While most colleges are producing graduates who go on to earn incomes higher than your typical high school graduate, a sizable portion of them are not, according to a new report from the HEA Group.
Michael Itzkowitz
“We know the number one reason why students attend college is for greater employability and to obtain a financially secure future,” said report author Michael Itzkowitz, founder and president of the HEA Group. “However, over the past several years, we've seen confidence in college declining. In fact, most Americans now doubt that college is even worth the cost of attendance.”
The report, "Ensuring a Living Wage Through Higher Education," examined whether that doubt has any legitimacy, looking at the earnings of about five million students at 3,887 U.S. higher ed institutions. Specifically, the HEA Group assessed whether the median earnings of former students 10 years after enrollment met or surpassed what Itzkowitz called “minimal economic benchmarks,” such as the federal poverty line and minimum wage.
“We wanted to be as generous as possible within our study to show the most promising results for institutions,” he said. “These are really the most generous metrics that the U.S. [Department of Education] has available and the longest timeframe that they allow for within their measurement period.”
For almost all of the studied colleges (3,869 or 99%), their students went on to make earnings above the U.S. federal poverty line, which for individuals in 2023 is $14,580. Students from 87% of the schools (3,401) were found to earn more than $10,000 above the benchmark, and only 18 schools produced students falling below the poverty line, according to the report.
As the bar is raised however, the number of schools producing students earning above these thresholds decreased by notable amounts.
For instance, 92% of the 3,887 colleges (3,582) resulted in their students earning 150% above the federal poverty line, a $21,870 annual salary. Meanwhile, students from a little over three in four schools (78% or 3,035) ended up earning more than a $15 minimum wage – 852 schools (approx. 22%) missed that mark.
