{"id":18751,"date":"2019-12-01T00:01:47","date_gmt":"2019-12-01T00:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=18751"},"modified":"2019-12-01T03:49:07","modified_gmt":"2019-12-01T03:49:07","slug":"new-college-scorecard-could-help-students-choose-better-colleges-but-theres-still-room-to-improve-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/new-college-scorecard-could-help-students-choose-better-colleges-but-theres-still-room-to-improve-it\/","title":{"rendered":"New College Scorecard could help students choose better colleges, but there’s still room to improve it"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gregory N. Price<\/a>, University of New Orleans<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of Education is out with a new version of its College Scorecard<\/a> \u2013 an online tool meant to help students and families make more informed decisions about where to attend college.<\/p>\n

As an economist<\/a> who examines how college choice can impact how much money you make in the future, I see a lot value in the new College Scorecard. But I also see some areas where it could be improved so that it\u2019s more useful for the general public.<\/p>\n

Here are five things to know about the new College Scorecard and how useful it will or won\u2019t be.<\/p>\n

1. Connects majors and salaries<\/h2>\n

To me, the most interesting and useful feature of the new College Scorecard is how it allows prospective students to see what kind of salary they can expect to earn \u2013 and how much student loan debt they can expect to owe \u2013 based on what major they choose. The lower the ratio of student debt to income is for a major, the higher the value of the investment in that major. The new Scorecard lets them examine how the investment value varies across different colleges and universities. This in turn will help prospective students figure out which school delivers the best value.<\/p>\n

Will more information work? Well, there is evidence that \u201cinformational nudging<\/a>\u201d can get people to invest in further education. Since the new College Scorecard gives people an idea of how much they can expect to earn if they choose a particular major, this could help them make better decisions about which college to attend.<\/p>\n

2. Shows you the debt risk<\/h2>\n

Another nice feature about the new College Scorecard is that it includes the three-year student loan default rate at each college. This lets you see how many graduates at a particular school are able to pay back their student loans. The ability to pay back students loans is generally a good indicator of how well colleges and universities are preparing their graduates for the job market.<\/p>\n

3. Won\u2019t replace college rankings<\/h2>\n

The raw data<\/a> in the College Scorecard are rather unwieldy. It takes a lot to organize and understand the data. This data will be useful for researchers. But for the general public, it\u2019s going to pose a problem. While the College Scorecard web portal<\/a> offers some broad metrics that are \u201cpoint-and-click,\u201d they\u2019re not at the detail provided by, for example, the U.S. News & World Report\u2019s annual college rankings.<\/p>\n

4. Can shine light on different types of colleges<\/h2>\n

The new data that shows you the average student loan debt and the three-year student loan default rates can help inform students about whether it\u2019s beneficial or risky to attend a certain type of college, such as a historically black college or university (more commonly known as an HBCU). <\/p>\n

I myself have already done this using the old College Scorecard. I found<\/a> that going to an HBCU can have a wage-boosting effect<\/a>. Now, with the new College Scorecard, I can take my research a step further to see if particular majors make a difference among students who go to HBCUs.<\/p>\n

5. Of no use where there\u2019s no WiFi<\/h2>\n

More people might use the College Scorecard if it\u2019s marketed broadly. Of course, students need internet access to use it \u2013 and not all students do. A 2018 federal report<\/a> found significant racial and economic gaps in the percentages of children with computer and internet access at home. For instance, 66% of white and 63% of Asian children had home access to a computer and the internet, versus 53% for black, 52% for Hispanic and 49% American Indian\/Alaska Native children. The report also found gaps based on a family\u2019s income and level of education. This divide will affect who does and doesn\u2019t get to use the new College Scorecard<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[ Like what you\u2019ve read? Want more?<\/em> Sign up for The Conversation\u2019s daily newsletter<\/a>. ]\"The<\/p>\n

Gregory N. Price<\/a>, Professor, Economics, University of New Orleans<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gregory N. Price, University of New Orleans The U.S. Department of Education is out with a new version of its College Scorecard \u2013 an online tool meant to help students and families make more informed decisions about where to attend college. As an economist who examines how college choice can impact how much money you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":18742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[292],"tags":[245,693,6826,687,2998,1085,1812],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18751"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18751"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18752,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18751\/revisions\/18752"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}