ACCJC Releases New White Paper on Program-Level ROI to Support Student Success and Institutional Decision-Making

Sacramento, CA – The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) released a new white paper, Leveraging Program-Level Data to Strengthen Student Outcomes: A Framework for ACCJC Institutions, offering the Commission’s perspective on the growing importance of program-level return on investment (ROI) data in shaping the future of higher education.

Building on ACCJC’s 2025 integration of an institutional ROI metric into its Student Achievement Dashboards, the paper explains why programmatic ROI is emerging as a critical tool for transparency, student success, and public accountability. While institutional-level metrics provide a broad overview, program-specific outcomes offer a more precise and actionable understanding of how individual fields of study contribute to students’ long-term economic mobility.

The white paper highlights key federal data sources, outlines how colleges can use program-level outcomes to inform strategic decision-making and improve programs, and situates this work within the shifting national policy landscape, including new outcomes-based expectations under the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act. It further identifies this moment as an opportunity for two-year institutions to lead nationally in demonstrating responsiveness, agility, and alignment with the needs of today’s students and workforce.

“The Commission remains firmly aligned with the vital role of two-year institutions in providing high-quality, affordable, and workforce-aligned educational opportunities that support social mobility and economic opportunity for millions of students and their families,” said ACCJC President Mac Powell.

To help institutions make meaningful use of available data and prepare for a strengthened federal accountability framework, ACCJC offers four recommendations that institutional leaders should consider:

1. Build Data Capacity to integrate program-level earnings data with local labor-market information.

2. Conduct Program Assessments to identify high-ROI and at-risk programs and review student employment outcomes.

3. Engage Faculty, Career Resource Centers, and Employers to ensure curriculum relevance and strengthen career-readiness pathways.

4. Enhance Transparency by sharing program-level outcomes with students, communities, and other partners.

ACCJC emphasizes that two-year institutions are uniquely positioned to lead this work. Their agility, deep community roots, and longstanding experience in career and technical education make them well-suited to respond to both federal expectations and public hopes for the future of higher education.

“Higher education is entering a new era, one in which transparency, outcomes, and economic mobility matter more than ever,” said Powell. “ACCJC is committed to helping our member institutions not only meet evolving federal expectations but also respond to what students and the public rightly expect from higher education: pathways that lead to opportunity, stability, and a better future.”

ACCJC thanks contributors to this work, including The HEA Group, and the generosity of the College Futures Foundation in advancing economic mobility and real return on investment for all students.

For more information about ACCJC and its current initiatives, visit www.accjc.org.

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The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) is a federally recognized accrediting commission whose institutional accreditation is accepted as a reliable assurance of quality, allowing institutions of higher education access to federal financial aid. ACCJC is unique in its concentration on public and private two-year degree granting institutions, its geographic range, and its membership. Its current 138 public, non-profit, and for-profit member institutions span Arizona, California, Hawai'i, New York, and the western Pacific and include the largest public higher education system in the US, serving over 2 million students, and one of the nation’s smallest colleges, with 28 students.

ACCJC supports its member institutions to advance educational quality and student learning and achievement. This collaboration fosters institutional excellence and continuous improvement through innovation, self-analysis, peer review, and application of standards.