For comparative perspective, WalletHub assigned SCU a “career outcomes rank” of #12 when considered among colleges and universities nationally. To the extent that you are attempting to extricate the school itself from its location, it might be worth noting that the geographically similar Stanford placed 41st in this category.
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More relevant is College Scorecard, which gives recent graduate pay levels by major, although it is limited to those who used federal financial aid as students, and there may be no shown data for small schools and majors. Of course, changes in economic and industry conditions with respect to labor markets can mean that even last year’s pay levels may not be relevant now.
For SCU from Field of Study Profile | College Scorecard
| Major | Pay level |
|---|---|
| Computer engineering | 191635 |
| Electrical engineering | 139616 |
| Business - accounting | 123065 |
| Business - finance | 127056 |
| Business - marketing | 100123 |
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Thanks for posting that. And yes, even lists of recent graduates have their problems as hiring trends change - as in the recently reported decrease in demand for CS majors.
I’ve read criticisms of both approaches, i.e. focus on recent earnings as well as focus on earnings many years out. All of those criticisms are valid. It seems to me that this is all useful data which can be factored in and taken for what it’s worth.
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But does this account for where ?
If you are in Texas or Tennessee Or Washington, you have a different cost and tax basis.
No matter what, the school clearly puts out successful grads.
When I went for my MBA, I chose a lesser ranked school over #7 at the time - Indiana.
IU was placing heavy into Chicago, my school Phoenix, Denver and other cheaper at the time cities.
So the $2k average salary difference was not what it seemed.
Thank you all so much for sharing and I learned a lot. I agree that rankings can be all too generalized but I was hoping from all the ranking or data, we could gather some insight. I think in the end, it really comes down to: 1. How active do potential employers seek candidates at SCU for the specific majors in Engineering and/or Business. 2. The ratio of # of active potential employers vs # students looking for career after graduations at SCU. Potential employers for me mean companies that could give at least offer close to average salary for that major in the region. Others pointed out and I also agree, ROI may not just be about finance but personal growth as well. For that portion, I will have to let the kid factor in and have told him so. My job as a parent, is to give him data that he should also factor in as an adult later. As smart as he is, he is still a 17 year old and certainly has a lot of growing up to do 
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Generally speaking, I value first hand direct experiences but I disagree with extrapolations based on seemingly irrelevant or dated one off experiences.
OP you have several posters who have lived experience with the school you are asking specifically about. They seem to be offering informed opinions that I hope helps guide you.
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I’ll disagree.
At a school like SCU, it depends on the persistence and creativity of the student to take matters into their own hands and find a job.
Any boost from SCU - recruitment at campus or connections - is a bonus but not primary.
It’s a social media world.
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The data is from 2022. A lot has changed in the last two years and is better to connect with a student at SCU in his/her junior or senior year.
That said they do have a career fair and a very active and accessible career center which is a plus compared to some public schools with limited resources.
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I see. It seems that my own experience is out-dated for today. Internet just started back then when I graduated. I was also not as well informed and that my parents didn’t know much. However, the college that I went was/is well known in STEM and in demand, therefore, my experience was a lot of companies wanted to interview on campus. I remember having interviews almost daily for weeks on campus and it was somewhat logistically stressful. Our family haven’t had college bound kids with my son being the 1st in decades, I can see how the process may have changed. Thanks for the feedback.
I had only a few in college but my major was why. In grad school, many.
I would argue covid and the net changed this.
My son was an engineer at Alabama. He had 19 interviews in the fall and 5 offers by xmas with his intern company coming in Feb or March. The school had listings, career fairs and campus recruiting but none of those met his need.
He did struggle for an internship after soph year but got two offers very late. After you have an internship, you are golden.
My daughter is a social science major. She used the same strategy as my son - interned for our state and for a top think tank during her DC semester. Just dumb luck but she put in one app for post graduation in May and has secured employment. She’s at Charleston.
Neither is as reputed, I’d say, as SCU.
We’ve seen UNC grads posted on here that can’t find jobs. In the end, it’s sales - the student has to sell themselves to someone. Hopefully the school has ties that interest your student but many don’t.
Companies have cut back travel and replaced it with zoom/Teams.
Just my opinion but I believe that for most (not all) roles that it’s really leveled the playing field.
My son is in a leadership development program with engineers from Michigan, Purdue, Case Western, U Wash and more but also W Michigan, Akron, Utah, Auburn, Bama, Buffalo, UCR and more.
One of his offers had past years from MIT and RPI but also a school I was unfamiliar with in Raleigh.
What’s most important is accreditation as many employers require. In engineering, SCU has for civil, cs/ce, electrical and mechanical.
In the end, everyone’s ROI will be individual - and I believe will have more to do with the student than school.
That’s one person’s belief anyway.
I’d check with career services to see why engineerimg students rate life and career preparation so low or even have your student speak to student ambassadors, but I personally wouldn’t have concerns with SCU or most others assuming accredidation
Best of luck.
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My D graduated from SCU in June and had an incredibly positive experience. I always feel like an SCU ambassador when I post because I have so many positive things to say about the school, but it’s the honest truth. D was a double English and Communication major and landed a terrific job in her field immediately after graduation (in SF) and is making a solid salary for a first job. I know that she worked hard in her classes and formed excellent relationships with her professors and her advisors, and it really paid off. She also worked part time at the Career Center and someone there made an introduction that ultimately resulted in her getting the job she now has. Most of her friends are also employed in their respective areas of interest, so I don’t think she’s an anomaly.
