Also, by focusing on male graduates only, it seems to me - and I’m speculating - you are automatically going to skew the results in favor of three big majors: Economics, Engineering, and Math. If that’s the kind of environment the OP is looking for, wouldn’t it be a lot simpler to just look up the percentage of those majors on the school’s IPEDS site?
Since this is a ranking of incomes for all majors, we can assume (absent evidence to the contrary) that regardless of major, a graduate of a highly ranked school is likely to earn more than a graduate of a low-ranked school. In fact the differences many not be equally great (or even favor the same schools) for all majors. So especially among closely-ranked schools, we might see somewhat different ranks for specific majors. Furthermore, it’s hard to say whether these differences represent treatment effects, selection effects, or some combination.
Nevertheless, for any of these data-driven rankings, I think the burden of proof is on the critic to show that different data, or a different approach, would produce very different outcomes.
By the way, I don’t see male-only earnings data on Scorecard.
What’s the source for that?
I think I linked the data page up-thread. The data sets are available there and break out the data in many, many ways (although not by major). Of relevance to this discussion, they have post-10-year overall median, overall mean, and mean by sex.
“we can assume (absent evidence to the contrary) that regardless of major, a graduate of a highly ranked school is likely to earn more than a graduate of a low-ranked school.”
actually, a study found this not to be the case, concluding that a student admitted to a highly ranked school but who instead chose a lower ranked school (for whatever reasons) ended up earning roughly the same as the higher ranked school graduates. In other words, Harvard produces high earners because they select for students with potential to be high earners rather than turning them into high earners.
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/dalekrueger_More_Selective_College.pdf
I think we’re saying two different things that are not mutually contradictory.
Average graduates of highly ranked, selective colleges do tend to earn more than average graduates of lower-ranked, less selective colleges. I think we can safely assume (absent evidence to the contrary) that this pattern prevails across many majors (at least when we’re comparing schools far apart in the rankings). So I bet the average Princeton art history major does earn more than the average Westmont College art history major. But again, it’s an open question whether these differences are due to selection effects, treatment effects, or some combination.
That’s a question Krueger & Dale have investigated … but I don’t think they’ve settled it.
At least one critic has suggested that K&D did not compare schools that were far enough apart in rank/prestige.
Well, I don’t have the patience to go through all the schools listed, but if Swarthmore is any example, the mere inclusion of women would alter the results by an incredible amount. According to the database cited by the OP, Swarthmore women earn, on average 40% less than their male counterparts ten years after graduating.
While there may not be too much evidence of the contrary, the evidence is weak in favor of that proposition. Except for situations like Wall Street and consulting, it appears that major is a much stronger factor in post-graduation pay level than college ranking. A ranking by college including all majors does not take into account the varying distribution of majors at different colleges, so (outside of the “fast track to Wall Street and consulting” colleges), ranking by pay levels of graduates tends to reflect what majors students are in (e.g. engineering-heavy colleges tend to do well).
Just graduating from MIT does not mean that a biology major will get a high pay job like his/her numerous engineering and computer science classmates. (See MIT’s post-graduation survey.)
Yes, I think that’s true.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean there is no significant difference in the earnings (10 years out if not 2 years out) between the random liberal arts major from Princeton v. Westmont College. I’d like to see more/better evidence one way or another.
Sure, but I think the more germane question would be whether the MIT biology major is likely to get a higher paying job than the University of Buffalo or Westmont College biology major. 5-10-20 years out, is the MIT biology major more likely to complete a PhD in biology, publish a significant research finding, be awarded a patent, start up a biotech firm, or become the CEO of an F500 company? If the answer to at least some of these is “yes”, isn’t that likely to drive up the average earnings of MIT biology majors compared to Buffalo or Westmont biology majors?
Maybe not. Maybe it’s the case that more MIT graduates do have those outcomes, but the majority of MIT graduates don’t, so it’s not enough to drive up the overall averages too much. I don’t believe NIH, or some other outfit that employs relatively many former bio majors, is likely to pay a huge salary premium just for an MIT degree, per se.
That is a pretty old survey, performed in the 1990’s and early 2000’s based on data from the 1970’s. Given the many demographic changes since then (women in the workforce, colleges pulling students from a wider geographical area, etc.). I wonder if the thesis could be proved today.
As for the schools being too close together in terms of prestige, it would be very difficult to find students who qualify for Penn who would be willing to go to a school significantly lower in the rankings than Penn State.
Personally, I think the tippy-top schools do offer some monetary, lifestyle or educational benefits, but those benefits fade quickly once outside the top 10 or 15 schools in the country. Schools 20 to 50 are probably very even in terms of outcomes, and not that much higher than the schools ranked 100 points lower.
Also, I think median salaries would be more helpful (and probably realistic) even if you couldn’t break them down by gender - which apparently, scorecard does not.
Substitute the square brackets for the arrow brackets and just the word “quote” instead of “blockquote” - and you should have it! 
Agreed, but I decided mean by sex was more useful for me than median-all because the sex diff was very great in many instances.
Many thanks!