https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/29/the-top-10-private-colleges-that-pay-off-the-most-in-2020.html
Who could have thought a Core Curriculum and a quirky nerd school would pay off more than your typical pre-professional-centric schools?
Considering the large number of typical U of C College grads going into non professional graduate programs, I find the six figure median salary of alumni with 10+ year experience astonishing. Academia is not famous for high paying jobs.
It’s important to note that this ranking is for a specific income range and the results seems to pretty much tie directly to how much financial aid is provided.
UC’s 10 year salary is substantially below the other top 8, and is 22nd among the top 25 ranked privates, but the ROI is based on the third lowest net cost.
For those who can attend for under $5,500 per year, it’s certainly a great choice. Probably a bit different for those paying the $80,277 estimated total cost of attendance.
I’d like to see the same evaluation for other income ranges.
Perhaps we are just starting to see the literal payoff from the College’s efforts at successful career and grad-school placement over the years. As Dean Boyer mentioned a few weeks ago, there is no contradiction between liberal education and professional success. It might depend on a university’s particular “brand” of liberal education, however, and UC’s is a sterling brand.
I wonder how many people never recover from their fun dying during their formative years … I’m sure that’s not included in those stats, the ones who drop out, are thrown into depression and the like.
Its fairly obvious that the cost of living in Silicon Valley requires an average salary much higher than Chicago. There is also the issue of having fairly well developed engineering programs at the other schools which also tend to demand much higher average salaries. So the comparison with those schools is skewed. You might just want to look at UChicago vs Pomona which have similar major offerings. Finally I never have been a big fan of average salaries per school, so much is dependent on major and the location where the job is (they are not normalized for these factors). The fact that a lot of students remain local should show Stanford engineering grads with the highest wages (along with the highest cost of living) which it does.
Overall grad rate 95% (90% in four years). 1% transfer-out rate. That leaves 4% who don’t finish in six years or I guess “drop out”, per most recent data. Also, 99% freshmen retention rate which means the other three percent are leaving later on. UChicago is distinctive for the Core, so you’d think the dropping out would happen early on, when everyone’s still trying to figure out the fast-paced quarter system, the humanities and other sequences they may not care for, and the grey Chicago winters.
In comparison, Harvard (just one example): 97% freshman retention rate, 97% six year grad rate (85% in four years), 0% transfer out. So 3% drop out but they do so right away rather than later on. I wonder why they don’t transfer. The rest who remain seem to want to hang around for a bit longer than they do at UChicago, since the four-year grad rate is lower.
I think these stats are fairly similar to one another. Not clear to me that either school has relatively more unhappy or depressed students than other schools.
You are comparing apples to bagels. Harvard does not count withdrawals as drop-outs. Think of all the “famous” folks who left Harvard mid-way to start businesses or do other things. Their academic files are still active, and their studies can be resumed at any time- a year, a decade, twenty years later. This is Harvard’s nomenclature, which is why they have a 0% transfer out figure.
It is very hard to compare such small numbers across the top colleges, since how they classify “someone who started but hasn’t finished” can vary based on administrative policies and nomenclature.
Well, here are net average costs from Tuition Tracker (the tool used in the CNBC analysis) at the $110k+ range. UChicago seems to be holding its own. And that’s BEFORE the impact of Empower which offers free tuition and fees for incomes of $125k or less. Empower hasn’t been included in the analysis but it will reduce the average net cost for anyone in that $110k-125k range.
Harvard: $48,431
Stanford: $45,028
UChicago (before adjustment): $45,941
Princeton: $38,373
Dartmouth: $54,942
Yale: $41,344
MIT: $46,095
Duke: $60,373
Columbia: $49,792
Pomona: $45,656
For those paying full-freight, I offer the following all-in costs (before travel, insurance and any covid-related adjustments). Elite colleges cost a lot of money for those paying in full. However, UChicago isn’t exactly out of the range.
Harvard: $76k
Stanford: $78k
UChicago: $80k
Princeton: $75k
Dartmouth: $79.5k
Yale: $79k
MIT: $73k
Duke: $81k
Columbia: $77 (estimated)
Pomona:$75k
That could well be for either school re: the “drop out” percentages. UChicago simply counts them as “withdrawals” as well. We don’t know what people are doing who decide to leave. For Harvard, they decide right after freshman year, is all we know. So you are saying that their files aren’t closed out even if they do, indeed, transfer and earn a bachelor’s degree elsewhere? How interesting.
Actually I don’t think it means someone who decides “right after freshman year”. It could be someone who gets ill second semester of freshman year, takes incompletes, and goes home to recover and doesn’t come back. It could be anyone who withdraws DURING sophomore year (i.e. did not complete sophomore year). I think you’re trying to find information within this data that does not exist. It is VERY hard to drop out of Harvard.
^ Um, no. Freshman retention for 2019 is specifically defined as “Percentage of Students Who Began Their Studies in Fall 2018 and Returned in Fall 2019.” That’s not dropping out sophomore year. But you are correct that it DOES include anyone who doesn’t complete freshman year as well as those who do. However Harvard wishes to describe it, the proportion who don’t come back is 3%. (I guess it’s very hard to “drop out” if the university doesn’t acknowledge that you’ve done so LOL). My guess is that some of them actually do transfer to another institution and H doesn’t report that. They aren’t obligated to for IPEDS.
In contrast, UChicago actually expects your leave of absence not to exceed eight quarters and will usually withdraw you after that point.