Reply to WSJ Rankings 2025

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I do like the criteria though.. Limited fluff/BS factors, not based on hoity-toity professorial 'reputation' opinions (like we care). It's all about the money. [/quote]

Though it is a weird methodology that they actually use.  It's not just raw salary data for the schools.

Salary impact (33%): This measures the extent to which a college boosts its graduates’ salaries beyond what they would be expected to earn regardless of which college they attended. [b]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[/b] 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. Our analysis for this metric used research on this topic by the policy-research think tank the Brookings Institution as a guide.[/quote]

So this reminds me of “A+ Colleges for B Students.” [/quote]

WSJ is using the test scores of the incoming student body of each school and then assigning them an expected outcome. What the ranking is doing is measuring how the actual student body outcomes after graduation compared to their expected outcomes.

I would say that this is useful information to see which schools might be overperforming in student outcomes and those that are underperforming when considering the quality of their respective student bodies. However, calling it a “Best Colleges” list is a total misnomer. This list is the college equivalent of applying a golf handicap to each school: schools are measured taking into account their handicap… but you would never base who wins The Masters by applying a handicap.

You might call this the “Best ROI” list or “Best at Beating Expectations” list, but it’s not a “Best Colleges” list. It would be like calling me a better golfer than Rory McIlroy because I beat him by 1 stroke but I have a 20 stroke handicap and he has a zero handicap.
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