Data showing what students earn after attending higher education institutions have become increasingly available, bolstering calls from policymakers and advocates that government financial aid programs should be tied to those outcomes. Often overlooked, however, is that these data and policies usually reflect the earnings of only students who graduate. Omitting from earning data students who do not complete a credential can create a blind spot in accountability policies.

A key rationale for using earnings data in accountability policies is that they help reveal whether the education generates a positive return on investment. Ignoring the earnings outcomes of noncompleters, therefore, may provide an incomplete assessment of that metric, especially for institutions with high dropout rates. But there is little information available on the effects of excluding noncompleters in earnings metrics and accountability policies.

In this brief, we use undergraduate earnings data from the College Scorecard to estimate how much earnings differ based on whether noncompleters are included. We find the following: 

• Typical earnings are generally, but not always, lower when noncompleters are included, and the effects are largest at institutions with relatively low completion rates.
• The largest difference occurs at for-profit institutions that issue predominantly bachelor’s degrees. Median earnings among completers are about $49,000 but drop to about $32,000 when noncompleters are included.
• Earnings among former community college students also show large changes, dropping by about 20 percent ($8,000) when noncompleters are included.
• For-profit institutions that operate mainly certificate programs show little difference in earnings when noncompleters are included, but earnings are relatively low for both groups.
• Including noncompleters in earnings metrics narrows or even closes the earnings gap between public and for-profit institutions that offer mainly certificates and associate’s degrees.
• Including noncompleters in earnings tests that require students to outearn those with only a high school diploma has a larger effect among institutions that enroll high shares of women and Black students.

Policies that would link federal student aid eligibility to graduate earnings have gained support in the policy community. But for largely practical reasons, the proposed policies tend to measure the earnings of only students who complete a credential and ignore those who drop out. These findings help reveal where current quality assurance policies that focus only on completers’ earnings may be misaligned with what a typical student is likely to earn when enrolling at a higher education institution.