Salary information that is not self-reported is hard to find. If you have any other sources feel free to post the links.
I never said anything of the sort. I do however think that students planning to take out loans should have some idea of the salary they might earn so they don’t get over their heads trying to pay off debt.
Whoever said I was trying to block access to the data that’s currently available? I’m trying to point out that you need to view the numbers with both a critical eye towards survey errors, PLUS some understanding of how compensation works in different fields at different points in one’s career.
Have at it. Make whatever decisions you wish. But don’t expect the data to be a magic ball which can predict YOUR outcomes- which to be honest is the only thing anyone really cares about. Most parents and students don’t give a hoot that nursing salaries in North Dakota are increasing 12% per year. They want to know what salaries will look like in four years when THEIR kid gets out of nursing school and gets a job in Atlanta, Richmond or Charleston. And the numbers DON’T tell you that, can’t tell you that.
Do YOU Albion really care what a kid studying computer science in Arkansas is making when you’re in grad school to get a degree in music therapy? (or whatever?) Of course not. And if you plow through the numbers and manage to figure out what YOU will be making as a music therapist when you graduate please let all of us know your secret to making the data tell you something that it doesn’t capture.
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/ and http://www.bls.gov/ooh/occupation-finder.htm?
I believe there is a 2014-15 version, not sure if it’s out. Can’t look now. I know someone will think, but that doesn’t tell me if he should go to College A, G, M or Z. But you still vet the individual colleges- and your own kid.
Btw, I was first exposed to the Occupational Handbook files in middle school. We all had to spend time researching in them. Pre-internet.
Not me. You couldn’t block access anyway.
No. I think people should have access to the data to make their own decisions. If they choose not to use it that’s fine with me.
Right now we have very little of the kind of data that the Lumina Foundation is providing. You evidently don’t think it is useful, I disagree. That’s fine and I see no need to shout in caps about it.
It’s six states, and when you get down to the interesting level (per-major, per college) there tends to be a really small, incomplete n (because only people working in-state are considered), a fairly low response rate (generally seems to be 40-60%), self-reported data (I believe) . . . and what is provided is only an average, not even a range (although they do say what number of respondents were above average), so it’s subject to a lot of distortion based on a single high earner or whether low earners report or not. So, really, it’s hard to see how the Lumina Foundation – whatever it is – is telling you anything useful. It’s a shred of data, so interesting in that respect, but it’s not anything to base any kind of decision on.
I wonder if the same people who want all of this salary info public are the same people who flip out over having to share their financial info via fafsa and whatnot.
@JHS
I agree that more states need to be included and they are working on this. The response range will vary and should be taken into account when you look at the data. I saw a response rate of 50%-90% but we were probably looking at different majors/states. By the way, the data is not self reported see post #73. In all it’s not perfect but it’s better than anything I’ve seen so far and they are continuing to add information.
I also think it is a good idea to keep an eye on outcomes, but have no idea of how a college can compel students to report. Even so, the data can be difficult to interpret. It is probably easier to find data that would track numbers of students entering various graduate or professional programs. Perhaps less so for students who seek other types of post-bac training within five to ten years of graduation.
And, there is always the issue of sharp and unpredictable cycles in demand for specific majors, and of students who are dependent upon networks existing prior to college matriculation, to find jobs.
Some time ago several of us read Paying for the Party. Although this book tracked only a handful of students and did not provide the precision that many here would prefer, the range of outcomes was significant and touched on several issues being raised here.
I would recommend this book to any parent concerned about outcomes even if their student is not headed to a similar state school and is not likely to live in a “party dorm.” Also to any parent interested in the types of “helicoptering” that can be helpful to students.
Oh, this is a “thing” already: http://www.educause.edu/blogs/jcummings/student-unit-record-system-returns and http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/04/orwellian-student-unit-record-system-a-cornerstone-for-central-planners/ .
Schools already have to report CIP codes for students receiving federal aid (including loans), and they are required to update it any time the student’s major changes. Someday the feds could access earnings data for federal aid recipients. I can’t find the article right now, but I read an article about a proposal that suggested looking at job/earnings data 5, 10, 20, etc years out. Of course, this only considers those who received federal aid.
A recent election in my state predicted a winner (by a huge margin) and a loser. Except the polls were wrong and the actual results were flipflopped and the “loser” won by the margin the so-called winner was supposed to have. Turns out the poll ONLY contacted likely voters with a landline telephone, which meant that anyone who has “cut the cord” (virtually everyone I know under the age of 40 now has cell only- including my kids- which drives me bonkers) so the poll basically counted only middle aged and elderly voters.
