Postsecondary educational institutions in the United States are facing increasing financial stress and waning public support. Unless these trends can be changed, higher education can be expected to stagnate. What, if anything, can be done? As a starting point, advocates of higher education need to more fully recognize the issues associated with the economic mission of higher education and how this mission gets translated into individual student gains, regional growth, and social equity. This requires an understanding of the relationship between the outcomes of higher education and measures of...