In recent years, growing attention has focused on assessing the value of a college education. Current approaches like measuring debt relative to earnings or assessing the earnings premium potential of a postsecondary degree are useful in determining whether individual institutions and academic programs are economically benefiting college graduates. But these approaches have one major limitation: They fail to explicitly center race.
To support ongoing advocacy for equitable investments in both students of color and institutions serving the largest shares of racially marginalized students, a report from The Institute for College Access & Success introduces a new metric: Race and Economic Mobility (REM), which captures economic outcomes by institutions’ composition of racially marginalized students.
TICAS’ analysis found that students who attended colleges that serve a greater share of students of color earn less in income 10 years after graduation than their peers who attended colleges with fewer shares of students of color. Even more alarming: At colleges serving the largest share of Black students, students owe more in student loans than they originally borrowed.