It’s a Deal!

The statistics are fine as long as they are presented with the caveat of further education.  About 50% of the undergrads in my program go on to graduate or professional school.  Many/most of them will not be employed within state by six years post graduation.

So this consultant is helping Virginia (the Commonwealth’s Dept. of Ed., I assume) “analyze” its data?  What’s to analyze?  The purpose here is supposedly to make data available to students and their families.  They should form their own conclusions.  I worry that politicians (especially in Virginia, which is seriously over-reaching on many things these days) will present this data out of context if given the opportunity.

Furthermore, the value of a college degree, as I am sure you would agree, Jeff, goes so far beyond the salary one earns.  I understand that families need to assess the cost benefit of the various college options their children have, especially in today’s economy.  But I am very concerned about the continued push toward quantifying every aspect of our children’s education.  I believe that this number-crunching is happening at the expense of actual learning at all levels of education.  And that is not a good thing at all, for our children, or for our country.

Apparently we are to give up even the pretense that college is about more than just job training as that seems to be the only thing that counts. How many undeclared majors enter fields that don’t relate to the marketplace directly?   What about that decreasingly encountered notion of a college education as something other than job training?  What about those who don’t enter the job market upon graduation?
The problem with the economic approach to social issues is that it is insensitive to human motives and depends on a suspect thesis:  the rational economic player.
But, that is the way the world seems to be going — more’s the pity.

“the unemployment-insurance program that every state runs” which is based on SSN. So who’s maintaining the crosswalk between the SSN and the colleges’ unit record? And who’s maintaining the security and access to the information? Scarey.

 Sure hope Florida is next:: its time & the right time!

While many of us in academe are loathe to equate in such a
linear sense what economic value derives from a college degree, the simple
truth is that the vast majority of students go to college for the sole purpose
of getting credentialed to improve their job prospects beyond what a high
school diploma could offer.  Since
federal, state, and local governments subsidize the cost of higher education,
it is only natural that they too look for what ‘return on investment’ they can
identify with our taxpayer dollars.  Have
you looked at the NGA report that came out last year entitled “Degrees for
What Jobs?” 

From a political – and practical – standpoint, it’s hard to
argue against having a system that would provide a crude cost-benefit analysis
since that information could also afford a degree of consumer protection for
our students (who are, after all, our primary consumers, right?).  Even though we all know that there are so
many intangibles that speak to the ‘value’ of a higher education, not the least
of which is an informed, educated society, it’s hard to quantify the value of
those intangibles (sadly).   Having said
that, given that we live in a knowledge-based ECONOMY where global
competitiveness matters, knowing the economic benefits of the knowledge that we
in higher education impart on our students matters quite a bit. 

First, Virginia is an especially excellent prototype state for this statewide trial. Besides its influence on D.C. lawmakers and national education lobbies, it has the largest percent of out-of-state college students. Most public universities are at least 95% in-state, while UVa, W&M, and VaTech are awash with residents from Jersey, NY, Md, and the entire nation, thanks to its market-oriented approach to actively recruiting non-Virginia residents help fund its higher ed sector. Only North Carolina and Michigan come at all close to breaking the learning-stifled parochialism that results from utter lack of national (or global) diversity of U.S. public undergrad education. Of course, all economists know that the best solution is for higher ed to be federally funded, but VA’s approach is a great second best.

Second, this market approach will be fought by not just the dying majors, but especially by Psychology departments which typically have the most majors despite the second lowest (to dramatic arts) salaries for graduates. On the other hand, tracking graduates will be opposed by colleges in general because of the quite justified fear of discovering the emperor has no clothes. Remember that data showing a million dollar lifetime premium from getting a college degree is horribly flawed for at least the following reasons:
(1) Averages say nothing of risk to students majors with high dispersion or skewness (e.g., acting)
(2) Apples and oranges comparisons: engineering always highest, but you must start in 7th grade preparing for those fields, a BS is the equivalent of a masters in coursework, skills get outmoded, and jobs often based in volatile sectors or subject to the whims of winning contracts.
(3) Chasing “hot” high demand majors results in a glutted field when students graduate.
(4) For most, majors don’t matter: few wind up in jobs related to their major, most majors don’t even relate to any common careers, most college grads will work in more than one career over their life, most profs even in the most career oriented majors (business, engineering, comp sci, and education) lack the contacts and experience to directly prepare and vocationally train students (nor should they, many claim).
(5) The saddest students are those pressured to selected a boring major by parents to justify the money spent to attend college. The students hate their classes, profs hate teaching them, and they get cheated out of getting a real college education where they learn to think, question, and analyze.

Solutions: First, close down most 4-year and masters programs that are thinly-disguised vo-tech, and shift these back to 2-year colleges: the dirtiest secret in higher ed is the large number of college grads who have to then attend junior college to train for a health care credential or similar career.

Second: stop offering business courses at the undergrad level: 3 in 4 college degrees are in non-liberal arts/non-engineering “majors.” Even many highly-regarded so-called liberal arts private college are 50% or more business and other vocational majors. High-ranked USC and Notre Dame have huge business degree programs. Penn has a highly-subscribed “Econ” degree with mostly business courses. A business course is meaningless to a traditional student who has never filed her own taxes, held a full-time, non-summer job, borrowed to make a substantial purchase, or has any other business world experience (I had one top senior last term who asked me what the Dow was!). If they want to learn finance, accounting, management, and marketing, let them go for an MBA in the evenings after they graduate — there are 1000 MBA programs in the U.S. now.

