There is a lot of data that goes into those numbers (presumably). But if the numbers are biased to the upside, it really calls into question the wisdom of full-pay, or out-of-state tuition at many of the lower ranked schools. Caveat Emptor.
Maikai, your construct is valuable in theory but doesn’t work that way in the real world. Students with below average verbal SAT scores do not become PhD’s in European History in numbers sufficient enough to matter for a statistical ranking of their alma maters. I’d love to see evidence that kids with below average SAT verbal scores are gaining admission to doctorate programs in history AND completing said programs.
The doctorate programs in school counseling, early childhood education, etc. are chockabloc with students who may not have entered college with strong scores. So the colleges that get and keep these students should be applauded for the work they do.
But completing a dissertation in European History? Where is the evidence?
The departments of history of the top 30 graduate programs in the US are filled with former Fulbright scholars, Cum Laude graduates of top 30 type undergrad programs, Rhodes scholars, etc. So we can assume that the “under 500” SAT crowd is not populating the libraries and archives of European History doctoral programs with great regularity.
You are confusing selection effect with treatment effect. If Yale starts admitting the under 500 verbal kids you’d have a valid experiment- is Yale’s history department actually top notch, or do they just admit fantastic history kids and then sit back and do nothing to mess them up? But fact is- you can’t construct that experiment but those kids don’t get into Yale. And kids who end up at Southern Connecticut State college instead of Yale don’t become History professors at a rate high enough to compare. And the few that do- are likely at the top of SC’s applicant pool in terms of scores and grades, not at the bottom.
Mark Schneider (former Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics) says that
students should “Worry Less About Which College Accepts You and More About Your Major”
The wages earned by graduates of most regional universities vary remarkably little. In fact, there’s virtually no correlation between selectivity and wages one year and 10 years after graduation.
In short, students looking for a college should go to a super-selective school or a state flagship school if they can. Otherwise, they should not agonize unduly over which university they attend. If angst during this stressful season is unavoidable, the next crop of collegians should worry far more about picking the right major.
I think another problem with PayScale is that at the “top” of many professions, annual salary is not the only, or even the best, measure of “success.” I think this is particularly the case if you are including colleges with a substantial number of students who want to go into academia–they may never make all that much money, but they are certainly successful.
Who’s more successful: the senior partner at Cravath, Chief Justice Roberts, or Professor Larry Tribe?
@FallGirl What about Colgate or Carleton? They seem to be clear outliers to the engineering theory, though like others mentioned there seem to be flaws with the methodology of looking only at salaries since it doesn’t account for many factors like grad school
The survey is interesting and in some ways relevant, but it really is skewed by both major (STEM fields tend to pay more and a school that offers degrees in Education, for example, over the long term will be skewed down) and also geography. The higher salaries paid on the east coast are likely more than off set by the much higher cost of living. What is interesting is that some of the schools with LOW STEM graduates do rank highly on the list…that might be a better indicator for someone looking to study liberal arts. Again, keep in mind geography. As with any list, there are so many different variables that can go into ranking schools and the lists have to be used as just another piece to the puzzle, not as definitive and absolute guidelines.
“Who’s more successful: the senior partner at Cravath, Chief Justice Roberts, or Professor Larry Tribe?”
Arguably the “most successful” person in this country - the president - only makes $400,000 / year, which is chump change compared to many investment bankers.
@maikai - I was mostly referring to the fact that this is a convenience sample. It’s not a representative/probability sample of earners within the U.S. in every field, so it should be taken with a grain of salt. Also, some fields are more likely to use it than others. I’m in academia and nobody uses PayScale.
It’s nice that you don’t work with any unsatisfied people at your job, but you just said that they have many years with the company. People who are looking for a new job are looking for a reason - either they got let go from their prior job, or they are seeking to improve their position in some way. I also, deliberately, did not say “most”. I said a significant proportion, and “possibly partially” - as in most people have multiple reasons from moving on from a job.
@Zinhead - I don’t know if I agree with nursing as a commodity career. Graduates from the same schools will get the same salary at the same hospital, but graduates don’t have equal chances of getting a job at the best hospitals - the best hospitals often hire from the top nursing schools in thier cities where they have connections (and where students may have done clinicals and thus know someone). Also, brand-new BSNs with no experience can start out at $60-75K in the top hospitals here in the Northeast, so I disagree that there’s little financial upside.
