminder to our listeners that we all come from immigrants and I think we need to get into what they eat. But we all come from immigrants and and I certainly appreciate the diversity we have here in California. It's what makes California great. So After that report, I got a lot of calls and emails about what's next. Can we look deeper into what's going on? Can we better understand what's going on? And one of those biggest questions was can we look at programs? You helped us understand the ROI for these learners as they attend institutions in California, but does a major matter, does a credential matter in terms of return on investment? So, as you looked into this data, what were some of the things that popped out at you in the report?
Speaker 2:Well, as a sociology major, you know I could tell you that my parents may or may not have been their first choice, but it's critical that folks that choose to study all different kinds of things ultimately, like we said, leave better off. So we looked at it in a number of different ways and I think that there's encouraging news, as we saw in our last report, and we should celebrate some of these things and learn from some of these things. Some of these things and learn from some of these things. And essentially, we were able to see that 88% of college programs in California, whether those be grouping all of them together certificates, associates and bachelor's degree just looking at the whole, we could see that 88% actually allow the majority of graduates able to recoup their costs pretty quickly, within five years or less. We could see that about a third of college programs allow graduates to recoup their costs extremely quickly, I would say within one year or less. So, like I said, you know there's a lot of room for celebration. And, just to remind folks, these are graduates we are looking at, so this is sort of, you know, maybe the cream of the crop. These are students that have done everything right in terms of higher education. They've gone to school, they paid their tuition, they've taken their classes, they've earned their credential and then they've entered the workforce. So how quickly are they able to recruit these things? So that's wonderful news.
Speaker 2:Going back to what I was previously talking about, now on the flip side of the coin, which we always have to examine, talking about Now on the flip side of the coin, which we always have to examine, we also noticed that out of our sample of about 2,700 college programs, there were 112 where the majority of graduates actually were left earning less than the typical high school graduate. Wow, yeah, and that's startling. These are students, like we said. They've done everything right. We know that higher education is an extremely high cost, or can be an extremely high cost nowadays. People are making a huge investment of time and money Right, and they're expecting to earn more than someone with no college experience. So it was a bit worrisome to see that. It was a bit worrisome to see that, but we've also highlighted those within the report and we're continuing to hope to learn from that in terms of what can we do to ensure better outcomes for all students who choose to pursue a post-secondary education.
Speaker 1:Well, it seems to me and I know I've heard you talk about it but the amount of information that learners actually have before they make this investment is very limited. It's anecdotal, it's marketing messaging they really don't understand the one that you were in sociology. There's probably even less information about how your learning is going to connect to an economic outcome. Now, obviously, you've been able to connect it. You've done quite well.
Speaker 2:In looking at the program level data, do you find differences in programs that are more directed to a job versus programs that are a little so? When we think of more conceptual degrees like sociology or a history major or English major, you know you're not going to.
Speaker 1:You're talking about all my kids.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm still hoping that my 13-year-old will, you know, choose to pursue a post-secondary education in the first place, and if he does, who knows what he'll go into. But yeah, and a lot of us within this field have these degrees to where, you know, you don't. There's no clear path. There's a conceptual framework that, as we've seen through our experiences, can provide high level, you know, conceptual thinking that will be beneficial in the workplace.
Speaker 2:What we've seen is that at those kinds of degrees, you know we do notice that, yes, they're going to earn less than a computer science major, right Straight out of college, like we kind of know that, but we do notice a lot of the liberal or liberal arts majors if lack of a better word will in turn be able to earn more after they get more settled into their careers.
Speaker 2:And we did see good outcomes for a lot of those most popular majors which fall into some of those buckets.
