Except for VaTech.

Anonymous



Anonymous wrote:
If you filter the CEW’s database for 4-year schools/not-for-profit/public schools and remove the specialized (maritime/technology/health) schools, here is the ranking of the top 10:


Notice that “tech” schools were not included in the initial listing.

Anonymous wrote:CEW seems to be producing statistics in different ways.

As a previous poster mentioned, CEW seems to be iterating their method. However, those 3 iterations were from a 2015 report. In that report, CEW matched student ID numbers for those who received financial aid with their subsequent tax returns. Those are the results that the previous poster suggested should be adjusted for COL.

Most recently, the CEW published a database that shows ROI over 10, 15, 20, 30, and 40 years. However, for this report, CEW determined income in a different way. They got median earnings for a college's graduates at the 6, 8, and 10 year marks from College Scorecard, calculated a growth rate between these points and adapted their growth rate to generate earnings for years 1-5.

But, here's the big news:“For projections with a horizon greater than 10 years, we assume no growth in median earnings after 10 years. Because earnings actually tend to grow with age and then plateau, and workers who hold bachelor’s degrees experience faster earnings growth than those without a bachelor’s degree, our estimates of net present value can be assumed to be at the lower end of possible estimates.”

Takeaway: If a school's graduates didn't post rapidly growing salaries in the first 10 years, the NPV projections are highly biased downwards.

The report acknowledges that it doesn't take into account location/COL effects. It also acknowledges other limitations and goals for future editions. Again, use these conclusions with caution!!!

You can see all this in Appendix A of this report. https://1gyhoq479ufd3yna29x7ubjn-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/College_ROI.pdf

Good points. But I think the biggest thing to remember from the long term ROI (NPV) report is that it does not make any effort to control for majors, as they did with the earlier report. For this reason, Georgia Tech shows up with a significantly higher ROI than other public schools. GT is $1.729M NPV over 40 years compared to, for instance, the University of Michigan, with $1.364M over the same period. So this makes it look like an easy win for GT. But with 65% of degrees at GT coming from engineering vs. 16% at Michigan, this is probably explained primarily by differences in mix of majors.

CEW seems to be producing statistics in different ways.

As a previous poster mentioned, CEW seems to be iterating their method. However, those 3 iterations were from a 2015 report. In that report, CEW matched student ID numbers for those who received financial aid with their subsequent tax returns. Those are the results that the previous poster suggested should be adjusted for COL.

Most recently, the CEW published a database that shows ROI over 10, 15, 20, 30, and 40 years. However, for this report, CEW determined income in a different way. They got median earnings for a college's graduates at the 6, 8, and 10 year marks from College Scorecard, calculated a growth rate between these points and adapted their growth rate to generate earnings for years 1-5.

But, here's the big news:“For projections with a horizon greater than 10 years, we assume no growth in median earnings after 10 years. Because earnings actually tend to grow with age and then plateau, and workers who hold bachelor’s degrees experience faster earnings growth than those without a bachelor’s degree, our estimates of net present value can be assumed to be at the lower end of possible estimates.”

Takeaway: If a school's graduates didn't post rapidly growing salaries in the first 10 years, the NPV projections are highly biased downwards.

The report acknowledges that it doesn't take into account location/COL effects. It also acknowledges other limitations and goals for future editions. Again, use these conclusions with caution!!!

You can see all this in Appendix A of this report. https://1gyhoq479ufd3yna29x7ubjn-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/College_ROI.pdf

Anonymous wrote:My kid went to NYU and, while I know lots of people think it's overrated, she really got a great education there. Her major was in the arts, but I was impressed with the general ed courses which really stretched her.

With NYU, many people are reacting to high cost (limited aid) and cost of living in NYC. If that is OK with you and NYU aligns with career direction, that may be OK.

Anonymous wrote:Seems like CEW has been iterating to address some of the criticisms noted by previous posters. They now have 3 rankings: 1) purely earnings; 2) earnings adjusted for choice of major; 3) earnings adjusted for major and students' academic preparation and likelihood of graduate degree attainment.

The result? Georgetown is number 1. But, Georgetown graduates disproportionately stay in Washington, DC, and the CEW website shows that DC averages the highest salary of any "state." So, CEW needs to take one more step - adjust for differences in cost of living.