But basically I agree with @Hunt, as I have on many threads here. Whether you make incrementally more salary if you go to X place instead of Y (or X major instead of Z major) matters less than whether you are making a salary you can live with and have a job/career that you love. Personally I’d rather be a happy professor making $75K than a miserable engineer making $95K.
Cost of living is another really great point. I’ve been trying to convince a group of my friends to move down South, particularly to Atlanta, which is my hometown. One of the things that’s been working is showing them the cost of houses down there relative to what they can afford to purchase up here (they all live in New York - ha!). The higher salaries in the Northeast aren’t really enough to offset the vast differences in the cost of living, even when you factor in transportation (which is a moot point because, bafflingly, most of them own cars!)
The federal government is currently collecting information on financial aid recipients that will allow them to track a student’s college(s), every major they ever declare (schools have to report CIP codes from start to finish, and are required to change them whenever a student changes them), every semester’s enrollment (less than half, half, three quarter, full), and withdrawal/graduation dates. The current plan being discussed is for the government to collect wage information from the IRS down the road, tracking salaries for each of these aid recipients at varying points in time (such as 5 years out, 10 years out). Supposedly, this will eventually be shared so that students can use it to decide on colleges and majors.
Kelsmom, this will be an enlightening database for the two people in America who don’t know that neurosurgeons make more money than nursery school teachers.
The above does not address something students seem to want to know, according to a survey by Chegg.
“Percentage of graduates working within their field of study 1 and 5 years after graduation: Targeted employment outcomes is another criterion popular among both sets of students. 72 percent of high school students and 73 percent of college students said the 1- and 5-year-out statistics are a very important metric.”
Sounds great, but how would information regarding whether or not a graduate is “working within their field of study” be collected??? So many mandates for schools to collect information … it all comes with a price tag.
72 percent of high school students appear to be too lazy to check the websites of colleges they are applying to in order to learn if SAT 2’s are required or if four years of a foreign language are required for admission- if the posts on CC are at all indicative.
I’m taking Chegg with a huge grain of salt here.
I completely disagree with your statement.
I don’t believe that less selective, but rigorous colleges “pride” themselves on flunking kids who are less prepared. Colleges are businesses, and the “business” climate is fiercely competitive these days due to the ranking systems (i.e. USNWR, Forbes, etc). In order to survive amidst these ranking systems colleges need to ensure they provide a high quality academic environment even if the pool of admitted students isn’t as excellent as they might desire. Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with this type of practice. These schools are giving students who will otherwise be rejected from more selective schools a chance to succeed, and those students who are motivated will in fact do so. The rest? Well, they still had a chance to do well, even if they chose not to take advantage of it.
There are plenty of these “boot camp” colleges, as I like to call them, that take in average students while still maintaining high academic standards. Typically, these colleges also have a good infrastructure set up to help the weaker, but motivated students do well.
I think the bottom line here is that colleges have to do the best they can with what they are given. If College “X” has a pool of students with an average combined SAT of 1200, then that’s what they have to work with! It would not make any sense to dumb down the curriculum to accommodate these students… a BS in Mechanical Engineering is a BS in Mechanical Engineering.
In some subjects, including engineering, external accreditation of the major requires a high level of rigor. This is not necessarily true for all types of external accreditation, and many subjects have no external accreditation of the major. So some subjects’ floors on rigor are higher, and other subjects’ floors on rigor are lower.
@juillet, I always enjoy your perspectives in these threads. I did just want to comment on one minor point:
I concur wholeheartedly with the above sentiment; however, I hope those reading along or lurking realize that, for many students, engineering is “bliss,” and not every student will realize that until (and IF) he or she gives it a whirl.
Unfortunately, because of the nature of an ABET-accredited degree, if you need to graduate in four years but are curious about the field, you have to start out on an engineering track and then make a judgment call whether or not it’s for you.
But liberal arts students aren’t the only ones with the option to go on to graduate or professional schools. In addition to graduate engineering programs, many engineers go on to medical or law school, and others return for MBAs a few years post-graduation.
Also, there are plenty of gifted and happy engineering professors making good salaries.