Colleges That "Pay Off" the Least

College Search & Lists
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History and Literature at Harvard is a rigorous major. Government is a rigorous major. But it’s possible to get a BA from random U in any of these disciplines without ever writing an actual research paper using primary sources; possible to graduate with HONORS from random U having only taken survey courses ( e.g. Europe from the Middle Ages to the Cold War) where the only assessment is a midterm and final.

The relative rigor of Dartmouth vs. Columbia, Harvard vs. JHU, Pomona vs. Williams- ok, have at it. But there are dozens of posts on CC at any given time declaring that “it doesn’t matter where you go because the only difference between Swarthmore and Framingham State is that Swarthmore has better marketing”.

I don’t believe that’s so. That’s no knock on the fine faculty and students at Framingham. But the experience is qualitatively different. Sure- a better prepared student body. But it’s both hard to get in to Swarthmore AND hard to get out.

That’s not cachet speaking, that’s rigor. Especially since 99% of people in America have never heard of Swarthmore.

22

I don’t believe there’s no difference, even substantial difference, between colleges either. However, a history or literature major from another, as rigorous but lesser known, program/college probably doesn’t have the same opportunities as a Harvard graduate. I do agree, though, that Harvard’s cachet has been earned over the years because of the success of its programs, just as MIT/Caltech has earned their cachet (yes, rigor is part of it) in their respective fields. I wouldn’t suggest all the programs are the same. Far from it.

23

@blossom I agree. Already, S19’s top LAC is proving to be way more rigorous than the schools where some of his friends are. They are reporting school is easy. He is reporting that classes are intense and demanding. I believe that alumni from these rigorous colleges and universities want to hire graduates from their alma maters because they know those kids have been prepared in ways that kids from other schools have not. And many of those graduates end up in industries that pay well.

That being said, many of the schools on this list are rigorous. Carleton? Fairly far down the list but still on it. And really rigorous. All I can think of is that maybe more kids from some of these schools choose to go into non-profit careers and, therefore, make less either for a while after school until they go to grad school or for their whole career if they choose to stay in that sector.

24

Are the colleges listed in reply #3 examples of “random U” schools with the characteristics that you list?

25

They did not reveal in the original article how they obtained the data from the graduates. That can have a very strong bias one way or another.

Interestingly, 32 colleges of the 24/7 Wall Street’s list of “the 50 Schools That Pay Off The Least” were listed by Forbes in their 2018 list of “200 Colleges With The Happiest, Most Successful Alumni”. Among them was the one that 24/7 Wall Street claims pays off the least of all colleges out there.

I guess that students who graduate from most of the colleges which don’t pay off, mostly do better than students who attend colleges which do pay off. That gives us an idea as to how useless and meaningless these lists are.

Let us take a quick look at a couple of notable examples: the # 1 on 24/7 WS’s list, Bennington, was listed at a respectable #83 on the Forbes list, while the 24/7 WS’s list’s #9, Oberlin, came in at a pretty good #42 on the Forbes list. Carleton, the list’s #42 in Colleges That Don’t Pay Off, was listed by Forbes as #13 in successful alumni, ahead of Stanford, Duke, Yale, and Harvard.

Ho hum.

The 32 are: Carleton, Weslyan, Agnes Scott, Denison, Northland, Occidental, Wooster, Pitzer, Wheaton, Reed, Kenyon, Sewanee, Scribbs, Knox, Beloit, Earlham, St. John’s, Oberlin, Wells, Hendrix, Smith, Hollins, Lawrence, Skidmore, Occidental, Hobart and William Smith, Holyoke, Scripps, Ohio Wesleyan, Whitman, Connecticut, AND Bennington.

26

The Department of Education publishes this salary information for students receiving federal FA. You can read more about the methodology and salary information for other colleges at https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/ .

How the article author created the list of what colleges pay off the least from this information is a mystery. If you just look at average cost compared to reported salary, many others stand out as lower returns the ones from the article. For example,

#1 Ranked In Article
Bennington College – $68k sticker, $30k ave. cost, $30k salary

Not Included
Landmark College – $72k sticker, $41k ave. cost, $24k salary
SF Music Conservatory – $63k sticker, $37k ave. cost, $20k salary
Penn Fine Arts Academy – $54k sticker, $37k ave. cost, $20k salary

As I was hinting at in the colleges above, two of the most important factors in the salary averages are major/career path and the individual student. Both are far more influential than the cachet of the college name or whether the college has a reputation for being rigorous.

Landmark College may be a great option for students with certain types of learning disabilities, if the Landmark program has a large impact of chance of graduating and pursuing career goals. Putting those same students at a college with a high average salary doesn’t men that the salary of students with learning disabilities is expected to match the school average for students without learning disabilities, nor is the chance of graduating expected to be the same.

Similarly SF Music Conservatory may be a great option for students hoping to pursue a career in music. If those students hoping to pursue a career in music attended a different college with a high average salary, their expected salary would still probably remain low, like other music majors at the college.

It’s no coincidence that LACs dominate the list, while more techy schools are excluded. The LACs dominate the list because they generally have a larger portion of students in majors and careers associated with lower salaries at 10 years. If you instead look at students who majored in CS at those same LACs, then the result would be very different. I’d expect these low pay off colleges would suddenly become high pay off colleges. The list has little meaning beyond amusement.