Third, end the myth of majors. Instead, top colleges play on the vanity of students and parents by encouraging double and triple majors for students with lots of IB and AP advanced-standing from high school. That way they can study what Dad wants them to and still take what interests them, I suppose. Evidence that double majors earn more? Nope! Why not graduate earlier and get a head start in graduate studies (NOT professional schools: we don’t need more physicians, lawyers, and MBAs).

 ”(5) The saddest students are those pressured to selected a boring major
by parents to justify the money spent to attend college. The students
hate their classes, profs hate teaching them, and they get cheated out
of getting a real college education where they learn to think, question,
and analyze.”

This is a very important point.  In addition to students pressured to chose majors that do not interest them, we also should stop encouraging people to go to college if they have no interest in any major or don’t plan on taking college seriously.

In response to your final paragraph about double majors, I chose a double major because they are both applicable to my graduate plans and I feel like I am much better prepared because of it.  I think double majors should only be encouraged in these relatively uncommon cases and not advertised as making the student more attractive to businesses and grad schools.  However, if the student is fully aware of the lack of financial benefit of a double major and knows the risks, he or she should of course still have the option of a double major.

How many investment banking jobs do you think are IN Virginia?

Hurray!  Finally a start at getting adequate, and important, data.  And, no, it hasn’t been an issue of technology, but of politics.  I’ve suspected this all along – many in higher ed don’t really want to be ‘graded’ with objective info.

Scary … except that the ssn is becoming the de facto ID number of next to everything.  Want student aid?  Need to fork over the ssn (see Fafsa).  Want to set up a bank account?  SSN.  Want to get phone service?  SSN.  Etc.  And, BTW, the SSN is, indeed, used all the time for tracking, whether there are any ‘crossing guards’ or not.  Such is life in the 21st Century.

Proving once again that to a politician, crummy data* are fine so long as they can be used to sucker voters. I wonder how much it will cost the taxpayers of Virginia to do the IT on this, and keep it up every year?
 [* - the article does a nice job pointing out glaring methodological flaws. So if a graduate gets a job @ Goldman-Sachs, their high pay won't register because that's not a Virginia job?]

 My undergraduate students go to graduate school in such numbers either because they are interested in health professions that require training at that level (not just med school either but PT, dentistry, physicians assistant, etc), many of which generate high salaries.  Those who go to graduate school recognize again that a bachelors gives one the vocabulary for a STEM discipline, but a large proportion of jobs in the field require at least a MS.  Be careful about “most grad programs enrolling and graduating more people than the economy can handle”.  I agree that is clearly true for law (which you seem to be a victim of), but it is not true at the MS level in science and engineering.  My graduate students often have job offers in hand six months prior to graduation and none of them have trouble finding decent employment.

The glory of American higher education will quickly fade if we make “getting a job” the number one priority of going to college. Sort of like high schools quickly faded when “studying for the test” became the norm and “getting good grades to get to college” became the underlying theme. 

I think it’s a good idea to put that information out there because students should be choosing a college and major with eyes open.  There should be a caveat that, as higher_ed_advocate suggested, past results do not guarantee future results. 

Another key factor that may influence post graduate income is GPA.  GPA is likely to influence future earnings, high GPA students may be more likely to be hired, and/or high GPA students may be smarter or may grasp their field better which may help them get ahead. 

There is an online data source that does offer related data on post-college earnings:  http://www.payscale.com/education/average-cost-for-college-ROI .

I’m curious on how this type of information will feedback, and influence the system.  If students flood into high paying fields will they disturb the demand-supply curve and lower the wages, or will the colleges simply be producing more grads in highly-productive, higher-salary fields, thereby boosting national productivity?  

Omitting the self-employed may introduce a systematic bias toward reducing wage estimates of some majors, however I hope people will become aware of such biases and they will consider them in using the information. 

Bart Schuster
OnlineGraduateSchool.tripod.com/All.htm
Twitter.com/arrive2_net

Here’s where you’re inconsistent like all get out, Mr. Selingo. You suggest it’s “just one data point” yet follow that up by saying it’s a “bottom-line measure,” thereby implying very clearly that you think it’s the most important data point. If this isn’t what you mean, then you should be more careful with your words, lest you continue in a perpetual confusion over why people don’t understand you. The thing is, I think people understand you just fine. You simply prefer to hedge when the full force of your logic is spun back to you. 

Providing information like this can be helpful to students and may help students to think about picking more “practical” degrees.  My question within the example shown is the lack full statistical exposure given the potential student a full look into a the graduate salary.  It also does not take into account if the student may have had a job already and the degree led to a promotion and several other areas.  What this type of mandate does is give some institutions a new marketing campaign then actual assistance to the student and family deciding on the best institution.

Jeff, thank you for the insightful post. I agree with you that it is about time that data is made available so that  informed decisions can be made by students. Even with the limitations you mention, this project is a major step forward for transparency and accountability for education outcomes.(enterprisehive.com)