Reflections on the underemployment of college graduates
Most people — and especially parents of 20-something college graduates — know that the job market is particularly tough right now for recent college grads. But so tough that about half of them are either unemployed or underemployed? That is what analysts for the New York Federal Reserve Bank of New York calculated, in a […]
Study finds taking intro statistics class online does no harm
Online education has grown so fast that more than a third of all college students — more than 7 million — took at least one course online in 2012. That’s according to the most recent 2014 annual survey by the Babson Research Group, which has been tracking online education growth since 2002. Yet nagging […]
Ranking colleges by salaries of graduates
In March 2014 Payscale came out with its annual rankings of colleges based on how much graduates earn after 20 years. As before, there was a lot of grousing about the data. How can we trust the self-reported salaries of people who happen to choose to participate in the Payscale surveys? The #1 college — […]
Universities with 10 largest endowments raise tuition for low income students more than for high income students
This week of March 10, 2014, I was playing around with a new data tool, Tuition Tracker, produced by Holly Hacker of the Dallas Morning News and my Hechinger Report colleague Jon Marcus. The tool allows anyone to see the actual tuition charged to students of different income groups at every college and university in […]
Federal “datapalooza” and college ratings to come next year
Inside Higher Ed reported Oct. 31, 2013 that the White House and Department of Education will be hosting a “datapalooza” in the Spring of 2014 that will “look at better ways to package and provide access to existing federal data on colleges and students, such as the government’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, known as […]
The problem in judging colleges by graduation rates
Karen Gross, President of Southern Vermont College, has an interesting piece on vtdigger.org on why it’s not a good idea to judge a university or college by its graduation rate and the prospective earnings of its graduates. “…elite institutions, absent some adjustment, would rank higher than non-elite institutions on graduation rates without any explanation as to why […]
Number of young American adults with college degrees jumps 36 percent
A New York Times front page story and a Lumina report released Thursday, June 13, 2013 examine the sharp increase in college graduates. In 2012, more than a third of young American adults (25 to 29 years old) had at least a bachelors degree compared with less than 25 percent in 1995. That’s a 36 […]
More tuition inflation
This just in: colleges are unable to rein in their costs and keep hiking their tuition bills. For in-state students at public 4-year universities, tuition and fees increased 7 percent after adjusting for inflation between this academic year (2012-13) and the 2010-2011 academic year. During the same period, tuition and fees at all 4-year nonprofit institutions increased […]
