Of course trying to reduce the value of an particular college to a specific expected ROI is meaningless. I do think looking at various data points on outcome is useful when comparing colleges, which is what any ranking system is. Percentage of graduates working full time, in grad school, their median starting salary (even better when segmented by major/group of majors), the avg net cost to attend that school, the avg debt of graduates are all good data points to consider, and which most families consider in one fashion or another among other things as they do their internal rankings. How many threads on these pages deal with if it is worth it to take on debt/pay huge amounts to go to highly selective schools? How many times do people postulate (sometimes supported by independent data, others not) that if you are X major, it matters/doesn’t matter where you get your undergrad degree for purposes of employment or grad school. I for one would like for all schools (undergrad, grad, professional, vocational) to be required to provide a standardized set of outcomes related data by major/department.
The WSJ tries to take it one step further by trying factor “value added” – "The data team uses statistical modelling to create an expected graduate salary for each college based on a wide range of factors, such as the make-up of its students and the characteristics of the institution. The ranking looks at how far the college either exceeds expectations in getting students higher average salaries than one would predict based on its students and its characteristics, or falls below what is expected. " How valid their modeling is is certainly open to debate, but the principle is legitimate.
@firmament2x , I think you meant to say the opposite in the last para of Post #18. Might just be how the sentence came out. The ROI would be infinite if all the students got to go to the school for free (vs all the students being full pay).