The number of college graduates in the United States reached nearly 68.6 million in 2021, of which approximately 68 million had ever held a job, with nearly 52 million currently employed and 16 million not employed. Although the number of employed college graduates increased by 1.2 million (2.5%) between 2019 and 2021, the number of nonemployed…

The discourse on cost of attendance (COA) at American colleges and universities is ambiguous and complex. The literature around COA labels it as the 'sticker price' to attend college but categorization in this manner often negates the true application and meaning of this term. COA also accounts for living allowances (or indirect costs) to help…

Using data collected from more than 5.8 million high school and college graduates ages 18 to 65 years who participated in the American Community Survey between 2009 and 2021, the authors estimate the internal rates of return (IRRs) for individuals with college degrees in 10 broad majors compared with high school graduates. The analysis shows…

Place-based scholarships within the College Promise movement reduce the cost of college for students in particular places and often include incentives for families to live in places for a longer period of time to capture full program benefits. This financial incentive may change the residential mobility decisions of people living in and around…

"How Clear Is Their Path? Guided Career Pathways and Community College Students" explores how prepared community college students are to meet their career goals. Over 90 percent of students responding to the 2023 Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) indicated they had chosen a career path. But many of those respondents…

Recent higher education accountability policies and proposals have often linked programs' or institutions' federal aid access to students' postcompletion earnings. But proposals differ regarding when to measure earnings. Policymakers may want to know how fast earnings typically grow and when in an individual's career earnings growth rates change.…

Which occupations are best for wellbeing? There is a large literature on earnings differentials, but less attention has been paid to occupational differences in non-pecuniary rewards. However, information on both types of rewards is needed to understand the dispersion of wellbeing across occupations. We analyse subjective wellbeing in a large…

What are the economic consequences of college noncompletion? Given escalating student debt, is "some college" still worth it? This article applies augmented inverse probability weighting to the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 to estimate the causal effect of college noncompletion on income and financial hardship. Although…

Institutions may be interested in using alumni career success as evidence of institutional effectiveness, but the current study suggests that using income as the sole outcome may not be entirely capturing the occupational experience of graduates. Utilising data from the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project, exploratory and confirmatory factor…

We update Collier et al. (2021) by using the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) 2019 dataset to explore characteristics of enrollees in Income-Driven Repayment (IDR). SCF 2019 is more likely to include borrowers engaged in REPAYE. Findings support an ongoing need to encourage greater IDR participation for lowest-income borrowers and reinforced…

The Association on Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD) has conducted biennial surveys of postsecondary disability resource professionals since 2008. The day-to-day work of disability resource offices on college campuses has undergone significant changes in this time period, potentially requiring new technical skills, expanded content…

National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators' (NASFAA's) National Student Aid Profile is an annual publication designed to give a high-level overview of the federal student financial aid programs that provide funding to millions of students each year. This profile includes an overview of: (1) The Federal Pell Grant Program; (2) The…

National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators' (NASFAA's) National Student Aid Profile is an annual publication designed to give a high-level overview of the federal student financial aid programs that provide funding to millions of students each year. This profile includes an overview of: (1) The Federal Pell Grant Program; (2) The…

In this study, using a database of higher education student surveys, we analyse the motivations behind paid work through cluster analysis and reveal which variables influence them. We hypothesise that working while studying is also an investment in human capital. We research to what extent students are motivated to work alongside their studies by…

"How America Pays for College", introduced in 2008, is a Sallie Mae national study conducted by Ipsos that annually surveys undergraduate students and parents of undergraduates about how much they pay for college and the resources they use to fund the expense. Now in its tenth year, this study also asks families about their attitudes…