The Brief

A new report released by the College Futures Foundation finds that while a large majority of California college programs allow graduates to recoup the costs of their postsecondary education in five years or less, a handful leave recent graduates earning less than the typical Californian with only a high school education.

The report by researcher Michael Itzkowitz of the HEA Group finds programs that did not result in recent graduates earning more than people with a high school diploma were concentrated at private, for-profit colleges. The paper flags such programs as having no economic return on investment.

By contrast, all programs analyzed at the California State University and the University of California had a positive return on investment, measured as the difference between the median graduate’s earnings five years after graduation and the median earnings among Californians aged 25 to 34 with no college education. Less than 1% of programs at both university systems were expected to take more than 10 years to pay off.

Eloy Ortiz Oakley, the president and CEO of the College Futures Foundation and a former chancellor of California Community Colleges, said the report is a response to survey data highlighting increasing skepticism about the value of higher education amid its rising costs.

“Paying for a higher education is, in many ways, one of the biggest investments that a student or their family is going to make in their life, second probably only to a mortgage,” he said. “If you think about it, people get a lot more information about other investments that they’re going to make, or other indebtedness they’re getting into, than they do when they invest in an institution of higher education. So we want to make sure that there’s greater transparency and more information for the student and their families when they’re investing in higher education.”

Oakley said the report is not a judgment on whether a particular academic program should be offered as a result of its economic payoff. Rather, he said the report aims to help Californians to think of a college or university’s value less in terms of its acceptance rate and more in terms of its potential for increasing graduates’ economic mobility.

Defining ‘return on investment’ 

The report, “California College Programs That Pay,” analyzes data from the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard to understand the earnings of roughly 260,000 people who graduated from undergraduate certificate, associate and bachelor’s degree programs in California with support from a federal loan or grant.

Looking at 2,695 programs across 324 institutions, Itzkowitz compared students’ out-of-pocket costs for a credential to the additional money they earn as a result of completing it.

To judge how much a postsecondary program costs, the study uses colleges’ self-reported data on how much students are responsible for paying after deducting grants and scholarships. That figure includes not just tuition, but also fees, books, supplies and other living costs. This net cost is used to calculate a price-to-earnings premium, a measure of how many years it will take to recoup the cost of a credential.

The study makes a couple of simplifying assumptions to calculate that premium.

The first is that students will take one year to earn a certificate, two for an associate degree and four for a bachelor’s degree. Those assumptions are not true for many students in practice. For example, only about 36% of Cal State first-year students who started in 2019 completed their degrees in four years. In cases where finishing a program over an extended period of time would be more expensive, the study could underestimate students’ actual costs.

A second assumption is that every program offered by a given institution cost the same, since cost breakdowns for given fields of study were not available.

Finally, the study universe is limited to students who graduated, not those who started a program but didn’t finish it. Previous research suggests students who start a college program but don’t receive a credential tend to earn less than graduates, Itzkowitz said, and are more likely to struggle to pay down debt.

Report highlights

Across all programs included in the study, Itzkowitz calculated that 88% prepared graduates to earn back the costs of their credential in five years or less. Median earnings five years after graduation were at least $10,000 more than those of a typical high school graduate for the vast majority of programs, too.

But 12% of programs left graduates taking five years or longer to recover out-of-pocket costs and, of those, 112 were flagged as having no economic return on investment.

The report also notes differences across education sectors. Itzkowitz found that 17% of programs offered by for-profit schools had no return on investment, compared with only 1.2% and 1.3% of majors and credentials at nonprofit and public institutions, respectively.

One way for-profit institutions differed from their nonprofit and public peers is that the for-profit institutions offered the most undergraduate certificates in the state — and a larger share of those programs resulted in no economic payoff. Two fields, cosmetology and somatic bodywork, stood out as having the most programs with no measured return on investment.

Still, many programs showed returns even at a one-year time horizon. The report calculated that almost half of programs at public institutions allowed graduates to recoup the costs of their credential within a year. Among private, nonprofit institutions, 7% of programs positioned graduates to earn back their costs within that period. Thirteen percent of for-profit institutions met the same criteria.

Oakley said that he hopes the report inspires more research into whether higher-earning programs are attracting students of color, where high-return programs are located regionally and how to replicate programs giving the best economic payoff.

“There are a lot of programs within our public institutions that provide a good return on investment,” he said. “What surprises me is that when we ask those institutions why, they don’t necessarily know why.”

Other approaches to measuring the value of college

While the College Futures Foundation report focuses on graduates’ earnings in the five years after they graduate, other recent research has sought to project college-goers’ earnings over a longer time horizon.

