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Revealed Employer Preferences in T50(ish) Colleges
Datasets Used
US Department of Education College Scorecard Dataset 2019-2020
Niche (Reference Point)
Methodology
A set of schools given an A+ ranking in Academics on Niche. This is a bit subjective but the 49 research universities and 29 liberal arts colleges. From reported 2021 post-graduation income using the DoE Scorecard for each school, by major - then comparing that income with the national average income for the major. Each was indexed and ranked by a premium taken from the averaged difference between all majors and the national averages by college.
Divided colleges in to five groups:
Very-High Premium Schools (+$30,000 Starting Salary Premium)
Harvey Mudd
CalTech
MIT
UPenn
Stanford
Harvard
While it's interesting only 3 of the 5 HYPSM schools made it on here, given the intense connections to Wall Street and Silicon Valley at these schools and relatively weaker grad school prep culture than say - Princeton, the degree premium is a bit less surprising considering the likelihood these schools have stronger network effects in the private sector than their peers.
High Premium Schools (+$15,000 Starting Salary Premium)
Dartmouth
Duke
Johns Hopkins
CMU
Yale
Claremont McKenna
Georgetown
UChicago
Columbia
Northwestern
Vanderbilt
Princeton
Rice
Cornell
UC Berkeley
NYU
Much of the T20 here so no real surprises. NYU's strengths in its business and journalism department + wage inflation for high numbers of graduates residing in New York may inflate it's graduation premium.
Moderate Premium Schools (+$10,000 Starting Salary Premium)
Washington & Lee
Bowdoin
Georgia Tech
Northeastern
Notre Dame
BC
Pomona
Amherst
Villanova
USC
Emory
Williams
Swarthmore
Barnard
Colgate
Wake Forest
Middlebury
BU
UVA
Tufts
WashU St. Louis
Wellesley
Elite LAC's and big private research universities that either lower end T20's that lack "breakout" programs or are part of Boston's "magnificent seven". Also a few top public colleges. This zone seems to represent the premium placed on research university degrees compared to equivalent liberal arts schools as well as either top schools with poor career services or just-below-top schools significant institutional clout.
Low Premium Schools (+$0 Starting Salary Premium)
Trinity (Texas)
Bucknell
Wesleyan
Brandeis
Lehigh
UMichigan
UT Austin
Colby
Brown
UCLA
Davidson
URochester
UW Madison
Haverford
Case Western
Bates
UNC Chapel Hill
Bryn Mawr
UIUC
UC San Diego
Hamilton
URichmond
UMiami
UFlorida
William & Mary
Kenyon
UGeorgia
Vassar
Public Colleges and Liberal Arts Colleges continue to get depressed premiums on the market compared to their private school peers. The only major outlier is Brown, which may be due to a mix of student culture and more interest in liberal arts style education.
Disutility Colleges (Less than $0 Starting Salary Premium)
Tulane
Macalester
Carleton
Grinnell
Smith
Colorado
Is there a link to this?
I don't see a single college I wouldn't expect in any category except Tulane. Would think Tulane would be right there with Wake.