<p>This is an excerpt from an article RIT’s President Bill Destler wrote last year regarding college scorecards. The whole thing is an interesting read (particularly with the release of USNWR rankings last week), but this excerpt addresses how the deaf graduates pull down the post graduation salary average. [Bill</a> Destler: The President’s New College Scorecard](<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>The President's New College Scorecard | HuffPost College)</p>
<p>“If colleges and universities want to maximize their scores in such systems, then they should eliminate liberal, creative, and fine arts programs, teacher education programs, and many programs that serve special populations. At RIT, for example, 10 percent of our undergraduate students (more than 1,400) are deaf or hard-of-hearing. RIT is the host institution for the federally-supported National Technical Institute for the Deaf, and these students bring a rich diversity to our student body found almost nowhere else. But while deaf graduates from RIT are employed at a much higher rate than the deaf population as a whole, they still have a more difficult time finding employment and they don’t earn as much on average as their hearing counterparts. Should RIT close this program to look better on the college scorecard? I think not.”</p>