Bill to mandate disclosure of earnings and graduation rates by major

Parent Cafe
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<p>How many, at the start of this thread, had an idea of the info that IS out there? Not all, right? And how many families out there, poking their way through, not really knowledgeable to begin with, are aware of that existing info? So, what makes us assume they would now look for and digest more specific detail, down to the level of particular college depts? </p>

<p>And, considering the student loan mess the country is in, how many families even explore the associated costs of loans or read the disclosure info that comes straight to them? That info is there now, too- and so often ignored.</p>

<p>I understand some of us would use newly formatted data and benefit- but does it solve the broader issues of families assuming it’s just a matter of getting a degree, any degree? Lots of them assume about affordability and use intuition, reputation and attractiveness to pick colleges. I just think the problem runs deep. The loan anlogy hits, for me- to make caveat emptor work, the buyer has to be willing to look at whatever it is that provides info for choices. If they aren’t, then what? If they aren’t digging so deep now, will a new report get their attention? And will they be able to digest it - or make more assumptions?</p>

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<p>Well seeing that there is a constant drum beat that having a Bachelors gets you an extra million in earnings that probably overrides. </p>

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<p>Yes, it would. </p>

<p>Other than people willfully ignoring it, I dont see what your point is. </p>

<p>My understanding is that the data would allow you to comparing type of student, institution, major, rank and expected outcome. Quantitative data that gets much closer to the students situation than the industry level stuff they have to work with now. Right now people are inundated with stuff that is essentially marketing material- here are the “great” carers you can choose from with your Sociology degree.</p>

<p>They are greeted with a wall of smoke and puffery. Consider the Rutgers Law School case where they are marketing come ons with blatantly deceptive numbers. Its very difficult for the perspective customers to disentangle these claims. And the US taxpayer is on the hook when they cant get a job to pay back the loans.</p>

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<p>Actually, the Berkeley 2011 graduates in sociology were doing better than those in molecular and cell biology, at least among those who responded:</p>

<p><a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Soc.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Soc.stm&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/MCB.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/MCB.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>My point is: if people can’t read their loan info, if they are so focused on the degree as a magic wand, if they don’t seek out and read what job related data IS there (not just marketing bits) – what makes anyone think they’ll read, comprehend and benefit from newly formatted job reporting, before deciding schools and majors? And, properly review it? </p>

<p>Obviously, eg, Intparent would. He or she is trying to project a best choice among some very good schools. But, we know this is a level of exploration many kids and families just don’t even envision. </p>

<p>Even if we put it in front of them, are we going to tell them School X grads in this major get more and better jobs, make great salaries- and then have them assume that, if the kid goes there, majors in that, his path is set, that “that’s that?” That another school (or dfferent major) is a ruined life or reduced opportunities? That the only path is the best ratings, again, ala USNews? Life’s not that simple. </p>

<p>Evaluating “best for my kid,” is a matter of so many variables, not just job potential. Not to pick on Int, but in the example, Chi, Kenyon, MHC (is that on the list?) are three completely different environments, different locales, sizes, side benefits, pluses and minuses. Different mixes, probably different faculty ratios, support structures- and social atmospheres. Different activities. Different sorts of bang for your buck. Maybe one has killer physics and another is less competitive, more cooperative- how does all that figure in?</p>

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<p>What DATA are we talking about? A snapshot or two of someone or a continuous recording of that person? No one argues that more cannot be learned by viewing a video of a person, particularly 24/7 from birth to death, than 3, 5, or 12 pictures of the guy.</p>

<p>Too expensive to have a video than a picture, right? Too expensive to map one’s 3B base genome, right? True decades ago. Not anymore. Soon a few bucks can spell out one’s entire code book from A to Z.</p>

<p>All along we want to know a college as a person to date to marry, right? Opening up to each other helps. Right now I think applicants know much less about a college than a college knows them. Some applicants/parents may prefer fantasizing about their choices or the colleges do.</p>

