A New Approach to College Accountability

Part of a series of papers on higher education risk sharing commissioned by the Center for American Progress, this working paper provides details and models outcomes of our proposal to replace the current one-size-fits-all approach to Title IV eligibility with a system of graduated sanctions and rewards. Our proposal is designed to reduce risk to both students and taxpayers, as well as to encourage all schools to improve and enable schools serving their students well to enroll more low-income students. New data allowed us to build on TICAS’ prior college accountability work, including analysis of the effects of building our proposed accountability system around a new metric that integrates non-repayment rates in place of cohort default rates.