In a post-pandemic climate marked by sustained declines in student achievement and the end of federal fiscal aid, “Does it work?” is a necessary though no longer sufficient question to ask about educational investments. Instead, “Is it worth it?” must be the focus of policymakers and school leaders when considering which educational interventions to support with increasingly limited educational budgets.
In May 2024, Accelerate introduced an approach to measure and estimate the return on educational investments which requires both a valid estimate of program impact and data on the total cost of implementing an educational intervention. The return on educational investments, or a program’s cost effectiveness, is defined as the additional months of student learning gained by investing $1,000 per pupil, and can be widely applied to all educational interventions. Yet, while the cost of implementing an educational program or intervention provides critical information to multiple stakeholders, program costs tend to be absent from program evaluations, limiting insight into the return on educational investments.
In this report, we:
- Describe the value of collecting and estimating program costs in the education field;
- Summarize existing approaches to costing out educational interventions; and
- Draw upon existing literature, in particular the Ingredients Method, to present a standardized approach to costing out educational interventions.
Accompanying this report is Accelerate’s cost analysis tool, designed specifically for conducting cost analysis of tutoring programs. This report and accompanying cost analysis tool provides program providers and researchers with a standardized approach and an applied tool to conduct rigorous cost analysis of educational programs and interventions. In doing so, we aim to address the relative dearth of program cost estimates currently available in the education field. By increasing the frequency with which cost analysis is conducted, this work will provide guidance to inform program planning and implementation and the necessary information to conduct a variety of cost-related analyses. The greater prevalence of program cost data and associated cost-related metrics will serve to reduce existing information asymmetries in the tutoring market and will support ongoing decision-making among policymakers and educational leaders who are investing scarce resources to improve student learning.
We propose the following applications of the cost tool and policy recommendations associated with cost-related information:
- Accelerate and other sponsors of applied research should require programs and interventions to conduct program-specific cost analysis as part of their grant oversight process.
- Researchers should include estimates of program cost alongside estimates of program impact as part of a complete program evaluation.
- School and district leaders should require cost effectiveness estimates based on high quality impact evaluations and transparent cost analyses in their procurement decision-making.
- State policymakers should require evidence on program costs from vendors applying to state-approved vendor lists.
- Program providers should engage in ongoing cost analysis of their programs and interventions to support continuous improvement.
Taken together, the application of this cost tool alongside the use of cost-related information generated by this tool should improve the identification of program models that efficiently and effectively improve student learning. Doing so is necessary to not just reduce existing information asymmetries in the tutoring market, but most critically, to support decision-making among policymakers and educational leaders who are allocating scarce educational resources to improve student learning.
Resources
If you have questions or comments about these resources, contact Matthew Steinberg, Managing Director of Research & Evaluation (matthew.steinberg@accelerate.us).
