Universities should strive for transparency in all its dealings in a way other businesses don’t have an obligation to. Why? For the same reason religious leaders should be moral. They are in that business. The major mission of a university is to make understandable and clear that which isn’t. I also think state universities are obligated to make any information that they have available to the public. Why? Because we are paying them to collect it. If they have it, we own it. So when a state university decides to make opaque (lie about) that which they understand (information about their school), well then others should step in and help guide them to the well of honesty-even if they kick and scream the entire way there. You can’t silence truth. It bubbles up and appears in other forms and your efforts make you complicit in their dishonesty.
I was in a small honors major with a class of about 20 students (I think it may be up to 40 or so these days, not really sure on the size but it’s definitely grown). Anyway, every single year since I was there, we had a list of exactly what all the graduating seniors were doing. In our day, that list was typed up by a departmental secretary and hung on a wall; now it’s on the website.
And this doesn’t help me one iota. My compatriots included someone who worked directly for Madeline Albright when she was SOS and played an integral role in certain peace negotiations. It includes various professors, someone who became a lawyer for the downtrodden and probably makes a pittance, and me who had a reasonably successful corporate career. It includes a friend of mine who is s published author and speaker. And it probably includes a few yoga teachers who dropped out of the rat race. Which of us is more “successful”? Beats me.
Blunt, linear, unsophisticated people think what you majored in equals what you’ll do the rest of your life. Plenty of things I do today weren’t even invented when I graduated college. What makes you all think that what your kids will do tomorrow has already been invented today and will mirror what last year’s graduating class did?
To some extent, I have a mental picture of the nerdy, awkward kid going to the hot nightclub and thinking that if only he gets in, he too will walk away with the hot blonde on his arm.
But then…
The second quote basically says that you do consider high school achievements (SAT scores and getting admitted to a highly selective college) to be highly determinative in how worthy a candidate graduating from college is, right?
UCB- that’s not what I said. I don’t claim to know what “worthy” means. I know how the labor market works in a bunch of industries- but it’s not my job to determine “worth”. The religious leader of my congregation likely has a more “worthy” score in the grand scheme of things- he has the patience to sit with someone in hospice for three days until they die. He has helped parents bury children and come to grips with waking up in the morning without their beloved child. He was a C student in HS, can’t do math, but is “worthy” in every possible meaning of the word.
I’ve worked for companies which did not screen via SAT scores. But we administered our own proprietary test instead. Does that make you happier? The net result was the same (more or less)- college grads who couldn’t pass our test didn’t not go further in the interview process (for certain roles).
Call it what you will. Roles that require strong analytical reasoning skills, facility with numbers, the ability to read/absorb/synthesize large amounts of information are going to have a “screen” in some fashion. Some companies are only going to hire engineers and math majors. Some companies won’t interview anyone below a certain arbitrary GPA cut-off. Some companies will only interview at Cal Tech and the like.
Which is better? obviously the one that favors your own kid. But to think that an individual college’s “score” on how much money their grads are making is going to help you and your kid navigate the complex and ever-changing labor market is naive.
I don’t care what a kid did in HS. But whether it’s a 500 SAT score, or a tenth percentile score on my own test, or nothing higher than a B in any class in college (even a fluff one) that required using numbers the end result is the same. It almost doesn’t matter which metric is the holy grail.
Will these kids do well in life/financially/professionally? Of course. There’s a personal injury lawyer in my town (obviously I have no idea how much money she makes) who just endowed a wing of a hospital. There’s a real estate agent two towns away who was the highest producer for her national chain last year. I have an acquaintance who went from mowing lawns to owning a large landscape and maintenance contracting company. Only the lawyer has a college degree (third tier private, second tier law school.) All three of them have enormous drive, work tremendously hard, are charismatic and fun to be with, have strong people skills, and absolutely excel at what they do.
That’s what’s always missing from these endless threads on CC. How to help your kid excel at what they are good at- not to shove them into a box because a new study shows that econ majors from Miami earn more than accounting majors from Indiana who earn less than international business majors from Wisconsin. If your kid loves literature and hates econ/accounting/international business, how does this study help you???
“Worthy” meant in the sense of being someone your company wants to hire, not in general societal terms.
