The value of a college degree can’t be measured by salary alone

Ask whether college is worth the cost, and the conversation will quickly turn to jobs. Will graduates find employment? How much will they earn? Will their salaries justify what they spent or borrowed to attend?

These are necessary questions. College is expensive, and students deserve honest information about whether a degree will improve their economic circumstances. Institutions should be accountable for helping students graduate and preparing them for meaningful work. But in our effort to prove that college pays, we have begun to treat earnings as though they are the only return that matters.

That increasingly narrow definition of value is becoming embedded in public policy. In June, the U.S. Department of Education issued new accountability regulations tied to whether graduates of undergraduate programs earn more than the typical adult with only a high school diploma. Earlier this year, Missouri lawmakers considered going further. Senate Bill 1617, which advanced from the Senate Education Committee but did not pass before the legislative session ended, would have prohibited public colleges and universities from using state funds for programs classified as producing “low-earning outcomes” under the federal standard.

This policy direction reflects a legitimate expectation: Students should not invest years of their lives and thousands of dollars in programs that leave them worse off financially. The concern is not that employment and earnings are being measured. It is what happens when those measures become the primary basis for deciding which forms of education deserve public support. Earnings can be counted, compared, and displayed on a dashboard. They appear to provide an objective answer to a complicated question: Which degrees are worth supporting?

But a measure can be precise without being complete.

A graduate’s earnings reflect more than the quality or value of an education. They also reflect geography, local labor markets, economic conditions, and how society compensates different kinds of work. Teachers, social workers, school counselors, and other professionals serving the public good perform work that communities depend on, even when their salaries do not reflect its value. When earnings become our primary measure of educational value, we risk turning labor-market inequities into judgments about educational worth. Chronic underpayment is treated as evidence not that society undervalues essential work, but that the programs preparing people to do it are unworthy of public support.

We also risk judging an education by what happens immediately after graduation rather than what it makes possible across a lifetime. A first job is one moment in a career that may span four or five decades. During that time, industries will change, technologies will evolve, and some occupations will disappear. The lasting value of an education must include the ability to continue learning, evaluate new information, communicate across differences, and adapt when familiar answers no longer work.

Those capacities matter beyond the workplace. At its best, college gives people structured opportunities to examine difficult questions, test their ideas against evidence, and encounter perspectives different from their own. Students may reconsider assumptions they have long held or discover that a problem appearing simple from a distance becomes more complicated when viewed through another person’s experience. Few institutions create sustained space for that kind of development.

This does not mean attending college automatically makes someone more thoughtful, engaged, or compassionate. People develop these qualities in families, workplaces, faith communities, and many other settings. Nor does every college provide every student with the support needed to realize education’s broader promise.

Yet recent research reflects a more complicated picture than earnings alone provide. In the 2026 Gallup-Lumina State of Higher Education study, 71% of alumni said their education was worth the cost, even as only 11% of bachelor’s degree holders believed colleges charge fair prices. Graduates can recognize the value of their education while still questioning the price they were asked to pay.

That value may also extend beyond graduates themselves. A Gallup-Lumina analysis found that educational attainment remained associated with voting, volunteering, and charitable giving after accounting for demographic differences. These associations do not show that college alone produces civic engagement, but they point to contributions that an earnings measure cannot capture.

Economic mobility and human development are not competing purposes of college. Students should not have to choose between preparing for a livelihood and preparing for a life. The same abilities that help people become thoughtful members of their communities—critical thinking, communication, intellectual curiosity, and a willingness to revise conclusions—also help them navigate a changing economy.

None of this excuses higher education from addressing its problems. Colleges must become more affordable, communicate costs and outcomes clearly, eliminate barriers to completion, and ensure that students can translate learning into opportunity. Defending the broader value of college cannot become a reason to dismiss concerns about debt, completion, or employment. It should lead us to build a more complete definition of accountability.

As the Postsecondary Value Commission has argued, higher education should contribute to both a better living and a better life. We should ask whether graduates achieve financial security. We should also ask whether they can think critically, work across differences, contribute to their communities, and respond to a changing world. The answer is not to abandon measurement, but to avoid assuming that only the outcomes most easily counted are valuable.

Higher education faces legitimate questions about affordability, outcomes, and public trust. It needs people willing to confront those shortcomings while protecting its capacity to expand opportunity, deepen understanding, and serve the public good.

A good job is one important outcome of college. But education’s most significant returns may emerge over decades—in the questions people ask, the choices they make, the communities they strengthen, and the possibilities they imagine for themselves and others. Those outcomes may be difficult to capture on an earnings dashboard. They are no less worthy of public investment.