When you are trying to rank your child’s list of small LAC, do you place a higher value on their graduation rate or the average cost of attending? Or do you value another criteria more?
I guess if a college outside your budget - the graduation rate doesn’t matter. There are many factors to consider including graduation rate once you have your financial package and acceptances in hand
Average cost of attendance tells you absolutely nothing.
Average cost of attendance for your income band on the College Scorecard is better.
Cost determined by the net price calculator is usually the best. Some NPCs are terrible, though.
Graduation rate is not always calculated correctly by the schools.
I would set the cut-off for eliminating a school pretty low - like at 50%.
I would also say that a difference in graduation rate of less than 5% when comparing two schools is not meaningful.
Remember that graduation rate is a laggging indicator - today’s 6 year graduation rate (which is what most search engines report) is based on the kids who entered 6 years ago. Things change - some of it is the economy or other factors beyond a school’s control and some of it is things changing on campus. The freshman-to-sophomore retention rate is only a year old, so weight that just as heavily as graduation rate when you search.
Also some programs have different rates within the same college
Average cost of attendance may not be helpful for your family. If average CoA works for your budget but you will actually be required to pay more than the average, that school may not work. And on the flip side, if average CoA is above your comfort level but you would be required to pay less than the average, you may take a school off you list that should stay on it. You want to determine your EFC to give you a better idea where you will be (though many schools do not meet all need).
To me, graduation rate will only take you so far. Once it gets high enough, its largely on the kid. If a school has a 99% graduation rate, there are still kids there who do not graduate. Your kid could be one of them.
I would look at your kid and fit at given schools. LACs can have very different characters/feels. What appeals to one kid will not appeal to all. Visit some different schools and see what appeals to your kid. For some kids its easier than for others (in that some kids will fall in love with a given school (hopefully they get in) but others will be more neutral to all of them). Its tough at 18 to know what you want.
There are a lot of factors going into grad rate- affluence of the student body, resources provided by the college, ease of changing majors, etc. In and of itself, the raw number doesn’t mean much.
Graduation rate is mostly student related. If a college has stronger students in an academic sense, it will have a higher graduation rate. For example, a college where most frosh were A students in high school with 32-36 ACT scores (or SAT equivalent) should be expected to have higher graduation rates than a college where most frosh were B students in high school with 20-24 ACT scores (or SAT equivalent). If a college has better financial aid and/or students from wealthier families, it should be expected to have a higher graduation rate compared to colleges with academically comparable students, due to fewer students dropping out due to running out of money.
COA. D20 will apply to several schools on her wish list and will attend the one with the lowest COA she’s accepted to. Graduation rates have more to do with the economic realities of low-income students than with the quality of education.
If you are concerned about graduation rate, consider this:
How many students must work while they are in school and can only attend part-time (or not-quite-full-time)?
Is it a commuter school? They tend to have lower (or longer) graduation rates.
Look at the requirements to graduate: are there a lot of hoops to jump through? Are the classes hard to get into? Might that set your child back because he/she couldn’t register for X requirement and it’s only offered one semester?
The first two questions impact the graduation rate a lot, the last set will impact YOU.
We were looking for a relatively small school for our youngest (who started a couple of weeks ago), so I suppose that we just went through this.
We didn’t look at either average cost of attendance or graduation rate. We looked at academic reputations, what programs a school had and the strengths of different programs, the location, and the cost focusing on what is was likely to cost us. We visited multiple schools in both the US and Canada (we live in New England, so Canada is not too far away), and tried to get a feel for what each school was like. We hung out in libraries and food halls and watched the students. We got tours of multiple schools and for the smaller schools the tours were all given by students.
We also looked at what it takes to get in. Schools where you can get in based on grades and SAT scores and references were a plus for us. Schools that look at other more nebulous factors was a negative. One school (a prestigious LAC in the US) that we seriously considered based on scatter plots had accepted one student from DD’s high school with a 3.5 UWGPA and 1100 SAT, but rejected two students with a 4.0 UWGPA and 1250 and 1450 SAT – this apparent randomness was a turnoff, particularly since DD’s scatter dot was going to be quite close to this last student.
The general feel of the school was a major factor. If they stressed “prestige” this was a big turnoff as compared to for example stressing “academics and listening to what students need” – this can be a subtle thing. Location was a major factor. The possibility of avoiding all debt and graduating with funds left in the 529 plan was a factor also. General helpfulness of the people that we dealt with and of the professors with whom DD had interviews was also a factor (at several of the Canadian schools the tours included individual discussions with professors).
