College Rankings Part 2: Inspiration and 'Real World'
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is Your Money Matters from The Wall Street Journal. Welcome to Your Money Matters. I'm J.R. Whalen.
What outcomes are covered in Part 2 of the Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education college rankings?
In part two of our look at The Wall Street Journal Times Higher Education College rankings, we look at what are known as outcomes. And according to the head of Gallup Education, the amount of debt accrued over the course of an education and a student's ability to pay it off affects everything from how healthy and happy graduates will be to what professional choices they make. And joining us to discuss is The Wall Street Journal's Doug Belkin. So, Doug, you really can't put college students all in one category. Students are going to college looking for different things.
Some folks are going to find themselves. Some folks are going to understand themselves better. Some folks are much more focused on their vocation or profession. Either way, the degree has a value in the labor force, in the marketplace, when you get done. And this rankings tries to discern what the value is.
So, Doug, in the data that you talk about in your piece in the Wall Street Journal, two very different kinds of data come from BYU, Brigham Young University in Utah, and Boston College. Can you explain that?
Right. So the outcomes, the financial outcomes of students from different schools were about 40% of the overall score by which these schools were ranked.
How does student debt and ability to repay influence graduate wellbeing and choices?
So in some cases, the school's overall ranking was significantly lower or higher than their outcome score. So a couple of the instances we pulled out were Brigham and BYU Provo and BC, both of whom were very strong schools. BYU was 113th in our ranking, but it was notable that it was 40th in outcomes. What that says is that it's a good school, but it's a very good school when it comes to how the students do financially after they graduate. And Boston College also was very strong, but it was particularly strong in looking at the financial outcomes after graduation.
And you had another instance in your story of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, how their admissions process is need blind. And so I guess there is a little less attention being paid to the financial needs of students.
So this is a sort of a specific and a tricky example. What happened at Swarthmore was most of the kids don't have to apply for federal financial aid. As a result, the pool that does, and that's because the school is picking up the tab for most of the kids who need help Of the kids who do, it's a very small sample size. So we were able to look at what that small sample size was earning 10 years after they entered school. And to go back to the earlier issue, there's a prediction made based on things like SAT scores and family income as to what a student would be earning when they enter school versus what they're actually earning 10 years after they start. And in Swarthmore's case, it was significantly less than what the prediction would have been.
They earned about almost $17,000 less than what the prediction would have been. And the financial vice president at Swarthmore made the point that because it's such a small sample size at Swarthmore who actually received federal financial aid, it probably skewed the data.
We're speaking with The Wall Street Journal's Doug Belkin about The Wall Street Journal Times Higher Education College rankings. And you're listening to Your Money Matters from The Wall Street Journal. Thanks for listening, everybody. So Doug, another big part of the data here is something that in your story you point out is somewhat overlooked, and that is how well a college or university inspires students.
The journal's ranking asked 10 questions of students, of about 100,000 students from around the country. And there are three of them that were not included in the ranking, but were just had really interesting findings. One of them was, asking kids, students on campus, do you think your college provides an environment where you feel you are surrounded by exceptional students who inspire and motivate you? And what was so interesting about this question was that the results were kind of all over the map.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:02–0:12
2
What outcomes are covered in Part 2 of the Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education college rankings?
0:12–1:25
3
How does student debt and ability to repay influence graduate wellbeing and choices?
1:25–5:43
4
Why did BYU and Boston College show different overall ranks versus outcomes scores?
5:43–6:21
Speakers
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