Amid faltering enrollment rates and increased national scrutiny of the price and worth of a college education, Colorado is weighing a new formula to measure the “economic value” of degree programs offered by the state’s public institutions of higher education.
In its latest annual strategic plan, the Colorado Commission of Higher Education has proposed a way to calculate that value using not only the return on investment from expected income, but also a number of other variables—most notably, the “opportunity cost” incurred by attending college instead of working full-time.