A new op-ed by Michael Itzkowitz argues that our higher education institutions must be willing to demonstrate their value through the transparency and accountability that students, families, taxpayers and our national economy rightfully demand.

Season four of the Rant Podcast kicks off with a deep dive into educational value and economic mobility. Host Eloy Ortiz-Oakley welcomes returning guest Michael Itzkowitz to discuss their groundbreaking "Golden Returns" report examining which California community colleges and certificate programs deliver the strongest financial returns for students.

Michael Itzkowitz, founding director of the College Scorecard and head of the HEA Group, joins CLASP’s The Post “PLUS” Podcast to unpack how the conversation around value in higher education has evolved. From the early days of measuring cost and graduation rates to today’s 2,000+ data points, he shares how transparency, ROI, and new federal requirements are reshaping what college means for students, institutions, and the workforce.

A new op-ed by Michael Itzkowitz argues that abundant and transparent data, plus best practices, can mean the world to students looking to move up the economic ladder.

A first-of-its kind regional analysis of California’s community and certificate-granting colleges shows that while some institutions offer a rapid economic return to students, far too many provide little to no ROI, especially in underserved regions of the state.

A new op-ed by Michael Itzkowitz argues that clamping down on good, publicly available higher education data will send our university system and its students down a dark spiral.

To truly ensure students’ education pays off long-term, colleges need support to turn program-level data insights into concrete improvements. A new blog post by the HEA Group’s Laura Jimenez and Michael Itzkowitz.

College Futures Foundation and the HEA Group prioritize economic mobility as a cornerstone of their missions and recognize that postsecondary education provides a critical pathway to a better life for underserved learners across California. The inaugural California Mobility Index (CMI) includes 82 four-year institutions that together enroll 785,576 undergraduate students. It describes the extent to which institutions drive upward mobility among underserved learners.

In this webinar, HEA Group President Michael Itzkowitz joins James Cryan of Willow Education to discuss strategies on how to assess—and improve—ROI at institutions and college programs across the United States. They provide an overview of the kind of returns that students can expect after enrollment and upon completion of their program.  

Can higher education be the key to economic mobility for low and moderate-income learners in California? Michael Itzkowitz from the HEA Group joins Eloy Oakley to delve into this pressing question. Uncover the surprising findings of his latest report with the College Futures Foundation, "California Programs that Pay: Measuring Return on Investment Across Majors and Credentials." 

Michael shares insights into how different majors and credentials can shape the financial future of graduates, providing crucial knowledge for learners navigating the complex landscape of higher education. The conversation takes a critical look at the role of for-profit institutions and shorter-term certificate programs, particularly in serving underserved communities like women and students of color.

In this report, we take a closer look at individual college programs and the time it takes graduates to recoup their educational costs after earning their credential within specific fields of study. The report provides policymakers, college administrators, researchers, and advocates with additional data on how well individual college programs serve learners from an economic perspective.

As part of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching’s efforts, the HEA Group was commissioned to provide three primers on college access, college affordability and economic outcomes. These papers were intended to inform the Carnegie Postsecondary Commission’s work to produce transformational change within the US higher education system as we know it.

Get behind the data and value of higher education as Michael Itzkowitz engages in a focused conversation with Eloy Oakley of College Futures Foundation. Together, they dissect the HEA Group’s work on the commissioned "Golden Opportunities" report, delving into the intricacies of California's higher education investments and what they mean for students from low-to-moderate-income economic backgrounds.

In this paper, Michael Itzkowitz explores the challenges and opportunities presented by analyzing data collected at different levels of analysis within the same project. Given that federal data collection programs define and report data at different levels of analysis, this is a considerable analytical problem. He advances simple and effective techniques for harmonizing different types of variables collected at different levels of analysis.

In this analysis, we explore whether California colleges are delivering on their promise for people from low- and moderate-income backgrounds. Specifically, we examine how long it takes students and families in this income category to recoup their educational costs after attending an institution of higher education.

In this paper, we examine the economic outcomes that students obtain by pursuing a postsecondary credential within the United States. Specifically, we look at several minimal economic benchmarks to see just how many colleges exceed — or fail to meet — basic financial outcomes for the students who attend.

In the newest issue brief between NASFAA and the HEA Group, we explore the extent to which college completion impacts student loan repayment. The result? Those who did not complete college now owe $918 million more than they borrowed in the first place.

In this report, the HEA Group and Student Defense analyzes the five most popular master’s and doctoral programs awarded in the United States and examines whether there are differences in how much students earn—and how much they owe—based on their specific course of study.

In this analysis, we explore efforts that Ivy League institutions can take to increase opportunities for students, especially those from lower- and moderate-income backgrounds. Specifically, we examine what a modest 5% increase of these students would look like at these schools. Even such small growth could pay big dividends for the low- and moderate-income students who get to attend.

Roughly one in three American graduate schools leave their students owing more in student loans than they originally borrowed, according to a new analysis of U.S. Department of Education data by The HEA Group and Student Defense. At seven of the worst-performing schools—all for-profit or private colleges—students who entered repayment in the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 school years racked up more than $100 million of excess debt on top of their original loan amount in just five years.