That would be interesting to see, but probably difficult to calculate. The other thing to consider is gender ratio. Males earn significantly more on average. When I first looked at their data for Virginia, I noticed VMI and VT were top public's and they are the only two male majority schools, I believe. W&L was the top overall and the were historically all male and maintained 2/3rds male for a while when they went coed.

Anonymous wrote:If you filter the CEW’s database for 4-year schools/not-for-profit/public schools and remove the specialized (maritime/technology/health) schools, here is the ranking of the top 10:

1. UC Berkeley $1,383,000
2. University of Michigan – Ann Arbor $1,364,000
3. University of Maryland – College Park $1,330,000
4. Virginia Tech - $1,313,000
5. UCLA - $1,300,000
6. University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign $1,299,000
7. Binghamton University $1,298,000
8. University of Virginia – Main Campus $1,291,000
9. University of Connecticut – Stamford $1,288,800
10. University of Connecticut – Waterbury $1,283,000

Looks like you pick an in-state school and go with it.

Many private schools have higher NPV. I think the lesson should be don't discount them.

Seems like CEW has been iterating to address some of the criticisms noted by previous posters. They now have 3 rankings: 1) purely earnings; 2) earnings adjusted for choice of major; 3) earnings adjusted for major and students' academic preparation and likelihood of graduate degree attainment.

The result? Georgetown is number 1. But, Georgetown graduates disproportionately stay in Washington, DC, and the CEW website shows that DC averages the highest salary of any "state." So, CEW needs to take one more step - adjust for differences in cost of living.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you filter the CEW’s database for 4-year schools/not-for-profit/public schools and remove the specialized (maritime/technology/health) schools, here is the ranking of the top 10:

1. UC Berkeley $1,383,000
2. University of Michigan – Ann Arbor $1,364,000
3. University of Maryland – College Park $1,330,000
4. Virginia Tech - $1,313,000
5. UCLA - $1,300,000
6. University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign $1,299,000
7. Binghamton University $1,298,000
8. University of Virginia – Main Campus $1,291,000
9. University of Connecticut – Stamford $1,288,800
10. University of Connecticut – Waterbury $1,283,000

Looks like you pick an in-state school and go with it.

They are small and specialized, but VMI is public and would rank #2 on your list above with NPV of $1,375,000.

Georgia Tech would be higher than any of them with NPV of $1,729,000. Yes, it has a big engineering, but so do other schools on the list above.

All this needs interpretation. Engineering majors make about 50% more over their lifetime than the average of all majors. Female college graduates only make 74% as much as male college graduates. In average earnings therefore, this favors schools with a higher percentage of male graduates and engineering graduates. Georgia Tech has 65% of its graduates coming from engineering and is 61% male. VT has 26% engineering and 55% male. UVA is 12% engineering and 45% male. All other things being equal, GT graduates should be making about 31% more on average than UVA graduates. That is about what the numbers above show. The real question would be if there is a difference in earnings for someone of the same sex in the same major between these schools.

Anonymous wrote:What do you make of this? From a NPV perspective, GWU hangs with the University of Chicago!!! WRONG.

University of Chicago $1,420,000
George Washington University $1,418,000

Also, a number of specialty schools have a higher NPV than Harvard. Better apply now!! WRONG.

Compare like to like schools. But you also shouldn't miss the implied message that majors matter. A pharmacy college graduate may well earn more on average than a Harvard graduate in many majors.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you filter the CEW’s database for 4-year schools/not-for-profit/public schools and remove the specialized (maritime/technology/health) schools, here is the ranking of the top 10:

1. UC Berkeley $1,383,000
2. University of Michigan – Ann Arbor $1,364,000
3. University of Maryland – College Park $1,330,000
4. Virginia Tech - $1,313,000
5. UCLA - $1,300,000
6. University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign $1,299,000
7. Binghamton University $1,298,000
8. University of Virginia – Main Campus $1,291,000
9. University of Connecticut – Stamford $1,288,800
10. University of Connecticut – Waterbury $1,283,000

Looks like you pick an in-state school and go with it.

