50-50 Highlights: Is Your College Degree Worth More Than a High School Diploma?

Something happened this weekend that most families trying to figure out how to pick and pay for college missed–and most colleges are probably good with this. This weekend the government released a revised College Scorecard that lets users filter schools based on graduation rates, average annual costs, and graduate median salary. Better yet, all the data collected (although not necessarily used) by the College Scorecard was also released for downloading. Guess what I’ve been doing since Sunday?

It’s a lot of data and I’m still trying to cut it down to a manageable size. But it’s Thursday and I need to generate my 50-50 Highlights list and I want to show something new about the data. So I decided to go for what I thought would be an easy post, looking at the percentage of students who were earning more than $25,000 after 10 years in the workforce. The $25,000 is based on the median income of the average high school graduate.

In other words, what percentage of college graduates are better off than if they hadn’t attended college at all.

I could have chosen the average income for graduates but I thought that would bring in the entire majors argument and I wanted something simple.

Also, I like the concept of a minimum threshold. It reminds me of what the Education Trust is doing in terms of holding colleges accountable. They are targeting the lowest performers by setting bare minimum standards.

Granted, we talking about setting pretty low benchmarks here. It would be like evaluating cars on whether or not they actually moved rather than how fast they can go. But if you’re going to buy a car, it’s reasonable to expect it to get you from point a to point b.

Looking at the income threshold is the same sort of approach. Despite all of the other non-economic advantages of going to college, it’s reasonable to expect that college graduates will be better off economically than those with just a high school degree.

Of course, this doesn’t take into account the amount spent on education, the loss of income while in college, and the limitations of the data itself.

But it can get you thinking.

I looked at the average percentage of graduates earning over $25,000 after working ten years for the 50-50 schools. I also calculated the average for non-50-50 schools. These I split into two categories. Those schools that schools didn’t meet the graduation rate or acceptance requirements I labeled non 50-50. The 50-grad only schools met the graduation rate requirement but not the acceptance requirements. The following table shows the results.

As you can see, there are some differences between the three groups. I have no idea if the differences are statistically significant or not. What I take away from it is that most schools are in the same ballpark in terms of the percentage of students earning more than $25,000.

This isn’t to say that the percentages don’t matter. If you come across schools with lower numbers, you’ll want to know why. You would expect some schools to have lower numbers because of the type of jobs the graduates pursue–often the reason the graduates attended the school in the first place.

In some ways, I think this information says more about businesses than colleges. Rather than develop meaningful training programs for potential employees, it’s easier to just require students to pay for a college degree. The fact that around 25% of college graduates don’t earn more than high school graduates lends support to the argument that a college degree has just become the “new” high school diploma.

If nothing else, the numbers should make us stop and think about the value of pushing everyone to go to college. In one way, it makes sense if a college degree is the new minimum standard.

Yet, there’s another possibility that we have to consider. Maybe our economy doesn’t appropriately value a significant amount of work that actually requires a college degree to perform. However, if society recognizes the value of the work, does that mean we should pay more for the work or lower the cost of the education needed to perform it?

But what about this week’s list? The tables below show the top 30 and bottom 30 50-50 schools by percentage of graduates earning more than $25,000 about 10 years of working. The data represent only students who received some sort of federal financial aid, including loans. As usual, the four-year rate is used for private schools the five-year rate for public.

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Top 30 50-50 Colleges Ranked by Percentage of Graduates
 Earning over $25,000 After 10 Years

Name	Type	State	Full- time Under- grads	4/5 yr Grad Rate	% Freshman Receiving Pell Grants	% Graduates earning over $25,000 after 10 years
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology	Private	IN	2186	66	17	93.8
Villanova University	Private	PA	6547	86	14	92.3
Fairfield University	Private	CT	3546	79	13	92.2
Worcester Polytechnic Institute	Private	MA	3959	70	14	91.1
University of the Sciences	Private	PA	1814	67	31	90.9
Bryant University	Private	RI	3200	78	16	90.8
Stonehill College	Private	MA	2458	82	17	90.6
Saint Johns University	Private	MN	1850	71	18	90.6
Massachusetts Maritime Academy	Public	MA	1333	64	19	90.5
Clarkson University	Private	NY	3084	61	29	89.9
Providence College	Private	RI	3798	83	15	89.6
Loyola University Maryland	Private	MD	3951	79	15	89.5
Western New England University	Private	MA	2498	52	29	89.5
Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus	Public	GA	13291	76	14	89.4
Maine Maritime Academy	Public	ME	979	72	22	89.4
Marquette University	Private	WI	8046	57	17	89.1
Santa Clara University	Private	CA	5338	77	12	89.0
Creighton University	Private	NE	3815	67	19	88.8
Gustavus Adolphus College	Private	MN	2423	81	24	88.6
Missouri University of Science and Technology	Public	MO	5472	56	24	88.2
Illinois Wesleyan University	Private	IL	2001	72	22	87.8
Quinnipiac University	Private	CT	6307	72	15	87.7
Saint Anselm College	Private	NH	1878	71	14	87.7
Randolph-Macon College	Private	VA	1295	57	26	87.6
Assumption College	Private	MA	2022	70	24	87.5
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University	Public	VA	23512	80	15	87.2
Saint Joseph's University	Private	PA	4489	70	11	87.0
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	Public	IL	31516	82	21	86.9
California Maritime Academy	Public	CA	1008	57	26	86.7
Drake University	Private	IA	3185	61	16	86.7

Bottom 30 50-50 Colleges Ranked by Percentage of Graduates
 Earning over $25,000 After 10 Years

Name	Type	State	Full- time Under- grads	4/5 yr Grad Rate	% Freshman Receiving Pell Grants	% Graduates earning over $25,000 after 10 years
Bennington College	Private	VT	609	58	19	52.4
Kansas City Art Institute	Private	MO	735	57	38	53.0
Lancaster Bible College	Private	PA	814	54	39	58.5
Keiser University-Ft Lauderdale	Private	FL	12007	59	73	58.7
Hampshire College	Private	MA	1492	56	15	59.2
Maryland Institute College of Art	Private	MD	1759	67	23	60.3
Columbia International University	Private	SC	511	52	42	60.7
The Evergreen State College	Public	WA	3766	53	32	61.0
The University of the Arts	Private	PA	1860	57	33	61.1
Ringling College of Art and Design	Private	FL	1212	56	23	63.9
Grace College and Theological Seminary	Private	IN	1274	54	42	63.9
Cazenovia College	Private	NY	937	53	47	64.2
The New School	Private	NY	5878	50	26	64.9
Massachusetts College of Art and Design	Public	MA	1677	71	28	65.2
Asbury University	Private	KY	1326	56	48	65.7
Northland College	Private	WI	538	52	47	65.7
Cleveland Institute of Art	Private	OH	558	54	51	65.8
Mills College	Private	CA	922	53	42	66.1
Dean College	Private	MA	1076	62	39	66.7
Wells College	Private	NY	524	56	56	66.9
Earlham College	Private	IN	1045	59	34	67.2
Salem College	Private	NC	827	61	51	67.2
Castleton State College	Public	VT	1854	49	34	67.8
Sarah Lawrence College	Private	NY	1441	62	14	67.8
Goshen College	Private	IN	745	54	32	67.9
University of Northwestern-St Paul	Private	MN	1958	51	38	68.1
Reed College	Private	OR	1356	70	18	68.4
Huntington University	Private	IN	960	57	36	69.1
Taylor University	Private	IN	1852	65	24	69.2
Converse College	Private	SC	671	55	44	69.2
Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts	Public	MA	1353	54	48	69.3