Researchers with Brookings Institute have just released a new value-added rankings analysis, errr assessment approach: “Beyond College Rankings…”. It includes multiple measures of valued added. Specifically, wrt: (i) mid-career earnings of typical graduate; (ii) occupational earnings power of typical graduate; and (iii) loan repayment rate of typical graduate.
It looks to be an extremely useful tool for helping families assess difficult college investment decisions.
Great analysis to get a composite picture of value added by university.
It will be better if it is supplemented with jobs outlook from Bureau of Labor Statistics since future earnings are related to one’s major. Also one needs to differentiate between colleges that specialize in engineering and those that offer a wider number of subjects. Universities that offer mainly engineering score very high on their scale.
Any such financial ROI type comparisons between colleges need to stratify by major as well as college. Otherwise, the differing mix of majors will confound any comparison, since major tends to have a stronger effect on financial ROI than college choice does (the post-graduation destinations that are the other way around are a small percentage of overall post-graduation destinations).
My understanding of the value added wrt occupational earning of typical graduate measure (rather than just overall earning of typical graduate) is allowing the some of stratification that is being asked for, at least better than has ever been done before. And this is why we see some very high performers in the LAC’s showing up higher than other straight ROI assessments. BTW places like college factual allow looking at major specific stratification by ROI.
The report may be a methodological disaster. That’s my concern, anyway. For one thing, some of the underlying data, I believe, is both self-reported and tiny in sample. For another, within five minutes of browsing, I found a notable error: the number of Colby graduates for 2012-2013 is reported as 654, a figure which is off by roughly 50%. Lastly, and more meaningfully, some highly desirable careers are not especially high paying.
A good start. However, more granularity & segmentation by majors will be helpful. Obviously the researchers will need to have statistically significant sample size from each institution for inclusion. In many cases that may not be feasible. Also, since the reports are perhaps based on self reported data (Pay Scale or college placement centers), there may be inherent reporting errors.