27

Within the context of this same general source, USA Today Money, Wesleyan appears on opposing rankings! It lists with schools that “pay off the least” (#47) and with those that “pay off the most” (#25 among private colleges).

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/07/21/student-loan-crisis-top-ranked-colleges-that-pay-off-the-least-income-tuition/39682401/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/07/16/cost-college-top-universities-pay-off-most-stanford-princeton/1742297001/

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Different data sources. One list uses DoE information of students who received federal financial aid, while the other uses Payscale surveys. Possible reasons for the discrepancy include the fact that only 25% of Wesleyan frosh get federal loans and 16% get federal grants (probably mostly overlapping sets of students), so their post-graduation outcomes may be different from that of all students there, and the usual Payscale survey issues.

29

@MWolf: How does Forbes measure “happiness” ?

P.S. I like your post, but not sure about Forbes rankings.

30

Notice that these are ALL private universities. There’s no employable major that makes a bachelors degree worth $250,000.

31

Coolguy- my kids were outearning me by the time they were 30 (one with a grad degree, the others just a BA) in allegedly unemployable majors from private U’s. One at a tech startup (with zero experience in coding, programming, or tech-- hired for “the other skills” since they were out their eyeballs with CS majors).

Your experience is extremely limited. There are kids with degrees in philosophy who start at DE Shaw and Bridgewater and Bain Capital earning a comfortable six figure salary by the end of their first year- with just a BA.

That’s not the be-all and end all of life in my book. But philosophy, history, political science, anthropology- all fine degrees if approached the right way. (i.e. you can’t be innumerate). The most inspirational leader I ever worked for had a BA in Renaissance Studies- and truly- a gifted intellect, superb businessman, kind and wonderful human being. If you’re going to get a solid job right out of undergrad which positions you for even better jobs next go-round- and you can afford it- what’s wrong with spending $ on a BA? I know people who spend 100K to put in a swimming pool and outdoor kitchen which the next owner rips out because they want a tennis court instead. ROI- zero. I know people who spend $25K on a watch which will depreciate by 50% when they walk out the door. At least your education doesn’t decline in value as you gain experience!

1 Like
32

@coolguy40: I agree with @blossom that there are plenty of careers / jobs which justify investing $250,000 in a college degree. For example, a degree in finance from the Wharton School at Penn often leads to lucrative employment upon graduation.

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I agree also. Adding it’s really not for others to judge how a student/family spends their money or what outsiders might deem as ‘justified’…some believe being a full pay elementary ed major at Vandy is a great investment, as just one example.

Regarding this ‘study’, because it only looks at the subset of students who took out federal financial aid, we can’t draw meaningful conclusions from the findings.

34

I’m not arguing that the Wharton kid (to use Publisher’s example) is in any way smarter or more talented than the finance major from Southern CT State or Pace or U Mass Lowell. Perhaps he or she is dumber in meaningful ways.

But to pretend that the kid coming out of Pace has the same opportunities as the Wharton kid- wow. You live in a bubble. I know at least a dozen of these Pace/LIU/Fairfield U kids who majored in finance and graduated in the last two years. Employed- yes. The kind of finance they studied seems meaningfully different from what the Wharton kids study- which of course, you would expect since many of them went into college with “college prep” math but no AP, no calculus, and frankly, not a lot of awareness that finance requires a lot of math.

Again- I don’t believe a lucrative career on Wall Street is the be-all and end-all of existence. But to compare the 55K jobs to the 125K plus 80K bonus jobs (just talking year one here) is really pushing reality.

Do your kids want those jobs? Doesn’t matter. Somebody does, and they aren’t getting them with a degree in math from a former state Teacher’s college. You can believe that majoring in math at SCSU is exactly the same as majoring in math at Carnegie Mellon but you’d be wrong. And the market knows it.

35

I question the numbers and therefore find this article fairly meaningless.

36

You do realize that your children’s results were not the norm, @blossom? The mean earnings for alumni 6 years out of Carnegie Mellon was about $85, so they aren’t all working at hedge funds or tier 1 consulting firms, regardless of their major. It is true that some of those jobs aren’t even open to grads of less prestigious schools, but it isnt the case that everyone at CMU gets to go to McKinsey.

37

I would absolutely argue that. on average, kids that attend Wharton are way and above smarter/more talented then kids that attend SCTS/Pace/UMass and its clearly born out in GPA’s and scores of accepted students.

38

No doubt it is a different level of student attending those 2 colleges. But the relevant point of comparison, for this list, is likely the colleges on the list versus a strong state flagship, possibly honors program, in a public university. So is Benington or College of the Atlantic really academically superior to the state u? Is the Holyoke grad much better educated than would have been possible at U Mass Honors to justify the cost difference?

39

Thanks ?

Since it’s Forbes, I guess they measure happiness in dollars somehow.

BTW, the Forbes rankings aren’t any better, really.

So they are comparing the MEDIAN salaries to the AVERAGE tuition. For data sets which are right skewed like salaries, the median is always lower than the average.

So they are comparing two different measures, meaning that their entire ranking system is not only meaningless, but is also invalid.

40

The bottom line is: if you major in a fluffy field in a non-top-notch LAC, don’t expect to have a financially rewarding career. Of course, happiness is a whole different issue.