Education Sector has released a new report [PDF], authored by Kevin Carey and Erin Dillon, that pays careful attention to whether or not various colleges and universities are delivering value to taxpayers:
For each college, we have taken newly available U.S. Department of Education data showing the total amount of money borrowed by undergraduates and divided that sum by the total number of degrees awarded.
If this sounds like a very intuitive approach, i.e., a no-brainer, we’re on the same page. I particularly appreciate the fact that this metric is neutral between for-profits and not-for-profits, a distinction that, as Vance Fried has argued, is a notional one.