Are some of you confusing the major and the specific job ideas a kid has? Because some jobs usually require a certain education and aptitude (accounting, engineering, teaching math, etc.) But for others, the rest of the package can matter just as much, or more, than the major.
Your own kid’s chances are about more than who makes what money, considering some may go corporate and some like a non-profit. Or some decide to teach math in a high school. Or become a sustainable farmer. I do agree that a college experience that stretches a kid can polish some of their real world skills more. But that doesn’t automatically translate to a higher salary. There is choice involved.
@Pizzagirl "Blunt, linear, unsophisticated people think what you majored in equals what you’ll do the rest of your life. Plenty of things I do today weren’t even invented when I graduated college. What makes you all think that what your kids will do tomorrow has already been invented today and will mirror what last year’s graduating class did?
To some extent, I have a mental picture of the nerdy, awkward kid going to the hot nightclub and thinking that if only he gets in, he too will walk away with the hot blonde on his arm."
- Even when I completely disagree, you still make me laugh out loud. Thank you for being so entertaining.
- I agree that you can not make a kid into something that they are not. However, some students have better and worse options. Some choices will make more possibilities later than others.
- Wealthier families give students the option to focus on a broad education early on, and think about potential careers later. High grades and test scores also provide these options. If you are the child of a typical cc: poster and have a 3.6+ uwgpa, many APs, and a 30+ ACT score, you have many more options open to you than the average student.
- However, if you are a solid student from a poor family with a 3.0 uwgpa and a 22 - 25 ACT range, you may not have those opportunities. Majoring in art history or journalism at a community college, or avg. directional U, this may be a very bad plan. For this student, they may have only one bite at the apple, and would be well advised to get some good advice before taking that bite and identifying the best options that align with achievable career goals.
It is easy for wealthy people to criticize poor and middle income people who put an early emphasis on career options; I understand that it may not be optimal, but many of those students may not have another chance.
Indeed, for those who dislike preprofessional majors, perhaps the wider availability of post graduation survey data may reveal that many of the preprofessional majors are not particularly good at getting graduates into the associated professions.
I don’t criticize anyone for an early emphasis on career options. I am not sure how the metrics you guys think the colleges need to publish is going to help a low income family navigate a labor market they are unfamiliar with.
I majored in Classics and am likely at the far tail of earned income for a Classics major. I don’t teach Latin at a prep school (one of my classmates), I am not a pastor (another classmate) nor am I curator of Greco-Roman sculpture at a regional museum (another classmate).
But I also have classmates who out-earn me by a significant factor who majored in comparative literature, philosophy, women’s studies (the much maligned women’s studies- she even created that major at my college!), religious studies, etc.
What does it tell you about religious studies as a major to know that my friend is a partner at a top Chicago law firm? What does it tell you about Brown university to know that X % of graduates who studied Classics in a certain year work in the non-profit sector? And that the data combines someone who is a case worker for the local United Way (likely earning 50K after a decade in the field) AND someone who is CFO of one of the largest and best endowed performing arts centers in the world? (comfortable six figure income).
I wouldn’t tell a low income kid to go to Brown to study comparative literature so that he could become a scriptwriter in Hollywood and make mega bucks even though I have a classmate who did.
So why make life harder for the low income kid but putting out MORE confusing and non-helpful data?
And who makes more- a scriptwriter who studied literature at Brown and who is showrunner for a couple of TV hits, or a scriptwriter who went to Harvard and created a successful animated show with several spin-offs? And does knowing that one of them makes $2 million a year but the other makes $10 million a year due to syndication help a single low income kid decide whether or not to study comparative literature???
@blossom At a school like Brown, your choice of major matters a lot less. Major in Latin and do it well, and you can become anything. However, for the student with a ACT score in the 20-25 range at directional state U does not have that option. They are not going to Brown or any similar school. It student will not have a broad range of options initially. They need to demonstrate competence in an employable major to get established. Over time they can broaden their skills, but they will not have the initial options that a high end student has. They can’t even get the interview.
I completely understand that when you go to Brown, or Swarthmore, et al, you can major in anything and have an amazing career. I am primarily thinking about the average student who has a 980 SAT.
The argument that this information should not be released because many will ignore it or fail to use it properly is not a good one. That is true of almost all product information that has to be disclosed. Additionally, for the top colleges, you would be able to see that students do great from a wide range of majors.