Seems to me that a database which only includes the earnings of folks getting federal aid is equally misleading. But since I’ve been accused of trying to block access to helpful information by the folks who need it most, I won’t insult anyone’s intelligence with a tutorial on sample bias.
FWIW, I think it’s an exercise in futility. I graduated from a small school that has graduated numerous students who went on to be industry leaders. It has also graduated me and a number of others who did not and/or do not earn much … by choice or by circumstance. We all received STEM degrees, and we all “should have” been successful.
Actually, I feel that I AM successful. Just because I don’t make a bunch of money - and had two decades during which I didn’t earn any money (except for the times when I … shudder … cleaned houses for a friend for vacation or Christmas present money) - does not mean I didn’t get a great education that has served me well in life. I can say the same for a number of others I know from my college years.
It all goes back to what so many prefer not to hear … it depends on the individual, the circumstances, the choices, the folks they know, being in the right place at the right time, etc, etc, etc.
I was looking at Tufts’ career survey - not only was it next to useless, but only a dozen or so of the 200 graduates in IR bothered to respond.
@kelsmom “It all goes back to what so many prefer not to hear … it depends on the individual, the circumstances, the choices, the folks they know, being in the right place at the right time, etc, etc, etc.”
What you are saying is true. Nothing is a guarantee. If a student thinks that just by going to this school and choosing this major, I am guaranteed a high paying job, they need to think again. It is a lot more complicated.
However, some schools and majors do give students better chances for financial success than others. They are better choices for many students. Especially for lower income students. For wealthy students with money and connections, these choices are less critical. Even within STEM fields, there are majors that create more opportunities than others. All STEM fields are not the same.
Right. That’s why all smart kids have to go to an Ivy League school, of course. Because they would certainly never be successful in the huge urban state school …
I say this very much tongue-in-cheek. I used to work at a huge urban state school. I can tell you that there are many, many successful students (yes, monetarily successful) who graduated from this school. However, this school is dedicated to providing access. A side-effect of allowing students in that our flagship wouldn’t think of accepting is that the statistics suffer. A strong student will be able to get a great education at this school, even though a lot of other students may not do well.
Income isn’t everything. Doing Peace Corps work or being a pastor is well-regarded and personally rewarding.
Rather than ask about the size of the paycheck, the exit poll should ask whether graduates are SATISFIED with their employment/gradschool outcome.
Sorry, I’m coming late to this discussion, but I wanted to add my 2 cents. I come from a profession–law–where employment figures are copiously reported by all the schools. They are in fact required to do so by the ABA and the law school association. It is invaluably helpful for any prospective law student to have this information. But I’m not sure that this conclusion should also extend to college students, and the law school experience can give you a hint as to why. First of all, the gaming of the statistics is pretty widespread, and outright fraud by some of the schools has been uncovered. For law schools, at least the top ones, having employment stats below 95% is considered bad, so they do anything they can to get those last two or three people employed, even strong arming a firm to hire their grad into a temp position or even hiring the grad itself in some kind of research position. Or they get the student to pretend that they are going to graduate school or not seeking a job, which excludes them from the survey. And everything is self-reported by the students, so this increases the inaccuracy. And all these manipulations go on for a professional field where the outcomes are all pretty homogeneous; I can only imagine the mess of data coming out of thousands of college graduates going in different directions. While potential fraud and bad data is not a reason not to do this data collection at the college level, I think you can see that the data is not going to be as reliable as it sounds.
Second, there’s the USNWR effect, where the statistic becomes so paramount to a school’s rank, that the schools start teaching toward the test, or in this case, steering their graduates to the outcome. At a professional school, there may not be much harm in this, because professional schools are expressly designed to train you for a job in the profession, but do we really want colleges to have the same mandate? It would be death to many fields of study, because the college knows that employment opportunities are relatively thin for certain liberal arts majors, they will start to bulk up job-rich areas like engineering, nursing, business, and education, where entry level jobs are easy to come by but it’s not really what each college has designed its curriculum for. And once these statistics are required of colleges, what’s going to stop USNWR from starting to use them as one of their factors, which will only magnify their effect of creating the same cookie-cutter, occupational training institutions. In my view (and I even see this on a campus like Brown, where my D attends), there’s already an emphasis or overemphasis on job-skills, and I don’t know why we would want to completely tip the college education over into this mandate.
I don’t for a second doubt that employment data is important and useful for students, but it could be a real game-changer for the whole US educational system if reporting of it became required.