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<p>Ok lets suppose that only 10% of students use the data, and avoid potentially crippling financial mistakes. Isnt that sufficient rationale to produce the reports. </p>

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<p>Kids are still going to use subjective criteria - nice dorms, weather, football teams, color scheme, “feel”. Now they just get to include an objective criteria as part of the mix.</p>

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<p>But it’s not predictive, argbargy.</p>

<p>If I decide I want a car that gets high mileage, I can get data from Consumer Reports, see the Prius on there, and buy it. And regardless of who buys and drives that car, that car will get the same 40 mpg (or whatever). It’s predictive and predictable.</p>

<p>But if I see that grads of X college in Y major wind up making an average of $Z five years hence, that doesn’t guarantee or predict a single thing for me as an individual. I might dutifully follow that path (and isn’t there enough dutiful-following-paths on CC already? see: innumerable threads about my parents forcing me to be a doctor or saying im a failure if i don’t get into an Ivy) but if I’m a jerk, interview poorly and never find a job, or get a job and do poorly because I can’t work with others or think I’m superior or something, then all those numbers mean nothing. </p>

<p>There’s simply too much variation in the real world for this to provide much beyond the obvious cardiologists make more than nursery school teachers and Harvard grads make more than Directional State U grads. </p>

<p>There is no “noise” or standard deviation in my Prius example. The Prius will give anyone 40 mpg. That’s not how the world of work works.</p>

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<p>The problem with Consumer Reports, or Car and Driver, is the sample size is one and the evaluators are maybe 2 or 3. The MPG probably has a small variation, but if that car has transmission issues then its “Prius has transmissions issues”. If the instrument cluster doesnt make sense to 2 or 3 people then the subhead is “Confusing Jumbled Controls”. I think that people understand in reading these reviews that there are subjective components just as much as there are in movie review. People dont read movie reviews uncritically do they?</p>

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<p>What they are measuring is the actual effect. Is there a school that says there internship program is terrible? No. You can ask what ever you want, and the school’s internships, alumni network, study abroad, mentoring program, placement office- they are all great! Here is a list of companies that have hired some of our grads sometime in the past. An 18yo doesnt have the ability to unpack the market hassle and get to how effective any of these programs are in a half day campus visit. </p>

<p>Thats the value of the report- it gets to the net results of what the university is providing. It doesnt matter if the problem is a weak mentoring program or a rampant drug problem in the dorms the school choses to ignore- the proof is in the pudding. </p>

<p>Yeah, there will be one off- a grad deciding to work on a fishing fleet or a math major deciding to build bombs in a cabin in Montana. But those are probably equally distributed between any school. And as the numbers get put together the effect of any one wild duck is low.</p>

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<p>Re: #221 and the argument that most people won’t use the new or more easily accessible data</p>

<p>If that is an argument against additional disclosure, should the following types of disclosure not be required any more, since many people apparently do not read them?</p>

<ul>
<li>Truth in lending disclosures for any kind of loan.</li>
<li>EPA fuel economy for new cars.</li>
<li>The rest of the Monroney sticker on new cars.</li>
<li>Employment law posters describing the minimum wage, employment laws, time off for voting, etc. in the workplace.</li>
<li>Reports from companies which have publicly traded stock.</li>
<li>Prospectuses for new issues of stocks and mutual funds.</li>
</ul>

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<p>Actually, the “parents forcing me to be a doctor” etc. type of threads seem to be more due to the parents overestimating the chance of success at being a doctor (freshmen pre-meds who eventually get into medical school are the outliers) while underestimating the risk of failure and the need for backup plans. Perhaps in some of those cases, more disclosure on outcomes will dissuade the parents from pushing that path so hard.</p>

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<p>^^if only. Personally, the biggest mistakes people make in my opinion are choosing colleges, majors or industries or careers or simply jobs for the wrong reasons. Just because a industry or job is with a “great company” or a “great industry” doesn’t mean that the person who goes into that industry or takes that job is going to find self fulfillment, contentment, happiness or financial security.</p>