In the end we (particularly our daughter) ended up picking several excellent small schools in eastern Canada to apply to, got accepted to all with merit aid, and has started at one of them.
Graduation rate is meaningless imo my child is not “those kids”. If Im paying they are expected to graduate with a certain gpa or I dont pay.
Cost is the only factor.
I would suggest you run the net price calculator on each college website to see if YOU can afford to,send your child there. That is far more important than average cost!
In terms of graduation rate, we agreed to fund four years of undergraduate college studies. Anything beyond the four year mark was on our kids…unless it was because of some kind of emergency or health situation. So,for our kids…the graduation rate in four years for THEM was expected to be 100%.
Note that if your student is a strong student in high school (e.g. A average in high school, 32-36 ACT or SAT equivalent), s/he is more likely to be able to graduate after 8 semesters of school, compared to if your student is just ok in high school (e.g. B average in high school, 20-24 ACT or SAT equivalent).
Ucbalumnus…those blasted “ok” kids getting B’s and 20-24 on the ACT…slackers.
Pretty harsh!!
There are plenty of kids with lower ACT scores in HS…and lower GPAs who,graduate in four years.
So,e kids really come into their own in college…and especially when having choices about what courses to take.
One of my kids had a 1230 SAT (2 sections) which I do NOT believe translates to a 32 ACT score. Kid graduated in four years with a double major in engineering and biology. And her college was a good one.
Both graduation rate and the average CoA have little meaning to you. It is the number from NPC telling you the cost, and you yourself determine whether you can graduate in 4 years. No matter what the graduation rate or average year to graduation is, there are students graduated within 4 years or less.
I think there is a danger in assuming that the graduation rate applies to other people’s children, but not one’s own, as it suggests that low graduation rates are the fault of the students. Sometimes a low graduation rate also reflects how available courses are and how much attention is given to students’ needs. There are schools where students simply cannot register for the courses that are needed because they are full or scheduled so they can’t accommodate other needed classes, or where there is limited advising, which can lead to students making bad choices when they can’t get the classes they need.
My school is less competitive to attend and has a lower average ACT score, but as a school we are committed to making sure students stay on track to graduate. If a student absolutely needs a course that is full, then we open a new section or we have a really full class. We also have a large academic advising staff so if a student is struggling (for whatever reason) there is a support network to help. I agree that graduation rates may be less meaningful at top schools with lots of resources and extremely strong students, but for those that are mid-tier or lower, I would pay attention to graduation rates.
If I were a parent of a child attending a LAC, with or without cost concerns, I would be more apt to steer my child to the best 4 year graduation rate. If cost is a concern, sometimes a 6 yr degree at a lower cost School is equal to the cost of a 4 yr degree at a costlier Liberal Arts College. If cost is a concern , stick with instate schools or if your income meets the standard for full University Aid, go for the best University that your child might be accepted at that has the most guaranteed tuition assistance and the best 4 yr graduation rate.
In terms of cost… most colleges have an Estimated Family Contribution calculator on their websites, which will give you an estimate of how much that college is likely to cost for YOU; most good colleges give financial aid to students who qualify based on family income and assets. So “average cost” means nothing, but the EFC for you may be helpful.
In terms of graduation rate- I never went searching for this per se, but I see that all my son’s prospective colleges have really high rates. I guess it goes hand-in-hand with the other factors we sought. If your child’s graduation is a concern for you, yes, look for a graduation rate over 80%, but also look into what support services are available at the school.
I cared most about the student body’s being very capable, because intellectual conversations with peers in and out of class are a bigger part of the college experience even than having great professors. Diversity is important, too. I also cared about class sizes (see the info on their common data sets), opportunities to work closely with professors, attention to a freshman experience to help students become socially connected, ample opportunities for extracurricular activities and research and nice on-campus housing and dining (basically, a school that has great resources available for the kids). Those were some of my initial criteria; my son’s observations and feelings shaped the list.
If you can visit, that helps. My son definitely developed his own ‘feel’ for schools and the type of college experience for which he is looking.
Also- you mentioned ranking the choices, but you want your child to have favorites among reaches, among matches, and among likelies/ safeties. You want your child to be happy and excited when the admissions letters arrive, even if there are some rejections among them.
It is indeed mandated to provide an NPC by each college.