The latest Wall Street Journal/College Pulse rankings are out and Stanford returns to the top of this list for the first time since the 2017 rankings.
Unlike other school rankings, this list emphasizes one point: How well did the college prepare students for financial success? More than any other factor, it rewards the boost an institution provides to its graduates’ salaries, beyond an estimate of what they could have expected from attending any college.
Thank you for this. I’m guessing most out there that focus on where their kid should go (beyond the assumption of lcoal or their own flagship) do care about this - so I appreciate their focus: How well did the college prepare students for financial success?
That is why most people want their kid to go to college and why some are considering not going (seeing that there are other ways to get trained for a living.
Great for Babson - several of us bring the school up and some kids are like - it’s not prestigious. Well know, but taking subjectivity out of your ranking, perhaps it’s better.
Using AI is like having a robo investor instead of an active investor.
Nothing wrong with that. I think someone noted this was AI driven.
Thank you for sharing the article. I still cannot access the full list (it is under a different link that is paywalled), but my D’s school is apparently in there somewhere between #11 and #25. Haha
“Schools that garnered top scores for learning environment included Babson, Washington and Lee University and Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, and Brigham Young University in Utah.”
Everyone is welcome. I actually like the rankings for many reasons but I firmly believe that they are absolute trash for alignment to the headline “Best Colleges in the US”. This ranking is the most egregious example of “make sure that we develop something that keeps the top stable so people won’t completely dismiss it but then creates controversy and thus a vehicle to drive clicks. It is a masterpiece for that mission.
A full 70% of the ranking has nothing to do with the quality of the school but rather is very heavily influenced by the state in which a school is located. All of these schools are in high population states with at least one very high paying job sector. This being the single biggest driver for 70% of the weighting is “sus” as kids would say today.
While IMO these ratings are worthless as ranking for “Best Colleges in the US” I also believe that they are both very bad for college admissions in some ways while at the same time hopefully opening some eyes to alternatives.
They are very bad in that they reinforce the “Ivy or bust” mentality for some groups given the results. On the positive side I think that they can be very valuable for “typical” kids and families trying to navigate the college admissions process.
Babson and Bentley are great schools for the right kids, my D has several friends there right now, they love it and I know that they will do great.
UC Merced does amazing things for kids from the Central Valley.
SJSU is a hidden gem for anyone OOS trying to break into tech in the valley but a hard admit for in state CS majors. It also does great for health care. I have many close friends who teach there (full professor to adjunct) and none of them would ever call it a “best school”.
UC Davis is an excellent alternative to the UCB and UCLA hunger games.
But none of these schools are remotely anywhere near being the “best schools” in terms of entering student achievement, resources, etc.
All publications/websites create “chaos” for clicks That’s their business - even the reputable sources!!
As we all know when we look deeper - best is different for everyone. There’s a thread now (and every year) of kids who went to the highest ranked however they deem it that are miserable.
There are kids that don’t go to the highest ranked by choice and have wonderful experiences.
And there’s kids that go to the highest rank, presumably liked their education, but can’t find jobs.
Yep, with ranking, we put a blanket on something that should be a personalized experience.
And most of the cal states ahead of UCLA, not to mention how high UC Merced is.
Somehow I don’t see people running to Merced and Stanislau or even Long Beach or Chico based on this though
Goes to show you though - there are opportunities out there. I think a lot of the CSUs have big nursing majors….so that’s the type of thing studies like this aren’t looking at.
Stanislaus nursing likely is > than Stanford English or Swat anything.
It looks like “salary impact” and “graduation rate impact” are based on the difference between actual salaries and graduation rate, and “what would be expected.” That might explain why schools like Merced would get a boost, if it is contributing to its students achieving higher salaries and graduation rates than would be expected for students with similar entering background and stats.
It says beyond what they would expect regardless of which college they attend. I have no idea how on earth you can measure that reliably and objectively, especially across all colleges in the US.
We used statistical modeling to estimate what we would expect the median earnings of a college’s graduates to be on the basis of the exam results of its students prior to attending the college and the cost of living in the state in which the college is based. We then scored the college on its performance against that estimate. These scores were then combined with scores for raw graduate salaries to factor in absolute performance alongside performance relative to our estimates.
Well I can already see an issue with that being based on high school exam results as the single starting point?! Um. That does partly explain the prevalence of mostly commuter CSUs in the parts of CA that are, let’s say, not the high pressure competitive schools you get in the 2 large metros.
Your statistical model can be as fancy as you want but GIGO.
Notwithstanding my opinion on that (which of course people are free to disagree with), there is no doubt that the CSU system is an incredibly valuable asset for many Californians.
That’s their business - even the reputable sources!!