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<p>IMO at least half these things are either down-right silly (posters), superfluous, or seriously ineffective. THe others are marginally necessary in some form, but also somewhat ineffective in many cases. But I’m not going into a big discussion because I think it’s off-topic and probably outside the TOS.</p>

<p>BTW - I do believe the information we are discussing has some value. I just don’t believe we need a new federal law mandating the production, collection, and/or public dissemination of everything that is of some value.</p>

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<p>ucb, good regulations and their benefit to individuals can be two different things. My gripe is that families do not explore sufficiently, in the first place. I’d like to see that change.</p>

<p>My solution isn’t a differently formatted report, subject to more “assumptions.” It’s not hard, eg, to find what those college loans will cost, how repayment works. But, even on CC, we get people who don’t get it, even ask: “what’s better? 140k debt here or 110k debt there?” Or, misread Fafsa detail, assume colleges will meet what the family thinks it needs, don’t know there is such a thing as merit aid, etc, etc. [It’s nice to have mileage on a car window sticker- I don’t stop there. Actually, I don’t start there.]</p>

<p>So much blame is so easily dished out at GCs, the colleges, their supposed drive to increase their rankings-- so many calls for reducing this, adding that, transparency, more analyses, fewer whatever.</p>

<p>What’s next? Girds comparing your 3.2 college kid’s chances to a 3.5’s or 3.9’s? Predictors of whether your kid will get a 3.2 or 3.9 at this school? Employment stats for kids who took internships, had challenging summer jobs and those who did neither, those who did both? Acknowledgement of which kids had parental support and which tried to cut throughthe fog on their own? The list of what people could demand is infinite.</p>

<p>Last night, I looked at your links for UCB’s soc and bio majors- and the latter’s 20% employed figure was a stunner. What does that tell? Really? That bio is a dud or that post-grad is key? That UCB is the wrong place to study bio? That it’s not worth the overall benefits, experience, growth- even excitement and empowerment? That a kid shouldn’t put himself in that environment with world class profs, research and the intellectual benefits? And any price benefits? Does it tell you how your kid will fare there? Or is it a snapshot of how othes fared, without much explanation?</p>

<p>Sorry, my rant. I’m with Bov, though I could reword it: *I do believe the information we are discussing has some value. I just don’t believe we need a new federal law mandating the production, collection, and/or public dissemination of everything that is of some value. *</p>

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<p>Ok, what about the net price calculators on college web sites? Would it be preferable that they not be available, so that students and parents have to estimate financial aid and affordability based on intuitive guesstimates, word of mouth (or forum posts) from (possibly misinformed) others, or the “apply and pray” method?</p>

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<p>Even if that raises more questions than it answers, it should at least give people a clue that biology does not fit the common (incorrect) stereotype that “STEM majors always have better job prospects than non-STEM majors” (this stereotype seems to dominate even in this thread). At the very least, they may want to start asking more questions before pushing their kids into “majoring in biology to get a better job than majoring in sociology”.</p>

<p>But note that the weak employment prospects faced by biology majors is not Berkeley-specific; career surveys at other colleges like MIT and Virginia Tech point to similar patterns in comparison to other majors.</p>

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Are these mandated by federal regulation? With an enforcement infrastructure (which is really necessary to give laws any teeth at all)? If so, I don’t think that law is necessary either.</p>

<p>Whether I prefer something has nothing to do with whether I think Congress should be taking it up. But if a particular school chose to make all this information available, I would certainly look favorably on that.</p>

<p>I am not some sort of libertarian anarchist, but I do lean more to the notion of only passing regulations that are truly necessary. I don’t see this as essential. My sense is that’s not the predominant attitude around here, at least with around half the posters in this thread.</p>

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<p>BTW - since we have a liberal Senator and a Conservative (even tea party-ish) Senator supporting this law, I wouldn’t be surprised if it passes. Especially since it doesn’t seem like it will cost that much. So be it. I won’t lose any sleep over it .</p>

