Reply to New Wall Street Journal Rankings 2019

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Thank you for listing the colleges/universities.  What is the methodology used?  I am curious.  This listing is so different from US News that it will be interesting to compare the two methodologies.[/quote]

In my humble opinion, these ranking gamers usually follow what their readership thinks (to sell subscriptions). That’s why Harvard is usually tops in any ranking magazines. Can you imagine a magazine ranking Harvard at #80?  Nobody will buy that ranking. WSJ, however, can rank Naval Academy at #80.  Why? Their readership usually doesn’t consist of military types so it doesn’t give a hoot about service academies.

So there is logic behind these rankings after all. It’s probably driven by subscriptions. [/quote]

I think these rankings are better than US News.  It places emphasis on outcomes (40%) and resources (30%) as opposed to other crap that doesn't matter as much for a level-headed student and parents.  After all, the large investment ($250K +) need to primarily correlate with return.

"From WSJ - The Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings are based on 15 key indicators that assess colleges in four areas: Outcomes, Resources, Engagement and Environment. Outcomes accounts for 40% of the weighting and measures things like the salary graduates earn and the debt burden they take on. Resources, with a 30% weighting, is mainly a proxy for the spending schools put into instruction and student services. Engagement, drawn mostly from a student survey and with a 20% weight, examines views on things like teaching and interactions with faculty and other students. Environment, at 10%, assesses the diversity of the university community."[/quote]

Salary graduates earn is highly correlated with their major and where they go to work and the cost of living there.  Major is the best predictor.  If you are really going to get serious about salary and ROI, you would need to take into account the mix of majors (e.g. a STEM heavy school will probably have higher average income than one that isn't as STEM heavy.  But that doesn't mean the STEM major at the non-STEM heavy school would do worse than the STEM heavy school graduate.)  You really need to look at major vs major if that data actually exists.  If they are using Payscale, it is self-reported.  If it is government data, it would only be for those with government loans.

Resources is dodgy at best and probably misleading in many cases.  Schools can count money that actually goes to research (put together proposals, department research, leaves) count as instruction with the guidelines used for IPEDS reporting (that is where they get their data).  (BTW, USNWR uses this as well.)  It also doesn't separate instruction for undergraduates vs graduates.  Universities with medical schools generally have the highest level of resources, but that is not at all related to undergraduate study.[/quote]

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