IHEP Shares Recommendations to Improve College Cost and Value Transparency for Students and Families

Washington, DC (October 24, 2025) –The Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) submitted comments in response to Senator Bill Cassidy’s request for information on college cost and value transparency. Our comments focus on value transparency, the second policy goal outlined in the RFI, and offer specific recommendations to help students and families make informed choices about where to apply and which colleges to attend.

To help students make informed choices about where to apply and which colleges to attend, Congress should require the Secretary of Education to maintain the College Scorecard. IHEP offers the following recommendations to further improve the College Scorecard and strengthen college value transparency:

College Scorecard

1. Include the post-college earnings of students who did not receive federal financial aid.
2. Publish earnings outcomes of students who leave school without a credential.
3. Disaggregate metrics by race and ethnicity.
4. Improve warning flags for colleges that are subject to greater scrutiny, to help students identify potential risk.
5. Revisit the privacy suppression protocols for program-level debt and earnings data.
6. Regularly update the data elements.
7. Conduct consumer testing of the College Scorecard.

Other Policy Changes

In addition to the College Scorecard recommendations above, IHEP recommends the following policy changes to improve the quality of data on college value that are available to prospective students and their families:

1. Pass your College Transparency Act (CTA) and create a federal student-level data network.
2. Urge ED to implement the Financial Value Transparency (FVT) framework in a timely manner and make the data available to the public.
3. Require ED to administer a nationally representative longitudinal study that tracks students’ experiences and outcomes through their postsecondary enrollment and after college, as well as a longitudinal study of students who complete their programs.
4. Require ED to maintain the frequency of the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS).
5. Enact legislative changes to expand the allowable uses of federal tax information (FTI) from the FAFSA, to better support consumer choice and college affordability.
6. Provide sufficient funding for ED to support value transparency and consumer choice.

Read the full letter.