The cost of college is increasing faster than inflation with the government funding over 19 million student loans that have a current outstanding balance of over $850 billion in 2010. Student default rates for 2008 averaged 7% but for some colleges, default rates were as high as 46.8%. Congress is demanding answers from colleges and universities about the quality of their education and the return on the government's investment. Current practices measure universities effectiveness by self-developed and measured outcomes. This system does not seem to be effective in measuring the value-added by a college education. This paper develops a model to evaluate the value-added through higher education. The model uses financial return on investment as viewed by the government lenders. A service quality model is introduced to help identify factors that are significant and easy to measure in determining a university's ability to return the government's investment.