Higher Ed May Have A Way To Prove ROI With This Data Partnership

Ask a university president what happens to their graduates in the labor market, and the honest answer is often that they don’t really know.

That knowledge gap is no longer just an institutional inconvenience. It’s a crisis of public trust, a liability in an era of rising accountability demands, and a barrier to the kind of evidence-based decision-making that higher education claims to value.

Only 16% of college and university presidents believe their sector has been even “moderately effective” at responding to declining public confidence, according to Inside Higher Ed’s 2026 Survey of College and University Presidents. When asked what they’re doing about it, more than half described public relations and marketing campaigns — not investments in the data infrastructure that could actually answer the public’s questions.