Data showing what students earn after attending higher education institutions have become increasingly available, bolstering calls from policymakers and advocates that government financial aid programs should be tied to those outcomes. Often overlooked, however, is that these data and policies usually reflect the earnings of only students who graduate. A key rationale for using earnings data in accountability policies is that they help reveal whether the education generates a positive return on investment. Ignoring the earnings outcomes of noncompleters, therefore, may provide an incomplete assessment of that metric, especially for institutions with high dropout rates. This brief uses undergraduate earnings data from the College Scorecard to estimate how much earnings differ based on whether noncompleters are included. These findings help reveal where current quality assurance policies that focus only on completers' earnings may be misaligned with what a typical student is likely to earn when enrolling at a higher education institution.