I'd argue that what you see in that list is largely schools with higher percentages of their alumni settling in areas with the highest cost of living: San Francisco/Silicon Valley, New York, DC, Los Angeles, Chicago. If you adjust for cost of living, I wonder what it would actually look like.

University of Texas NPV is $1,233,000. Berkeley NPV is $1,383,000, which is about 12% higher. Cost of living index in Austin, Dallas, and Houston averages 154. Cost of living index of San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose averages 221, which is 44% higher than the average of the Texas cities. Given where the alumni of these schools settle, it doesn't look like the NPV ratings would hold up if you adjust for cost of living.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you filter the CEW’s database for 4-year schools/not-for-profit/public schools and remove the specialized (maritime/technology/health) schools, here is the ranking of the top 10:

1. UC Berkeley $1,383,000
2. University of Michigan – Ann Arbor $1,364,000
3. University of Maryland – College Park $1,330,000
4. Virginia Tech - $1,313,000
5. UCLA - $1,300,000
6. University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign $1,299,000
7. Binghamton University $1,298,000
8. University of Virginia – Main Campus $1,291,000
9. University of Connecticut – Stamford $1,288,800
10. University of Connecticut – Waterbury $1,283,000

Looks like you pick an in-state school and go with it.

They are small and specialized, but VMI is public and would rank #2 on your list above with NPV of $1,375,000.

Georgia Tech would be higher than any of them with NPV of $1,729,000. Yes, it has a big engineering, but so do other schools on the list above.

Anonymous wrote:If you filter the CEW’s database for 4-year schools/not-for-profit/public schools and remove the specialized (maritime/technology/health) schools, here is the ranking of the top 10:

1. UC Berkeley $1,383,000
2. University of Michigan – Ann Arbor $1,364,000
3. University of Maryland – College Park $1,330,000
4. Virginia Tech - $1,313,000
5. UCLA - $1,300,000
6. University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign $1,299,000
7. Binghamton University $1,298,000
8. University of Virginia – Main Campus $1,291,000
9. University of Connecticut – Stamford $1,288,800
10. University of Connecticut – Waterbury $1,283,000

Looks like you pick an in-state school and go with it.

They are small and specialized, but VMI is public and would rank #2 on your list above with NPV of $1,375,000.

Anonymous wrote:If you filter the CEW’s database for 4-year schools/not-for-profit/public schools and remove the specialized (maritime/technology/health) schools, here is the ranking of the top 10:

1. UC Berkeley $1,383,000
2. University of Michigan – Ann Arbor $1,364,000
3. University of Maryland – College Park $1,330,000
4. Virginia Tech - $1,313,000
5. UCLA - $1,300,000
6. University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign $1,299,000
7. Binghamton University $1,298,000
8. University of Virginia – Main Campus $1,291,000
9. University of Connecticut – Stamford $1,288,800
10. University of Connecticut – Waterbury $1,283,000

Looks like you pick an in-state school and go with it.

I'd argue that what you see in that list is largely schools with higher percentages of their alumni settling in areas with the highest cost of living: San Francisco/Silicon Valley, New York, DC, Los Angeles, Chicago. If you adjust for cost of living, I wonder what it would actually look like.

Anonymous wrote:So, here’s the opening paragraph from the CEW report on NPV:

“Did you know that in the first year after graduation you can make more money with an associate’s degree in nursing from Santa Rosa Junior College in California than with a graduate degree from some programs at Harvard University?“

If you think it’s helpful to compare a nursing degree (which is a professional degree) to an English degree, these numbers make sense. However, keep in mind, you’re comparing apples and oranges.

You can select the types of schools you are comparing with the tools provided. For instance, you can compare only 4 year publics in an individual state.

There is another report in CEW that calculates value add by comparing actual earnings with expected earnings given the mix of majors of the graduates of the school. For instance, a school with a higher percentage of engineering graduates tends to have a higher average earnings overall at least in the short term than a school with a lower percentage of engineering graduates, all other things being equal. Their analysis controls for majors of graduates.

It is a data point to consider among many. I think it is probably impossible to capture all value add factors, like cost of living, and the tendency for schools with a higher percentage of male graduates to have a boost in their average earnings (because male college graduates earn more on average than female graduates).