Current assessments of college value in the United States fall short of centering race in their measurements if they do not account for the unique economic conditions of racially marginalized students before, during, and after they leave college, states a new report from The Institute for College Access & Success. Commonly used economic indicators, such as earnings and debt, are incomplete measures of college value for communities of color. Wider societal issues like structural racism cascade into inequities in college affordability and outcomes but are often left out of college value discussions.
In January 2023, TICAS introduced a new metric, “Race and Economic Mobility,” or REM, capturing economic outcomes by colleges’ compositions (or shares) of racially marginalized students. Using data from the College Scorecard, TICAS found that students who attended colleges serving greater shares of racially marginalized students earned less income 10 years after graduation than their peers from colleges with smaller shares of students of color. Even more alarming, at colleges serving the largest shares of Black students, borrowers owed more in student loans a decade after starting repayment than they originally borrowed. The REM metric is specifically designed to show how economic mobility differs by race and offers a more accurate assessment of the true value of a college education.
This report compares median earnings, the percentage of debt owed, and share of completers with an earnings premium at HSIs versus non-HSIs. Among the findings:
- Students from two-year HSIs earned nearly 11% more than their peers who attended non-HSIs, and students from four-year HSIs had comparable earnings to their peers who attended non-HSIs.
- Borrowers from four-year HSIs owed a higher share of their original loan balances a decade after entering repayment than borrowers who attended non-HSIs.
- Both two-year and four-year HSIs had similar shares of completers with an earnings premium compared to two-year and four-year non-HSIs.
- Despite having fewer resources, our findings suggest that HSIs provide students with similar wages and similar shares of completers with an earnings premium compared to non-HSIs. However, borrowers from both two- and four-year HSIs owed at least 80 percent of their original student loan balances, consistent with previous research about Latinx borrowers struggling to pay down debt.
- HSIs play an important role in providing a pathway to higher education for Latinx students, but some colleges that attain this designation do not always center the needs of Latinx students—understating the importance of how HSIs must equitably serve the very population that makes them eligible. The findings reflect, in part, a pattern of federal and state under- and divestment in colleges serving large shares of racially marginalized students.