You are correct that average, poor students will probably not know how to think about this information, but perhaps their GC will guide them and their parents through the options.
I’m starting to feel for the low income kid with the 22 ACT. As if it isn’t hard enough figuring out how to pay for your local directional state college so you can study criminal justice and get a secure job as a probation officer in your city, NOW you have to wade through reams of data showing you that kids who study criminal justice make less money than those who study computer science. But not the computer science they teach at the directional state college you’re attending- no- that’s really just MIS and has mostly been outsourced to India by now. Study the kind of computer science they teach at CMU or UIUC- now THAT’s real money.
See how off the data is going to be? It doesn’t reflect that the kids who graduated pre-2008 had different options than those who graduated in 2009. It will show a robust set of metrics which mean nothing and are misleading to boot. How does it help this kid to see the salaries of kids who majored in special education- who graduated into years where school systems were desperate for special ed teachers- now that many cities have a glut of special ed teachers and ONLY want STEM teachers, preferably HS physics and chem teachers? Your poor kid isnt’ likely to be able to “convert” himself into a HS physics teacher once he’s done with his special ed degree, debt and all.
so now we’re actively promoting bad decision making via bad statistics by people who already feel shafted by the educational system.
Good work.
@blossom It should be clear that this kid is probably not a physics major. However, the data might tell him the criminal justice major that he is interested in is a lot more employable than a PE major, art major, or history major unless the student has very high talent level in one of those areas. That is obvious to most cc: posters, but it is amazing what typical students and parents do not know.
I really do not understand the idea that information should not be provided to average people because they are not informed enough to use it properly. At least they may have some questions about the information that they can discuss with their GC to discuss what may be a reasonable fit for the student.
And yet we still have people posting here believing that all STEM majors have good job prospects, or that going into a super specialized major associated with a tiny highly competitive job market (e.g. computer game design, sports management) is a good idea. Of course, luck in terms of economic and industry cycles also plays a part.
Widely held beliefs about job markets, colleges, and majors are not always correct, even though people base important decisions on them. Would wider availability of post graduation survey results help some people realize that?
Much- you are not advocating sharing information to average people. You are advocating sharing data- and assuming that out of reams of data, someone will get usable information.
If there were helpful information to be culled from all the data I’d be all for sharing it. But the questions that people want answered (should my kid take on debt to attend University of New Haven’s bachelor’s program in public safety or can he get the same kind of education with no debt and prepare for the same kind of work with a BA from Western CT State?) is not in these numbers. In fact, the data you want to share completely obfuscates the issue that most people need clarified. And by sharing the data, somehow people feel that they are going to make better decisions.
Does anyone believe that a phys ed teacher from Western CT State U is going to out-earn a neurosurgeon? How much “data” do you need to give someone in order to convince them that their kids plan of being an elementary school phys ed teacher is a bad idea?
Not sure the numbers say what you think they say…
@ucbalumnus "And yet we still have people posting here believing that all STEM majors have good job prospects, or that going into a super specialized major associated with a tiny highly competitive job market (e.g. computer game design, sports management) is a good idea. Of course, luck in terms of economic and industry cycles also plays a part.
Widely held beliefs about job markets, colleges, and majors are not always correct, even though people base important decisions on them. Would wider availability of post graduation survey results help some people realize that?"
I agree completely that there is a lot of bad information.
I would hope that, like a monroney sticker, standardized information can be shown in a simple, standardized way that is comprehensible by many people. That would be a lot better than just giving people reams of meaningless data.
One thing that bugs me is how you can look at a college career center website, and they list companies or grad schools were they have placed students in the past few years. But there are no quantities. So someone got a job at Google – is that one grad in the past 5 years, or 20? No telling…
@intparent “One thing that bugs me is how you can look at a college career center website, and they list companies or grad schools were they have placed students in the past few years. But there are no quantities. So someone got a job at Google – is that one grad in the past 5 years, or 20? No telling…”
That is why there needs to be a standardized format that presents information in a meaningful way.
As I also said earlier in the thread…
With a harvard bachelors degree in econ, u too can earn an NBA salary like Jeremy Lin.
I don’t know how a school would force its graduates to report back on things like where they’re working and how much money they make.