Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource
A new report released by the College Futures Foundation finds that while a large majority of California college programs allow graduates to recoup the costs of their postsecondary education in five years or less, a handful leave recent graduates earning less than the typical Californian with only a high school education.
The report by researcher Michael Itzkowitz of the HEA Group finds programs that did not result in recent graduates earning more than people with a high school diploma were concentrated at private, for-profit colleges. The paper flags such programs as having no economic return on investment.
By contrast, all programs analyzed at the California State University and the University of California had a positive return on investment, measured as the difference between the median graduate’s earnings five years after graduation and the median earnings among…
