More than two years since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, enrollment at American colleges and universities is continuing to plummet. College enrollment had been falling by about 1% each year for a decade before the pandemic, but COVID-19 accelerated that trend. In the past two years, more than 1 million students have walked away from higher education. Public universities, private colleges, community colleges, and graduate schools are all getting hit.

There’s no shortage of speculation as to where students are going. The pandemic and a robust job market have siphoned off more students in the short term. In the long term, experts are projecting a decade-long decline in high school graduation rates that will leave colleges with a shrinking pool of students to draw from.

Perhaps more troublingly, the American public is becoming disenchanted with education’s promise to transform lives, if recent surveys are to be believed. With each year, more people – especially young Americans still paying off their college loans – are saying that the cost of college is too high, the debt burden is too crushing, and the payoff isn’t worth it. More and more Americans, in other words, are rejecting higher education’s value proposition.

American higher education should view this belief as an existential threat. To ensure their long-term survival, most colleges and universities – all but a handful of ultra-selective and wealthy institutions – will be forced to confront fundamental questions about the value of what they do.

Quantifying higher education in terms of skills and outcomes will become increasingly critical in the years ahead. Traditionally, colleges and universities have struggled to articulate the value of what they teach in the classroom and on campus. But students and employers will pay for value – that is, affordable educational experiences and academic credentials that lead to meaningful employment for graduates and that create talent for companies.

For that reason, it’s essential that higher education can demonstrate – and students and companies can see – a high return on educational investment. The institutions that do the best job of quantifying skills and creating more transparency around return on investment will be the ones best able to attract students.

Take the Colorado School of Mines, which appears in the 99th percentile of Georgetown University’s Center on Education in the Workforce rankings of return on investment of 4,500 American colleges and universities. This public university emphasizes hands-on learning and real-world experience as it prepares its graduates for engineering or other STEM careers.

The school is crystal clear about outcomes for its graduates, and employers and prospective students are responding. Ninety-five percent of the class of 2020 was employed in their first-choice career – at an average salary of nearly $80,000 – or enrolled in graduate school right after they earned their degrees. Just as impressively, the school’s enrollment is up 22% in five years, at a time when many colleges are struggling to stay even.

The recent and rapid decline in college enrollment should breathe new life into the long-running debate about the most accurate way to measure return on education investment and how to increase accountability in higher education.

Several ongoing efforts around credential transparency hold promise. The Department of Education lists the highest and lowest tuition and net prices among American colleges and universities. Its College Navigator and College Scoreboard features give students a wealth of data about cost and post-graduation outcomes.

A coalition of more than 70 selective private institutions developed their own tool to give prospective students a better understanding of the true cost of attending college. Twenty-eight states and regions have partnered with Credential Engine, which has created a common language and data set to help students sort through the maze of more than 1 million degrees, certificates, and other credentials and pick the one that will pay off for them.

Florida’s performance-based funding model for its public universities includes two workforce metrics – employment and median wages of graduates – that show if college degrees are paying off. The College Transparency Act, now pending in the Senate, would give the public even more data about college access, price, and outcomes.

Taken together, these initiatives can help students navigate an uneven landscape of education and training programs. But these efforts are not yet complete. Most are third-party efforts, not originating from the colleges and universities themselves. Institutions of higher education should be working on their own ways to communicate how academic credentials and educational experiences translate into skills that companies will want.

If there’s a silver lining in the cloud hanging over student enrollment, it’s that this moment of decline provides the opportunity for colleges and universities to take a hard look at what their students are learning and where their graduates are going. As college costs and debt continue to climb and put an affordable higher education increasingly out of reach for many, it is perhaps inevitable that colleges and universities will embrace outcomes and transparency.

It’s incumbent on colleges and universities to respond to this new challenge. The students coming to college and the companies hiring college graduates demand nothing less. Ultimately, the institutions of higher education that prosper in the 21st century will do so not because of price, location, or reputation, but because they can demonstrate measurable and accountable results.

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About AstrumU: AstrumU translates educational experiences into economic opportunity. We are on a mission to quantify the return on education investment for learners, education providers, and employers. We help institutions measure the value created for incoming and returning students, while assisting them in securing industry partnerships that lead students seamlessly into high-demand career pathways. Institutions partner with AstrumU to drive enrollment and increase alumni and corporate engagement, while extending economic mobility opportunities inclusively to all learners.

Contact: media@astrumu.com