Higher Ed's Leaky Pipeline

Fewer than six in ten students who begin a degree program at a 4-year institution actually graduate. And, the students who start and don’t graduate are three times as likely to default on their loans as those who earned a degree. That’s because we don’t have enough federal quality assurance mechanisms in place to discourage students from attending institutions with poor outcomes. And while we’re helping more students get to college, we’re not doing enough to get them through college. For higher ed, the education pipeline in America has sprung a major leak. The federal government needs to provide students with more robust information about which schools will help them complete their degree, find a well-paying job, and sustain a middle class lifestyle. We explain in this Medium post how this leaky pipeline impacts real students today.