College-ROI

Is college worth the cost? A first look at ROI

Georgetown University CEW examines the financial return on post-high school education.
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Post-high school education can be a very expensive financial investment that doesn’t come with a guarantee that you are going to get a career “bang” for your many bucks. Deciding whether to pursue a degree and where is an important decision.

The U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard, started in 2015, provides potential students and parents with straightforward data such as program costs, completion rates, the average amount of student debt, and post-college earnings. It looks at 4,500 two-year and four-year institutions, as well as certificate-granting programs.

What it doesn’t do is rank those schools by return on your investment. A new study of the state by state, institution by institution data by Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce — A First Try at ROI — looks to do just that.

Anthony Carnevale, CEW’s director, tells WorkingNation this is the first draft of what ultimately be a valuable tool for consumers. “People want their kids to go to college and they basically want both kinds of returns — they want the kids to be well educated and they want them to get a job,” says Carnevale.

This first look by CEW at the federal data looks at how much alumni make 10, 20, and 40 years after graduation. “It’s very striking in that regard. If you look at the top 10 earners, you get MIT, Georgetown, and a few other four year colleges. But mostly it’s specialty colleges, like the Merchant Marine academies, pharmacy colleges, that ended up in the top 10 earners for students who go there,” he explains. “Ten years out, the shorter-term programs, in general, have higher returns.”

But, he explains, when you look 20 and 30 years out, eventually the four-year programs, on average, catch up on ROI. “When you look at the ranking of the institutions, it is still a very solid mix.”

Carnevale says this is the first wave of the data, and the second wave will come in a few months. “It will be even more powerful, looking at programs within institutions so you can figure out if went to Georgetown and took economics, and what happens if you, as opposed to if you went to UVA or somewhere else.”

“Obviously, the only purpose of education is not to provide jobs for people, we are going very clearly understand what the value is in education and training — program by program, institution by institution. It is a shift towards efficiency and education and training and a pretty powerful one,” says Carnevale. He says it is a step toward transparency that will ultimately hold educators accountable.

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.