By Charlene Liebau
COLLEGE PREPARATIONS
AND ADMISSION EDITOR
Once again, it’s that season: the U.S. News and World Report, Princeton Review, Money and Forbes magazines along with scores of newspapers and guidebooks provide their ranking and rating of colleges. The latest to join in on the process is the United States’ Department of Education.
As promised by President Obama in his 2013 inaugural speech, the government will make information available so that students and families can compare schools on a single measure – “where you can get the most bang for your educational buck.” The project is to provide a “scorecard” for each college, to provide information on cost, graduation rates, student loans and the amount of borrowing. And, for the first time provide information on students who are actively repaying their loans as a reflection on how well colleges are preparing students for graduation and the world of work. Further, the White House states the College Scorecard is to provide “the clearest, most accessible, and most reliable national data on cost, graduation, debt and post-college earnings.”
The College Scorecard, found at https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/ was unveiled in September of this year and does provide an incredible amount of information – some of which was not previously accessible. The public now has access to information on the cost to attend and the amount of student debt for more than 5,000 U.S. two and four-year colleges and universities over an extended history.
The website allows students to compare colleges by cost per year and salary earned following graduation sorted by programs and degrees offered, by location, by size and by name. Additional information on types of financial aid available, how to calculate aid and GI Bill benefits are also included in the Scorecard. Perhaps of most help is the ability to compare each college against national averages for each category.
While the Scorecard allows families to compare colleges across several categories a major limitation is that the information is based solely on students who received federal financial aid. Not all students receiving financial aid receive federal monies and not all students enrolled in college receive financial aid. Thus the information provided in the College Scorecard is limited to the most financially disadvantaged. But the data does make cost and earnings information more widely available with everyone using the same words and definitions.
Additional criticism states the College Scorecard oversimplifies a complex issue and thus the information provided can be misleading. In spite of its limitations, the Scorecard provides factual information for students and families to make comparisons and introduces an additional component to “ratings and rankings” when making a college decision.
The Scorecard serves to open the broader discussion of “value” – both the monetary value and the experiential value of higher education.
Ms. Liebau, the Tribune’s College Prep and Admission Editor, is a former Director of Admissions at Caltech and former Dean of Admission at Occidental College. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Stanford University and is an Educational Consultant. She can be reached via email at ccliebau@earthlink.
