Yes, it looks like half of the Patriot League has engineering, but only one school in the NESCAC has engineering.
Here is the tool and the methodology. It’s a shame that some don’t like the output so they dispute the results.
@purple Titan “As I have stated before in this thread, I don’t think that you can draw the conclusion that you did from the data that you have. As many people have noted, salary is very dependent on major and profession.”
It is probably true that the most significant reason that NESCAC schools have lower salaries is that they do not offer many of the majors with the best paying jobs. However, I don’t see posters pointing out up front. It usually only gets mentioned as an excuse when someone specifically identifies the salary gap. It really should be disclosed. The facts are that many students and parents do not know this.
Another significant factor that contributes to the gap is that at a school with a full range of options a student can change their mind for a year or two into the process and decide to change to engineering or business. There is value in having the option to change your mind later. That can’t happen at an LAC that does not have these programs.
Many posters think this information is obvious, but to many applying students and their parents, it isn’t. Schools really should provide better transparency to applicants in terms of salary and employment data, so students and parents can make informed decisions. Many of the applicants will not care, but some of them will.
@clarinetdad16 “Here is the tool and the methodology. It’s a shame that some don’t like the output so they dispute the results.”
Exactly! People don’t like the salary results from The Economist’s extensive government data, so they don’t want to hear it.
In the latter case, maybe. In the former, really only if they want to spend an extra year or two to finish the degree.
“In the latter case, maybe. In the former, really only if they want to spend an extra year or two to finish the degree.”
It depends. Some students can change fairly easily. For example, a chemistry major can switch to Chem E, a physics major can switch to Mech E, a math major can switch to CS.
Stop changing the subject. The focus was on business and engineering. There’s no evidence that a chemistry BA from Lehigh earns more than a chemistry BA from Wesleyan, all things being equal.
@ circuitrider “Stop changing the subject.”
What the data shows is straight forward. On average, NESCAC graduates are earning less than graduates from the Ivy League, Patriot League, UAA, ACC, and the Big East. Res ipsa loquitur.
If you want to make excuses, that is fine. Please provide data.
Hey, I would be the first admit that the Patriot League is underappreciated both here and in the real world. I admire you for wanting to show them some love. I just wish you would have admitted that was your purpose from the beginning!
It’s only “straightforward” because you want it to be. Res ipsa loquitur doesn’t apply when you are comparing half a bag of apples to a quarter gallon of orange juice.
My wife is a graduate of one of the best Patriot League colleges and I am a graduate of one of the best UAA universities. I have great respect for those schools, but I can see when someone is blowing smoke about them too.
Try and find data to show that a graduate of Amherst or Williams with an English degree, or a history degree, or a math degree, or a chemistry degree, will earn less in his or her career than a graduate of American University or Holy Cross with an English or history or math or chemistry degree. You won’t find it, because it doesn’t exist.
Now look at placements in top graduate and professional schools - that is what so many NESCAC (and Ivy) students are shooting for. 80 percent of Amherst grads go to graduate school. The Payscale survey deliberately excludes people with degrees beyond a BA from their survey, which means that a huge percentage of students from the top NESCAC schools don’t even make it into the data.
Bottom line - colleges that are designed primarily to send students directly into the business world tend to have higher average salaries after a few years, and the methodology used by Payscale is guaranteed to oversample those young workers. A graduate of Williams or Amherst or Bowdoin or Middlebury can have that too - but a lot less of them want it.
Very interesting, and enjoyable reading about different ways to slice and dice. I like this particular slicing. Ivy and nescac are sports leagues after all. I like this better than usnrw. All statistical analyses have fatal flaws. Thank you for this thread.
“The Payscale survey . . . excludes people with degrees beyond a BA” (#48)
This is glaring and beyond justification.
For example, if you were to pursue a link, “Top Feeders – MBA Programs – College Transitions,” that attempts to identify colleges which send “the highest percentage of graduates to top-ranked business schools,” you’d find:
Amherst
Bates
Claremont McKenna
Columbia
Cornell
Dartmouth
Duke
Georgetown
Hamilton
Harvard
Middlebury
Northwestern
Pomona
Stanford
Chicago
Michigan
Penn
USC
Yale
Yeshiva
Ivy: 6
NESCAC: 4
UAA: 1
Patriot: 0
@ merc81 "“The Payscale survey . . . excludes people with degrees beyond a BA” (#48)
This is glaring and beyond"
There are plenty of issues with Pay Scale data. That is why I used The Economist’s Average salary data, as stated previously.
@merc81, where do you see that link?
Payscale has a tab where it shows all alums but it still isn’t very useful as it still doesn’t adjust by major or geography.
Sure, the data is straightforward. The problem is your conclusion goes well beyond the data. And people have pointed out several reasons why such a conclusion is unwarranted based on that data.
@csdad2 “Sure, the data is straightforward. The problem is your conclusion goes well beyond the data.”
I don’t think I did assert any conclusions that went beyond the data. Can you be more specific?
“That is why I used the Economist’s average salary data, as stated previously.” (#51)
@Muchtolearn : Yes, you did.
@PurpleTitan : Search “Undergrad to MBA,” in this forum.
This statement alone goes beyond the data:
You’d have to qualify it to match the data (e.g., “over the time period in question”, “under the limitations of the data and the people included”, “some of these schools have majors such as engineering and business and some don’t”, etc.). And you don’t seem to want to do that.
And you go further, you attack others as making “excuses”, I presume, for pointing out some of these deficiencies and limitations of the data, and giving reasons for why the data is as it is.
I’m not saying this data is useless, but it needs to be put in context and interpreted.
@csdad2 “And you go further, you attack others as making “excuses”, I presume, for pointing out some of these deficiencies and limitations of the data, and giving reasons for why the data is as it is.”
I made that comment in response to: “Stop changing the subject. The focus was on business and engineering. There’s no evidence that a chemistry BA from Lehigh earns more than a chemistry BA from Wesleyan, all things being equal.”
I provided data to support what I asserted. However, I don’t feel the need to provide data to defend an assertion that I didn’t make. I am suggesting that if s/he wants to provide data to explain the difference, that would be great. The burden of providing data to explain away the difference, is on the person who it trying to explain it away, not on me.
@csdad2 "You’d have to qualify it to match the data (e.g., “over the time period in question”, “under the limitations of the data and the people included”, "
I though I explained that when I said, " Using the Economist median salaries by school (10 years after enrollment), a simple average salary was calculated for the 6 major athletic conferences, and 4 more academically-focused conferences."