For example, a 2019 report from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce ranked 4,500 colleges by calculating their projected returns 40 years after enrollment. That analysis estimates the net present value of a student’s potential future earnings — that is, it balances the costs of paying for a college education today against the potential for higher earnings over time.

The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity in May released a study framing return on investment in terms of how much college increases a student’s lifetime earnings after subtracting the costs of college. Rather than compare college-goers to the median high school graduate, that study estimates what college-goers would have earned had they not pursued higher education. It also takes into account colleges’ actual completion rates, a step that acknowledges the risk to students that start a program but don’t finish it.

EdSource receives funding from several foundations, including the College Futures Foundation. EdSource maintains sole editorial control over the content of its coverage.

As Los Angeles homeowners grapple with the expense of rebuilding after last year’s devastating fires, an L.A. City Councilmember is putting forward an idea that could lower some costs.

Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the Pacific Palisades, has introduced a motion to explore waiving part of the city’s portion of the local sales tax for fire victims who purchase rebuilding materials in the city.

The 1% of the local 9.75% sales tax that goes into the city’s general fund would be given back to consumers under the proposal. The waiver could apply to lumber, appliances and other rebuilding goods purchased within the city.

The motion, introduced Friday by Park and seconded by Councilmember John Lee, says: “The City should do everything within its power to alleviate the financial burden for these residents and businesses in order to facilitate their return and stabilize the Pacific Palisades community.”

Would it make much of a difference? 

Economists told LAist the proposal could help many homeowners mitigate the high cost of rebuilding, but likely wouldn’t tip the scales for under-insured, under-resourced property owners.

“It wouldn't hurt if it's very well designed and easy to use,” said Alexander Meeks, a director at the Santa Monica-based Milken Institute. “But I'm not sure if it's really going to tackle the scale of the financial challenge that survivors are facing.”

Meeks noted that the tax waiver wouldn’t lower up-front costs such as environmental testing, architectural design and permitting. And it may not help homeowners sourcing raw materials from outside the city.

Zhiyun Li, a UCLA Anderson School of Management economist, said the waiver could help some homeowners justify the additional cost of rebuilding more fire-safe structures.

“Homeowners must typically pay out of pocket to upgrade to IBHS+ standards, which are more stringent,” Li said. “The tax waiver could encourage upgrading to IBHS+ standards or investing more in mitigation, thereby reducing future risk and improving the likelihood of maintaining insurance coverage.”

What’s next for the proposal? 

The proposed tax relief would not be available to properties that have been sold since the fires started in January 2025.

The motion has been sent to the City Council’s budget and fire recovery committees. If approved by the full council, it would require the city administrative officer, the Office of Finance and the city attorney to report back to the council within 60 days on options for crafting a tax relief plan.

The motion calls for the report to consider factors such as how to minimize the burden of administering the tax relief, what documentation homeowners would have to submit and what it would cost the city to oversee the program.

Senate and House Republican leadership have resurrected a stalled plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security after a record 47-day funding lapse.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said in a joint statement on Wednesday that the House will take up a measure passed by the Senate last week to fund most of DHS except Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol through the end of September.

Republicans would then attempt to fund ICE and Border Patrol for three years using a party-line budget reconciliation bill that would not require support from Democrats.

"In following this two-track approach, the Republican Congress will fully reopen the Department, make sure all federal workers are paid, and specifically fund immigration enforcement and border security for the next three years so that those law-enforcement activities can continue uninhibited," Thune and Johnson wrote.

The agreement comes nearly a week after House Republicans dismissed an identical plan, refusing to take up the Senate-passed measure and instead passing a 60-day short term funding bill for all of DHS that had little chance of overcoming Democratic opposition in the Senate.

Johnson called the agreement a "joke" and President Donald Trump declined to publicly endorse the deal. Trump had previously resisted any package that did not include his push to overhaul federal elections known as the Save America Act.

"I think any deal they make, I'm pretty much not happy with it," Trump told reporters last week.

Democrats welcomed the agreement as in line with their pledge not to give ICE any more money without reforms after immigration enforcement agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. But the deal does not include any of the policy demands Democrats are pressing for, such as a ban on masks for immigration enforcement officers and requiring warrants issued by a judge, not just the agency, to enter homes.

"For days, Republican divisions derailed a bipartisan agreement, making American families pay the price for their dysfunction," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote in a statement Wednesday. "Throughout this fight, Senate Democrats never wavered."

Trump seemed to bless the revived plan earlier Wednesday, writing on social media that he wants a party-line bill to fund immigration enforcement on his desk by June 1.

