I divide colleges into five groups based on several measures of student outcomes: graduation rates, student loan repayment rates, and earnings after enrollment. Students who choose different institutions experience wildly different outcomes. At colleges in the top fifth of student outcomes, students are four times as likely to graduate, twice as likely to repay their loans, and earn over $20,000 more per year relative to their peers at colleges in the bottom fifth.
We can track enrollment patterns in each group of colleges over time. Colleges in the bottom fifth of student outcomes lost 47 percent of their undergraduate enrollment between 2010 and 2023. Together, the bottom two-fifths of colleges by student outcomes account for almost all the drop in college enrollment since 2010. Meanwhile, colleges in the top fifth grew enrollment by 8 percent.
