Abstract

There is a growing need to understand the economic returns of degrees as a function of a sustainable institution. The empirical data presented in this paper suggests that there is a difference between the economic perception of higher education stakeholders and reality. The data showed that the most important economic metric for a graduate is full-time employment. This metric, although important, is incomplete and does not address other important factors such as starting salaries and under-employment. This indicates a gap between reality and perception considering stakeholders expectation that education should not cost more than of 15% of future salaries and that the debt be repaid in less than ten years. Student’s focusing on full-time employment rather than the holistic economic realities of their educational choices may lead to an unsustainable future which is currently not captured in higher education sustainability assessments.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.