"We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won't be able to stop us," Trump wrote.

Despite the shutdown, ICE has been minimally impacted because Republican lawmakers approved $75 billion for ICE through another party-line budget reconciliation bill last year.

Congress is on a two-week recess, but the Senate and House could move to fund all of DHS except ICE and CBP as early as Thursday using a procedure known as unanimous consent that allows the chambers to circumvent formal voting as long as no member objects.

Even during a recess when most members are not in Washington, this could be unpredictable, especially in the House, where many hard-line conservatives oppose a deal that does not fully fund DHS.

"Let's make this simple: caving to Democrats and not paying CBP and ICE is agreeing to defund Law Enforcement and leaving our borders wide open again," Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, wrote on X. "If that's the vote, I'm a NO."

If a member does object, that could require waiting for another vote when all members are back from recess.

Claudia Grisales contributed reporting.
Copyright 2026 NPR

California clocked its second-worst snowpack on record Wednesday, a potentially troubling signal ahead for fire season.

It’s an alarming end to a winter that saw abnormally dry conditions briefly wiped from California’s drought map in January, for the first time in a quarter-century.

Though precipitation to date has been near average, much of it fell as rain rather than snow. Then March’s record-breaking heat melted most of the snow that remains. The state’s major reservoirs are nevertheless brimming above historic averages and are flirting with capacity, and a smattering of snow, rain and thunderstorms are dousing last month’s heat wave.

But experts now warn that California’s case of the missing snowpack could herald an early fire season in the mountains.

On Wednesday, state engineers conducting the symbolic April 1 snowpack measurement at Phillips Station south of Lake Tahoe found no measurable snow in patches of white dotting the grassy field.

“I want to welcome you call to probably one of the quickest snow surveys we’ve had — maybe one where people could actually use an umbrella,” joked Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources. “We’re getting a lot of questions about are we heading into a hydrologic drought? The answer is, I don’t know.”

State data reports that California’s snowpack is closing out the season at an alarming 18% of average statewide, and an even more abysmal 6% of average in the northern mountains that feed California’s major reservoirs.

Only the extreme drought year of 2015 beat this year’s snowpack for the worst on record, measuring in at just 5% of average on April 1st, when the snow historically is at its deepest.

“I think everyone's anticipating that it will be a long, busy fire season,” said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, director of the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Fire Network.

“Without a snowpack, and with an early spring, it just means that there’s much more time for something like that to happen.”

‘It’s pretty bizarre up here’ 

In the city of South Lake Tahoe, which survived the massive Caldor Fire in the fall of 2021 without losing any structures, fire chief Jim Drennan said his department is already ramping up prevention efforts.

“It's pretty bizarre up here right now. It really seems like June conditions more than March,” Drennan said. “People are already turning the sprinklers on for their lawns.”

Without more precipitation, an early spring may complicate prescribed burning efforts. But Drennan said fire agencies in the Tahoe basin can start mechanically clearing fuels from forest areas earlier than usual.

“That means we can get more work done,” he said.

It also means homeowners need to start hardening their homes now, said Martin Goldberg, battalion chief and fuels management officer for the Lake Valley Fire Protection District, which protects unincorporated communities in the Lake Tahoe Basin’s south shore.

Goldberg urges residents to scour their yards for burnable materials, create defensible space and reach out to local fire departments with questions. The risks are widespread — from firewood, wooden fences, gas cans, plants, pine needles — even lawn furniture stacked against a house.

“In years past, I wouldn't even think of raking and clearing until May,” Goldberg said. “But my yard's completely cleared of snowpack, and it has been for a couple weeks now.”

‘A haystack fire’

Battalion chief David Acuña, a spokesperson for Cal Fire, said fire season is shaped by more than just one year’s snowpack.

Climate change has been remaking California’s fire seasons into fire years. And California’s recent average to abundant water years have fueled what Acuña called “bumper crops of vegetation and brush.”

“Most of California is like a haystack. And if you’ve ever seen a haystack fire, they burn very intensely because there's layers of fuel,” Acuña said.

Like Quinn-Davidson, Acuña wasn’t ready to make specific predictions about fires to come.

But John Abatzoglou, a professor of climatology at UC Merced, said the temperatures and snowpack conditions this year offer a glimpse of California in the latter decades of this century, as fossil fuel use continues to drive global temperatures higher.

How this year’s fires will play out will depend on when, where and how wind, heat, fuel and ignitions combine. But it foreshadows the consequences of a warmer California for water and fire under climate change.

“This,” Abatzoglou said, “is yet another stress test for the future in the state.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.