A long overdue, much needed transformation is underway in the higher education system. It started a decade ago, when federal and state policy­makers first began to collect data on what students earn after pursuing a postsecondary education. But new data are fundamentally differ­ent. Unlike broad-based national statistics, such as how much someone…

When Senator Jim Webb, a Democrat from Virginia, introduced his "21st-Century GI Bill" last year, he predicted that it would give veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the same educational opportunities that World War II veterans received under the original GI Bill of Rights, signed into law more than a half century ago. Webb's…