Recently, Money Magazine identified Money’s Best Colleges based on the idea of Return on Investment:
To find out which of the nation’s roughly 1,500 four-year colleges offer the most bang for your tuition buck, MONEY screened out those with a below-average graduation rate and then ranked the 665 that remained on 18 factors in three categories: educational quality, affordability, and alumni earnings…
Congratulations, Babson! Money used Payscale.com data, which assembled its own rankings. Congratulations, Harvey Mudd!
But is ROI even a meaningful question when considering colleges? I ask the question not because I have an answer, but rather because anyone engaged in the college admissions process should have a clear idea of what they are shopping for.
Consultant Parke Muth addresses the issue by analyzing various trends that impact higher education. If you’re grappling with the question of how to evaluate different college choices, you might be interested in this sweeping article. Ultimately, every family must determine what matters most in their personal college rankings. Return on investment may be part of your calculus but can’t possibly be your only sorting criterion.
What matters to you in looking at a college?
Mike Bergin