What's a college education really worth to you?

While that question may be difficult to answer, a new bill is attempting to give families a bit more clarity about what they might expect to gain from a given college or university.

The Student Right to Know Before You Go Act is being co-sponsored by a bipartisan group of senators that includes Mark Warner (D-Vir.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and aims to make colleges and universities more responsive to students' employment outcomes by mandating that institutions receiving federal student aid dollars collect and publish statistics on past graduates—including graduation rates, average student loan obligations and average starting salaries. (See Table Below.)

While many colleges already collect such information, few make it available to prospective students as they consider their choice of schools, which, according to the bill's backers, makes it next to impossible for families to make informed decisions as to where they should invest tens of thousands of dollars each year.

Many high school seniors heading to college this fall "likely have real questions about what value they are getting for their money," Senator Warner said in a statement. According to Warner, the proposed legislation would provide them with "information already collected by states and schools, and eventually post it online where it will be accessible directly to [them] as they make one of the most important investments they'll make during their lifetimes."