BCCAT

Post-secondary attainment, with its consistently favorable return on investment (ROI) metrics, is frequently touted as a guaranteed-gains proposition to both the learners using the system and the public at large. However, in North America, learner and public confidence in post-secondary education as a profitable investment has diminished over the past several decades, with this skepticism persisting despite conspicuous efforts to make higher education accessible and attainable for more learners.

This report examines the incongruence between post-secondary ROI data and learner and public perceptions of the value of post-secondary education. In the ongoing public discourse about whether post-secondary education is “worth it,” the entrepreneurial interests of standard ROI methodology prove to be mismatched with the complex factors that nudge people to opt into or out of higher learning. As such, renegotiation of post-secondary education’s perceived value requires a gap analysis of standard ROI measures, a reframing of costs and benefits to reflect noncompletion, and a reconsideration of the myriad nonfinancial dimensions that intersect to define value in an emergent “vibe economy.”