Collegewise has released their “lessons learned” notes from the 2015 NACAC. Starting on page 43 they have notes from the session Answering Parent Questions about ROI and Career Placement.
I had not seen these stats presented like this before:
I am sure this is very school and major dependent, but even so, 27% seems like a low number.
There are a lot of different topics covered in their notes, worth skimming to see if any of the topics are of interest. https://collegewise.com/nacacnotes
Not sure why, but I can’t edit my post. (I figured it out.)
Wow - neat info, thank you. Just scrolling through quickly, I liked what they said on P. 21 about the stress of early action and its impact. Going to look at this entire document in more detail later.
When you make a thread, the edit button for it is in a different place.
In the meantime, you can ask a mod to fix the mistake if you’d like.
Many rankings, including the US News attempt to measure expected vs. actual graduation rates. Additionally, why does it matter how many students get jobs in their fields, so long we know what percent are employed at what wage?
I will not be getting a job directly pertaining to my field, but it is likely that the job I do obtain will actually pay above the median starting salary for my major (particularly with the bust in oil). Did my school fail me because I’m not interested in working in oil? Did my school fail my English major friend who last year started a job in marketing because it did not directly pertain to her major?
Additionally, it’s possible to get the average debt load of graduates. The US News’ College Compass already compiles this data. The federal government compiles data on the default rates of graduates from various years. [Here’s an example](College Navigator - University of Oklahoma-Norman Campus) from my school, the University of Oklahoma.
Finally, does the average debt load of graduates matter? A sufficiently well developed net price calculator can give a solid estimate of the prospective student’s debt load which is far more useful than providing aggregate data.
I imagine that a lot of 18 yr olds who are heading off to college with a specific major in mind might find the data about how many students get jobs in their major helpful information.
Let’s be honest here. Many, if not most, degrees do not have a “field”. So the question is fundamentally unfair. A better question to ask would be “Are you working in a field where you find your education useful?.” Worded this way, a historian working for the peace corps could say “yes”, but their classmate working at their job from HS would likely say “no”.
I find that just the opposite, but I’m a strong proponent in the liberal arts, as opposed to a vocational major. And, what is the “field” for English or Sociology or Philosophy majors? Where should PoliSci/Government majors apply? Only to government jobs so that they can check the related-major box?
The high dropout rates are going to be at the local commuter college, primarily. Not saying that the number is not important from a public policy standpoint – way too many tax dollars chasing a problematic systems – but it really isn’t relevant when selecting that college.
My point is that maybe you don’t see these in other rankings is that they really aren’t very useful to most people. Most folks attend their local, instate college, by choice (primarily, economic.)
btw: Ipeds has grad rates, at 4 and 6 years.
Average debt of graduates can matter from a policy standpoint. Individual students and parents shopping for colleges will find the net price calculator to be more useful for their own college evaluations.
A majority of bachelor’s degrees in the US are in overtly pre-professional majors (at the less selective colleges rarely discussed on these forums but which most college students attend, the skew toward pre-professional majors tends to be much greater than at the highly selective colleges, which are often mostly liberal arts). Even among liberal arts majors, there are some professional goals associated with them (teaching and research in the subject is an obvious one), although not everyone in those majors is aiming for those professional goals.
Obviously, some students change their mind about their professional goals or do not pass subsequent admission gates into their profession (perhaps due to the highly competitive job market in that profession), so they do not end up working in the profession associated with their majors.
Kind of glad we’re done!
PS: thanks for posting the link to the doc @Mom2aphysicsgeek - some really interesting info in there. Still reading.
I liked this point:
The U.S. News rankings are made up mostly (80%) of things that don’t benefit students
(reputation, what high school counselors think of colleges, test scores, average money spent
on students, faculty salaries).
One of mine is class of 2017 (second is 2018), and I have no idea what the PPY and Coalition App is. Gawd. I can’t keep up.
*A better question to ask would be “Are you working in a field where you find your education useful?.” * Yes, “your education,” which goes beyond major.
The problem is that many schools are not transparent about employment and salaries. Often they count any job toward the employment percentage, but only certain jobs toward avg salary. Since there are no rules, they can do whatever they wish.
How can it be a “problem” when the data doesn’t exist? (Do you really think the publics have the resources to chase down thousands of grads each year to find out what they are making?)
And the bolded doesn’t benefit students? Huh?
btw: IMO, faculty rep does benefit students in that it leads to the ‘prestige’ of the school. (Harvard is Harvard primarily due to the prestige of its faculty – certainly not is focus on undergrads.)