Sept. 9, 2026
The Missing Mandate: How Governors and Legislatures Can Responsibly and Fairly Advance Postsecondary Value
Higher education can be a key component of a state’s strategy for economic growth, through its role in growing an educated and skilled citizenry. Highly skilled residents draw industry to a state, and governors consistently describe postsecondary education as central to their state’s economic future.
Still, institutions have not always been set up for success in connecting the work of educating students to the outcomes those students expect. There are many benefits to higher education, and not all of them are economic. But the value proposition most often made on higher education’s behalf—to students, to the policymakers who fund it, and to the public—is that a credential pays: that it is economically valuable to the individual who earns it and, by extension, to society.
State leaders have both an interest and a role in making good on that proposition. This report offers concrete steps they can take to increase the value states receive from their postsecondary institutions, without cheapening the learning experience or cutting back on what makes American higher education worth defending. In reviewing several state approaches, we found a consistent pattern: most states already hold the authority to ask whether a credential delivers lasting value as part of their authority as authorizers. However, this authority is often used in a limited way at the front door of authorization—to confirm that an institution is a legitimate credential-granting entity—and is rarely substantively revisited thereafter. Where states do reach further for greater oversight, they often do so narrowly in ways that don’t focus squarely on the question of value to students. Three things are often missing: 1) direction about which outcomes count and for which students, 2) the capacity to act on that direction, and 3) the coordination to move information across the agencies that already hold it. This report examines how each of six state levers could be used to advance postsecondary value, and what state leaders would need to do to position themselves for effective action.
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