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<p>Yes. <a href=“https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/resource/net_price_calculator.asp[/url]”>https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/resource/net_price_calculator.asp&lt;/a&gt; says:</p>

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<p>A very small number of colleges may have had them for years prior to the required deadline, but most high school seniors in years prior to 2011 had to use the “apply and pray” method to find out financial aid.</p>

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<p>Pretty sure that students and parents who cannot easily full pay any college list price will find them extremely useful in making up college application lists and avoiding financial shut-outs (getting into only unaffordable colleges). Those who have the luxury of being able to full pay anywhere will not find them useful.</p>

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<p>According to a survey of 444 college graduates from the classes of 2006 through 2011, discussed in [</p>

<p>Regrets About College
by Catherine Rampell
New York Times
May 14, 2012](<a href=“Regrets About College - The New York Times”>http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/14/regrets-about-college/&lt;/a&gt;)
39% thought about job opportunities when choosing a major
37% regret their choice of major
29% would have done more internships or worked part time
24% would have started looking for work earlier
20% would have taken more classes to prepare for a career
14% would have gone to a different college
3% would not have gone to college .</p>

<p>Some findings from the underlying study [Chasing</a> the American Dream: Recent College Graduates and the Great Recession](<a href=“http://www.heldrich.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/content/Chasing_American_Dream_Report.pdf]Chasing”>http://www.heldrich.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/content/Chasing_American_Dream_Report.pdf) are </p>

<p>(1) 11% are unemployed and a further 12% are only working part time (Table 1)</p>

<p>(2) 42% of those with jobs consider it “just a job to get by” rather than part of a career (Figure 3)</p>

<p>(3) 50% have jobs that they say required a college degree, although 7% don’t know (Figure 5)</p>

<p>(4) 24% are earning a lot less than they expected to (Figure 6)</p>

<p>(5) 30% are living with their parents or getting help with the rent (Figure 12)</p>

<p>(6) 48% think college students are less prepared for work than students a generation ago (Figure 13)</p>

<p>(7) 11% considered average salary in their field when choosing a major (Table 6)</p>

<p>(8) 41% of those who would have chosen a different major would have chosen a pre-professional one, with an additional 29% choosing a STEM major and 17% choosing business (Figure 17)</p>

<p>Of course, “the grass is always greener on the other side”, and we don’t know if the students who regretted their majors would have been happier with different ones. But overall I think colleges should be informing students better and students should be paying more attention (see item (7)). Furthermore, these are statistics about graduates, and an even large fraction of those who dropped out probably wish they had chosen different majors.</p>

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<p>Oh, goody. More regulations to overtax the staff at your local college, with very little gain to the consumer. </p>

<p>It’s not the major so much as it is the person … and other factors that cannot be put in a neat little grid. Personal connections, motivation, area of the country, right place/right time, prior work experience, internships, just plain luck - among other things. I know recently graduated engineers who are unemployed - creative writing majors who landed good jobs at major corporations - smart kids who don’t have “real” jobs - smart kids with fabulous jobs. I just don’t see how what is being suggested is going to help.</p>

<p>Get back to basics, folks. Go to a school you can afford. If you need to borrow, do it wisely. If you need to work, go to school part time if necessary. Look into certificate and trade programs, if that is really what would work better for you than a traditional college degree. What we really need is a dose of common sense.</p>

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<p>Re: <a href=“http://www.heldrich.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/content/Chasing_American_Dream_Report.pdf[/url]”>http://www.heldrich.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/content/Chasing_American_Dream_Report.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>On page 34, the question about how the students viewed the career centers was interesting:</p>

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<p>Regarding the 29% who would have chosen a STEM major… how many of them would have chosen biology (the most popular STEM major), whose major-specific job prospects are generally no better (and perhaps worse) than those of most social studies and humanities majors?</p>