Colleges peddle lots of degree programs to students with vague assurances that they will pay off. Often, they don’t.

In today’s Martin Center article, Grace Hall looks at two developments that could help students avoid programs that are unlikely to be worth pursuing.

She writes:

In an effort to get more data into the hands of young students, parents, and lawmakers, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC) has expanded its online dashboard to include details about the financial outcomes of degree attainment at institutions accredited by the organization. The hope is that this move will help students get clear insight about the potential return on investment at schools they are considering attending (and to which they may thereby give considerable amounts of tuition money).

That seems to me like one of the few useful things an accrediting association might do.

Another innovation in this regard comes from a think tank, the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity. Hall writes: “A similar initiative exists on the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity’s (FREOPP) website. FREOPP’s dashboard includes many more schools but does not have the same level of detail as WSCUC’s. For instance, it includes earnings only after one year and 10 years and doesn’t include tuition data, specifically.”

Good information on the results of different college programs will help students avoid costly mistakes. Now if only we could get the government out of the college finance business.