In this new post, Jordan Matsudaira marshals data and economic analyses to help shape policy and steer students toward financially sound options. ADVERTISEMENT [The Edge Logo]( You can also [read this newsletter on the web](. Or, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, [unsubscribe](. Hi. Iâm Goldie Blumenstyk, a senior writer at The Chronicle covering innovation in and around higher ed. This week I share insights from my conversation with the new(ish) chief economist at the U.S. Department of Education. And please, see below for details on how you â or someone you know â can apply to be a contestant at our Shark Tank: Edu Edition in March at SXSW EDU. (This year, the selected contestants will receive free registration.) ADVERTISEMENT SUBSCRIBE TO THE CHRONICLE Enjoying the newsletter? [Subscribe today]( for unlimited access to essential news, analysis, and advice. In this office, data really does drive policy thinking. In the 18 months since being named as [the first chief economist for the U.S. Department of Education]( Jordan Matsudaira and his 11-person team have been exploring problems in higher education by digging through vast sets of data. While much of that work is still in the early stage â getting their arms around the research potential of data on 150 million students over 50 years is a task in itself â the office has already produced some important findings, including a recent report on [the most efficient transfer pathways]( between community colleges and four-year institutions. Matsudaira, currently on leave from his post as an associate professor of economics and education policy at Columbia Universityâs Teachers College, knows this terrain well. His research has focused on the connections between education and the labor market, and during the Obama administration he was chief economist of the Council of Economic Advisers and helped facilitate creation of the College Scorecard. Before the holidays, I sat down with Matsudaira in his Education Department office overlooking the National Mall, to get a better feel for how the office is looking to reshape education. Hereâs some of what stood out to me. The stat that he still finds the most startling? More than one-third of the 45 million people now carrying student-loan debt donât have a degree: Itâs also, he said, one of the hardest for people on the outside to wrap their minds around. âPeople tend to think of folks who have been to college at all as being more privileged in general and more on the affluent end of the spectrum,â Matsudaira told me. It also has an effect on the policy and political debates over student-loan forgiveness. The lack of understanding about this âpaints a less sympathetic picture of student-loan borrowers than is warranted by the facts.â The noncompletion problem is also surprisingly prevalent among those whoâve borrowed for graduate-level education: And because there are no caps on federal Grad Plus loans, he said, âyou can see people acquiring pretty high levels of graduate-loan debt without earning a graduate degree.â His office is planning to release a report on this phenomenon soon. I canât wait to see it, especially considering how dependent many colleges have become on income from their masterâs- and professional-degree programs. The value â and limitations â of the College Scorecard: With its data on studentsâ earnings outcomes by college and major, he believes the tool has empowered students and families to think about âwhat happens to students on the other sideâ of their college experience, and itâs an especially useful way to compare particular programs and institutions against others. That said, heâs also wary of putting too much stock in measuring a collegeâs value by âhow much it allows you to earn in the labor market.â I wasnât surprised by that nuanced assessment, but having recently written about [an aspiring accreditor that aims to make studentsâ earnings gains the centerpiece of its approval process]( I was heartened to hear it. Data he wishes he had: Information on post-college outcomes besides salaries, because âearnings might not be the right proxyâ to judge the success of studentsâ educational experiences. One example: how many people in an occupationally focused program actually end up holding jobs in those fields. Of course some private companies manage to assemble some of this data by scraping publicly available websites, and many colleges obtain such data through their alumni surveys, but thatâs far short of a complete data set. Having that could be one more way to systematically evaluate âwhether students are really getting what they hoped to from their program.â Data can inform policy beyond the student-loan realm. To wit: that recent report on transfer from community colleges: I was frankly a little surprised to see Matsudairaâs office weigh in on transfer policy, but as he (a co-author of the report) reminded me, when transfer doesnât go smoothly, thereâs often a financial cost to students who have to take additional courses. The report looked at transfer experiences for 620,000 students over an eight-year period with the goal of identifying which ones produced the most cost-efficient pathways. The point was to use data to see âwhether the access role of community colleges is really bearing fruit,â said Matsudaira, and âwhat the secret sauce of an effective partnership is.â Expect more such studies in the future. Now that the department has assembled this expertise, Matsudaira said heâs excited to delve into its data: âWe have all those stories to learn from.â A new âwatch listâ to highlight programs âcontributing to the student-debt problemâ is coming soon: After the pause on student-loan payments and the push for more income-based repayment plans, [the cohort default rate has become an almost irrelevant measure]( of college accountability. And [a proposed new âgainful employmentâ regulation]( would only apply to certain career-focused programs. But the department is âconcerned about unaffordable debt at all campuses,â Matsudaira said. Hence, its plan to create [an annual watch list of programs of âlow financial value.â]( The list wonât come with any legal sanctions, but Matsudaira said it would âhopefully bring some public pressureâ on the institutions. How pandemic closures of elementary and secondary schools might echo through higher ed: âA lot of lower income and racial-minority students lost more time in school than their more-affluent peers,â Matsudaira said. While many other education scholars are studying the aftermath of that learning loss, his office is now looking specifically at whether thereâs any correlation between the duration that studentsâ schools were closed and their proclivity toward applying to college. The risks in the current national discourse questioning the value of college: For Matsudaira, the data are clear: The economic returns for going to college âare very high and have been pretty stably quite high over a long period of time.â So to him, a lot of the public discussion discounting the value of college seems âpotentially dangerousâ both to individuals who might miss out and to the nation that needs a college-educated populace. But heâs also mindful that not every college and not every program has value. During the Great Recession, he said, too many students ended up in low-value programs at for-profit and other colleges, and that fueled a lot of the student-loan borrowing that continues to burden them today. Thatâs a lot of what drives his work in this new job, he said: to develop the information that will âhelp people avoid making very bad decisions for their financial health.â Pitch your idea to improve higher ed at SXSW EDU. Are you thinking about attending [SXSW EDU]( Got a venture or even just a good idea youâd like to pitch there at The Chronicleâs âShark Tank: Edu Editionâ on March 5? If so, Iâd love to hear from you. While we donât offer any investment capital, the session is always one of the highlights of the event. Itâs also a great chance to get some feedback on thoughtful new approaches â commercial or nonprofit â from an education entrepreneur (Paul Freedman), a former college president and education-equity advocate (Catharine Bond Hill), and an education journalist (me). Just use [this form]( to submit your pitch for consideration. Got a tip youâd like to share or a question youâd like me to answer? Let me know, at goldie@chronicle.com. If you have been forwarded this newsletter and would like to see past issues, [find them here](. To receive your own copy, free, register [here](. If you want to follow me on the site formerly known as Twitter, [@GoldieStandard]( is my handle. 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