Speaker 2:You know, at bachelor's degrees we saw communications, sociology, psychology, where students, yes, they go to school longer, they pay more because it takes longer to get your degree, but we still see the majority of those graduates at those institutions able to recoup those costs in five years or less, Less, very quickly, but most of them within that five-year mark. I'd argue that the less than four-year colleges, we start to see more practical majors, whether this be vehicle maintenance or becoming an HVAC technician or a two-year nursing degree, Just as an example. These are students who are directly translatable to a specific profession. We see, you know, probably because of the relatively affordable cost to your institutions in California, we noticed that generally they were able to recoup their costs really quickly. So, bachelor's degrees, yes, those students may earn more of a premium, you know, within five years, maybe over the lifetime. But there's also that affordability component which is so critical to ensure that, whoever you are and whatever you choose to pursue, you're able to do so within a reasonable amount of time.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, I'm sure people are wondering where do I get access to this report, and I will make sure to put the web address and a link to the report in the comment section of this YouTube podcast. Or, if you're listening on audio, you can just go to collegefuturesorg and it'll be right on the homepage. Now you talked about some of these degree and credential pathways. What were some of the findings? What did they look like? The ones that troubled you the most Are there programs in the state of California that have no return on investment and, if so, what do they look like? What kind of institutions do they normally reside in?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean I'd say that we see, you know it goes across the spectrum in terms of some programs fall in every sector of education in terms of outcomes. You know good and bad and every level of education Right Now. That being said, you know we can see that there are some riskier programs, you know, that are disproportionately located in certain areas. So, just for example, I think there were about a fifth of college programs where the majority of graduates earn less than the typical high school grad that were delivered by for-profit institutions themselves. Now, they differ in terms of what kind of education that they typically provide. You know they're more focused on shorter term programs private, nonprofit, public. They generally are more concentrated in California at four-year and two-year institutions.
Speaker 2:That being said, we also notice some of these oftentimes shorter term credentials certificate programs to where some of them work extremely well. You know we can see that there are a chunk of them that these students get. You know they go to school between six and 18 months. They pay only that amount for that amount of time. They enter the workforce, they start earning and they're able to recoup their costs very quickly when they work well. They can be one of the fastest paths to socioeconomic mobility.
Speaker 2:But what was highlighted within the data itself is that they're also some of the riskiest programs. And this does worry me, you know, because when I think about these two aspects of higher education specifically you know some actors in the for-profit industry and those who focus on shorter-term certificate programs I also think about the students that disproportionately enroll in these type of programs, and they come from underserved populations. They're oftentimes women and they're oftentimes students of color, so underrepresented students. So it's kind of, you know, worrisome to think that we may be, or some aspects may be, perpetuating socioeconomic inequality rather than encouraging mobility.
Speaker 1:I completely agree because we here at College Futures, we're focused on the kind of learner that you've highlighted in this report Low and moderate income learners.
Speaker 1:These are learners in California who have traditionally been underserved. They may or may not have had a good experience in traditional post-secondary education, they may be in the workforce and they're thinking about going to college or going to some post-secondary institution as a means to improve their economic livelihood, as a means to a better job, a more stable financial situation, a better life for themselves and for their children. By and large, every time that we engage in a survey, either directly or in partnership with Estrada or Gallup, or reading the work of the New America, by and large learners are saying that one of the primary reasons they go is to improve their economic mobility, is to get a better job, to have a better life. And then we also hear that one of the number one reasons that they don't go or don't finish is cost. So this question of transparency and cost what should they expect from the institution is a new concept, but do you see it gaining ground, michael, in the work that you're doing across the country?
Speaker 2:It took a while for us to get to this point. You know we just started to have this data. I guess it's been nine years. I mean, you would think normally that this would have started to sink in more than it has, but we are getting to that point and there are so many factors that have contributed to that. We've seen the costs of higher education, as we've discussed, go up exponentially over the past few decades, so folks have started to think about this.
Speaker 2:We hear the student debt number, which it goes up every time I look, but it was like around 1.8 trillion, you know, throughout, all borrowers, throughout the nation. And then we also have faced a global pandemic that we're just getting over now. So that put people in a financial, a lot of financial obstacles to overcome at that point. And then for students, as we may recall, many of them and the institutions pivoted where everyone was learning from home. They were all paying the same amount, but they were taking classes from their parents' basement while paying tens of thousands of dollars in some cases to get their degree, tens of thousands of dollars in some cases to get their degree. So I think these three factors together have really emphasized for one of the largest investments that we are ever going to make beyond getting a home mortgage if we can afford to do that with interest rates nowadays is a college education, and we want to make sure that we're starting to get a return on our educational investment when we choose to pursue that degree.