I think there were a couple of things that made a difference: 1) She worked hard in her classes and got to know her professors and wasn’t shy about making relationships; 2) She said yes to opportunities that came her way; 3) She hustled. She worked very hard to get great internships and to do well and that set her up for a good job post-grad.
I wonder if she could have had the same outcome at another school and I’ve think she certainly could have been successful at another college. However I think SCU was truly a great fit for her and she thrived and was confident. I also think there is truth to the “big fish in a small pond” concept.
I’m happy to answer more questions and could provide a number of specific examples of the types of opportunities she had specifically through SCU connections. Feel free to message me if you have questions.
TLDR; I think the rankings reflect the kind of opportunities/ROI that I’ve seen for D and her peers.
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Among schools in Bay Area, for sure the tops one are Stanford and CAL. Other than these 2 schools, do employer in Silcon Valley really have preference for CS graduate from UCD, SJSU or SCU assuming everything else stay the same? I doubt it. It is more to do with the person than the school name. Therefore, R in ROI for SCU should not be measured by salary outcome. You are paying more for the nice campus, private school setting and whatever not offer by UCs and CSUs.
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Google hired my software development son graduating with a bachelors from a regional college in north Georgia. My son told me, other than Apple, none of the other tech companies care very much where you went to school, just that you can do the work and add value with creativity. He did interview and test online over a 6 month period his last semester of school.
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I completely agree with the point made by @thumper1 that ROI isn’t just about post-grad salaries. Obviously we all want our kids to launch and to be equipped to support themselves financially, but I think most of on CC also want our adult kids to find fulfillment in many realms–intellectually, socially, professionally, and in their relationships.
As a history (me) and physics (H) major, we strongly encouraged our D to explore a range of subjects while in college and to choose a major that expanded her intellectual horizons, not just her professional horizons because we had confidence that doors would open.
What we learned is that all the talk of “fit” is a deep truth because a student who is thriving will take appropriate risks, engage and flourish. That is the kind of ROI that is very hard to measure quantitatively, but you definitely know it when you see it.
So is SCU “worth it”? For our family, it was worth every cent.
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No disagreement for your family and that’s a great statement to make about any school for any student - but kids / families that make an ROI statement - are clearly looking at outcomes because they are trying to justify the tuition spend.
And that’s why we have ranking after ranking, whether US News or Payscale.
If the OP chooses to look at it through your lens, that’s fantastic - but I don’t think that’s what they’re looking at - nor are most “ranking obsessed”.
In other words, I love your thought - but I think of those who choose to look at ROI, you’re in the minority, not the majority.
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With so many students changing their major or career path, I would hesitate to look at ROI in terms of salary (and I would not do that anyway).
We did not look at salary. We looked at experiences, relationships, etc.
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You are not wrong and it’s pretty clear that major, not school, drives the ROI in most cases…but yeah, I do think parents do this…at least the one these rankings/studies are geared toward.
And the schools use the #s to their advantage, marketing any good # (ranking, salary, etc.) they can get their hands on.
Everyone is complicit - but it’s up to the parents to see through the bs like you have and @cuppasbux has.
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In the interest of full disclosure, I don’t ignore rankings altogether, nor do I think job/salary metrics are unimportant. I think a school that is well ranked is worth considering if the ranking metrics align with our priorities and values–but that’s the rub: finding a ranking that actually places value on the things your family cares most about. And of course I want D to thrive after college, which includes getting a job she’s excited about and earning enough money to achieve financial independence and comfort.
My main point–which @tsbna44 noted–is that many parents are seeking justification for the tuition spend and are using an ROI formula to do so (X amount in tuition = X amount in salary over X number of years). Rarely do complex life experiences like college (or careers for that matter), lend themselves to such a clean equation.
I think any given college can bring a lot to the table in terms of opportunities, peer group, range of classes and majors, access to internships, quality of teaching, post-grad outcomes, etc.–and all of that gets factored in when we think about a college list. As everyone knows, it’s ultimately up to the student (not the college or career center) to set themselves up to take advantage of opportunities that come their way. In other words, when looking at ROI, the biggest X factor is not the college, but the student.
That said (and to keep on topic), SCU offered many opportunities and our D was the type of student to take advantage of them, so we came away very happy.
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I don’t think everyone knows. OP didn’t know but is learning. I hope others see your statement too because too many believe that you get your degree and thanks to the school, you are given a great internship and job !!
In fact many OP mention that about why they are choosing a school or they ask will that school get me ………
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This is a ranking from FreeOpp that looks at ROI amongst CS majors. It seems to suggest that a combination of marketable majors and elite schools (plus great students plus probably some geographic bias) leads to the most lucrative outcomes. We often on CC seem to fall into the trap of absolutisms and assume there is a single ingredient “secret sauce”.
- CMU $4,125,963
- Rice $3,781,869
- Brown $3,535,080
- Stanford $3,305,484
- Yale $3,296,380
- Harvard $3,268,145
- Caltech $3,102,888
- Cornell $2,966,699
- Cal Poly $2,920,317
- MIT $2,909,266
- UCLA $2,853,535
- UC Berkeley $2,843,321
- Duke $2,546,552
- Johns Hopkins $2,515,869
- Vanderbilt $2,461,053
- UIUC $2,417,724
- U Michigan $2,258,080
- Columbia $2,130,692
- GeorgiaTech $1,966,139
- UW Seattle $1,943,759
We Calculated Return On Investment For 30,000 Bachelor’s Degrees. Find Yours.
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