In this brief, we explore how students who complete multiple higher education programs should be treated in earnings data. We survey how existing policies and proposals address the topic and weigh the pros and cons of each approach and consider how different goals for earnings data might merit different approaches. This information should help policymakers make more purposeful choices about how to treat students who earn additional credentials. 

Why This Matters

Earnings data play a large role in higher education policy, but a key design feature of policies that rely on these data has been largely overlooked. Few policy proposals specify how students who go on to earn a higher credential should be treated in the data for the institution or program that awarded their initial credential. A student who completes an associate’s degree in general studies at a community college who then goes on to earn a bachelor’s degree would likely earn considerably more than their peers with only the associate’s degree. Many policy proposals, however, are unclear about whether the bachelor’s degree recipient’s earnings should be attributed to the institution that awarded the associate’s degree in addition to the one that awarded the bachelor’s degree. Data sites that display earnings information are also unclear or inconsistent about how such graduates are treated in the data.

Key Takeaways

• A comparison of first- and fifth-year earnings data in the College Scorecard suggests that the effects of students earning higher credentials might be large for some fields and credentials, but data limitations make it difficult to understand these patterns.
• Policymakers could consider excluding students who earn further credentials from earnings data for their earlier credential when measuring whether a degree provides sufficient value for its costs (i.e., return on investment).
• It might be appropriate to exclude students who complete additional credentials when earnings data are meant to inform students and consumers about the payoff from completing the initial credential.
• Policymakers might want to consider including students who earn higher credentials in the data for the initial degree when a high share of students go on to earn additional credentials and the remaining cohort accounts for only a minority of enrollees or a selectively biased subset.

How We Did It

We surveyed federal policy proposals and datasets that use earnings data to judge quality in higher education programs to assess whether they include students who go on to earn additional credentials in the initial student cohorts. We also examined data from the College Scorecard to assess how it addresses this issue, and we analyzed the data to gauge the potential effects of including or excluding these students.