Speaker 1:That's why we're doing the work that we're doing at College Futures. I mean, we really believe that for the learners that we are focused on, they need more and better information about the kinds of investments we're making, and we'd like to see all institutions integrate economic mobility as part of a metric of success for their institutions. So we're going to continue to work on that. Now, one of the questions that I got after this report was released was does brand matter those big name, big brand institutions that we hear about a lot in California and throughout the country we see playing football on Saturdays Does brand matter in a return on investment or how do you think about it? How do you think about those institutions, or how should we think about those institutions, in terms of how they serve underserved learners and improving their economic mobility?
Speaker 2:I guess perhaps if you're one of the 1% of students that go to the top schools brand can certainly matter and in a lot of folks' minds like it certainly does. I mean, what we've seen from our report to reemphasize this point is if you are a computer science major and you go to Stanford, you're going to be extremely well. This is not a surprise to any of us, but what we also saw through this and our previous report is that there are an extremely small sliver of low and moderate income students who go to these very prestigious schools. 99% of students are attending other institutions within the state and what we also saw is that there are some institutions that are broadly accessible. They enroll a lot of students from different kinds of backgrounds low and moderate income backgrounds but they're also shown to provide an extremely quick return on students and graduates education, credential and educational costs.
Speaker 2:So I think to your point. You know this provides broader information and the folks who were who come to all of our minds and the top of our minds. There are so many good options. There are a number of good options that may not be the few very prestigious schools that we're often hearing about in the news themselves. So that's one of the advantages of looking at the outcomes themselves is, if I was a student number one and a parent, I want to make sure that I want to be able to feel comfortable sending my kids to this type of institution. Is it going to have a good payoff for that? And, like I said, there are some to where our pilot in the report that are they're more risky than we would feel comfortable with. But there are also a number of great options that go beyond the typical brand name that we hear about and think about regularly.
Speaker 1:Whether it was this report or the previous report, you've highlighted that California public institutions are a really good option for most, if not all, californians, so we can be proud that our public institutions are doing a good job. We want them to do a better job. We want information to be more transparent. We're going to continue to push to get more and better data out there so that underserved learners, low-income learners, can make better decisions with that information and that we drive institutions and their leaders to want to do more, to want to do better, to not be pulled in the direction of institutions that are rewarded for rejecting a great number of Californians, but instead institutions that actually embrace a large majority of Californians. So, as we move forward, a large majority of Californians. So as we move forward. Michael, now that you've taken a look at some of this data for us, what are some of the things that we should be thinking about in the next couple of phases of analysis into this data? What should we be looking for beyond what you've already exposed in these two reports?
Speaker 2:Well, I think we've just started to peel back the onion, and you know our intent was to spur conversation.
Speaker 2:We want other folks to be involved, we want to hear what else they're looking for and we want to think about what can be helpful to institutions and, ultimately, for continuous improvement purposes and to better student outcomes across the state of California.
Speaker 2:But something that has continued to peek its head through the sand are these institutions that continue to punch above their weight. They are the ones serving a broad group of students and they're leaving them with extremely good outcomes. So we need to think about these types of schools that serve the majority of Californians, not just the more exclusive institutions that serve a very, very small percentage. But who are the folks who are serving a broad group of students, leaving them with better outcomes, and how can we identify them, how can they be recognized and how can we learn from them and have them learn from each other? There's probably a bunch of peer institutions who serve similar demographics, who may have good outcomes or a lot of room for continuous improvement, but are there possibilities to match these kinds of schools with each other, to benchmark our results and to ultimately move towards a more robust and inclusive and outcome-oriented post-secondary education system in California.
Speaker 1:Well, listen, michael. I really appreciate you taking the time to sit down with me again and talk about this new report California Programs that Pay, measuring Return on Investment Across Majors and Credentials for Institutions here in California. Again, if our listeners want to take a look at the report, they can just Google it. They can go to our website, wwwcollegefuturesorg. I'll put the link in the comment section. I appreciate your work, michael. You've given us a lot to think about. You've given us a lot to work on going forward and appreciate your partnership now and into the future. Thanks for being with us. Absolute pleasure, thank you Eli.
Speaker 1:All right? Well, you've been listening to my conversation with Michael Iskowitz, who heads the HEA group. We've been talking about the latest report that he partnered with College Futures, with California Programs that Pay, measuring return on investment across majors and credentials. I hope you enjoyed the interview. If you did hit the like button, continue to follow us on this YouTube channel and on all of your favorite podcast platforms. Take care, everybody, and we'll see you soon, thank you.
