College "Return on Investment" ranking

Parents Forum
1

<p>Payscale.com has put out a ranking of schools based on ROI - basically, 30 years of earnings of graduates minus what they would have earned as high school graduates and the cost of the schools.</p>

<p>College</a> Education Value Rankings - PayScale 2012 College ROI Report</p>

<p>The top of the list is filled with many of the usual suspects, but there are some surprises, too.</p>

<p>Engineering schools in particular seem to do pretty well by this metric.</p>

<p>I don't think it is wise to interpret this as 100% cause-and-effect, but I found it interesting.</p>

2

<p>Ranking entire schools means that the distribution of majors within the schools is a major confounding factor if you are trying to figure out the ROI for the school for a particular student in a particular major. It is no surprise that engineering heavy schools do well in this ranking, compared to schools with lots of biology, English literature, etc. majors who have more limited major-specific job prospects.</p>

<p>To make itself useful, Payscale should produce the ROI list for each major (and should offer other lists stratified by both school and major, rather than either or).</p>

3

<p>Because of their methodology, this ranking is very misleading. If I were less charitable, I would say it’s bogus.</p>

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<p>Gee, I wonder why a liberal arts school like Pomona (343) did so poorly, especially compared to its peer, Claremont McKenna(13) when most of the students share classes, costs are the same, aid is the same and a great number if students are common admits. The above is your answer. The majority of Pomona students go on to higher degree programs. I don’t think that fact lessens Pomona’s value to the students who attend.</p>

<p>Many of the higher ranked LACs have a greater number of kids doing grad work. This methodology does explain why the engineering schools are ranked more highly in general, as well.</p>

4

<p>Talk about doing poorly in that ranking - Wellesley College stinks it up at ~998.</p>

5

<p>Well… Harvey Mudd is a top producer of students who go on to PhDs (percentage of their student population). And they still top the list.</p>

6

<p>Of course, with 26% of graduates in CS, 35% in engineering, 14% in math and statistics, and 18% in physical science, but only 3% in biological sciences and 5% in everything else, it is no surprise that even those not going on the graduate at professional school after graduating from Harvey Mudd tend to find higher paying jobs than typical college graduates.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.hmc.edu/files/institutionalresearch/CDS%2020012-13/CDS_2012-13_Web.pdf[/url]”>http://www.hmc.edu/files/institutionalresearch/CDS%2020012-13/CDS_2012-13_Web.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Compare with the distribution at Wellesley, with 26% in social sciences, 11% each in biological sciences and foreign languages, 10% in area, ethnic, and gender studies, and 9% in psychology, but with CS, math and statistics, and physical sciences combined at around 9% (and no engineering).</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.wellesley.edu/sites/default/files/assets/departments/common_data_set_2012_0.pdf[/url]”>http://www.wellesley.edu/sites/default/files/assets/departments/common_data_set_2012_0.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;