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If you want to earn big bucks after getting your sheepskin, you’ve got to spend big bucks before donning the mortarboard — or maybe not.
A new government “College Scorecard” website attempts, for the first time, to show how much students earn 10 years after starting school, linking the information to the cost of attending and of paying debts.
The clear winner for providing the biggest paychecks in Luzerne and Lackawanna counties: The University of Scranton, where the pricey annual average cost of $32,228 — highest among schools reviewed — resulted in an average salary of $52,400 after deducting debt payments.
That’s a full $6,000 more than the runner-up among private, four-year schools: Wilkes University, where the salary after debt is $46,300. Marywood University had both the lowest annual cost at $22,197, and the lowest annual earnings, at $34,900.
The three Penn State campuses — Hazleton, Wilkes-Barre in Lehman Township and Worthington in Dunmore — had considerably lower costs while delivering salaries competitive with the private schools.
Curiously, the three campuses have different annual costs despite being part of the same university: $14,309 at Penn State Wilkes-Barre, $14,410 at Worthington, and $19,132 at Hazleton. Penn State Hazleton Chancellor Gary Lawler said the difference stems from the fact that his campus has student housing. The Scorecard data is intended to show total out-of-pocket student cost after any financial aid.
Earnings for the three Penn State campuses are close: $43,900 for the Hazleton and Wilkes-Barre campuses, and $43,540 for Worthington.
Two-year schools in the two counties are cheaper but result in lower salaries. All had similar 10-year average earnings after debt ranging from $27,932 for Keystone College in Scranton to $31,900 for Johnson College in the Electric City. But Luzerne County Community College was by far the cheapest to attend at $6,104, while still boasting an average salary of $29, 968.
Is it fair?
Area administrators said the numbers are generally accurate — much of it is derived from data all colleges and universities provide annually to the federal department of education. And they felt the new Scorecard can be a useful tool for prospective students.
But they said it provides an incomplete picture.
“I think they are a good tool to give a snapshot about us,” Misericordia President Thomas Botzman said, “and I hope what they do is lead to more conversation. I think they are accurate but don’t tell the whole story.”
Like Botzman and others, Wilkes University Executive Vice President and Provost Anne Skleder praised the decision to drop an early plan for national college rankings.
“We have quite a few of those and they can be quite confusing to parents and prospective students,” Skleder said. The Scorecard “really is an apples to apples comparison of institutions using the same variables, dimensions and data sources.”
King’s Vice President for Enrollment Management Corry Unis agreed, adding that the website is “intuitive to a consumer” and easy to navigate.
But they and others were unanimous in the need for more data in the Scorecards, which also include graduation and retention rates, average cost by family income, race and ethnicity data for the student body, and SAT and ACT score ranges for students.
Unis would like to see the Scorecard include rate of placement in graduate school and average class size. “The faculty-student relationship is the lifeblood at King’s College.”
“We certainly support efforts to be transparent,” University of Scranton Vice Provost for Enrollment Management and External Affairs Gerry Zaboski said. “As a Catholic Jesuit institution, we believe very strongly that the kind of education you get here is important. We don’t agree in limiting the definition of the person simply to salary.”
Other advantages
Penn State Wilkes-Barre Chancellor Charles Davis said via email that the Scorecard, while a good start, doesn’t convey things like the wide alumni connections a student can make attending a local campus that’s part of the Penn State network, or the fact that the campus has had no tuition increase for three of the last four years.
Lawler noted the data is out of date for the Hazleton campus. “For example, Penn State Hazleton offers 10 four-year degrees, but is listed as a two-year institution with five programs.”
Johnson College Senior Vice President of College Placement Katie Leonard pointed to another issue that may be more pronounced at two-year colleges with non-traditional students seeking technical skills rather than a broader education.
“We believe our graduates are earning more than is reflected in the Scorecard, based on survey information we receive,” Leonard said in an email.
If the Scorecard salary figure is accurate, she added, “it could be for a number of reasons – as graduates of a two-year college they could stop working for a period of time to go back to school or be out of the workforce before returning for any number of reasons.”
Botzman also noted it would be far more useful to be able to compare salaries within a graduate’s chosen field — physical therapists leaving school with a doctorate will out-earn social workers, “who are just as important to what we are trying to contribute as an institution.”
Financial clout
And it would be fairer if the financial clout of a school and the student family background were considered, Botzman said, noting large Ivy League schools often have huge endowments that allow extensive financial aid, and enrollments from wealthier families — two factors that can impact student success after graduating.
Skleder pointed with some pride to the diversity at Wilkes. “We are in fact , based on the ratings, the most ethically diverse school in Northeast Pennsylvania. But she also noted the Scorecard gives no information about opportunities for study abroad or at other locations in this country, including the school’s Mesa, Arizona campus.
Everyone interviewed agreed Scorecard provides one piece of data all high school graduates should keep in mind: The percentage of students attending a college or university who end up earning more than someone with a high school degree.
Despite the fact that, at most area schools, students graduated with an average total debt of $27,000, over a lifetime the added earnings more than pay for the loans, Zaboski and Botzman said.
“College is an investment,” Zaboski said, “and over a lifetime there are many, many studies showing its tremendous value.”
“Over the life of a graduate it can mean half-a-million in additional income,” Botzman said. “People say things like ‘I can buy a car for $27,000.’ But I’ve never owned a car that increased my lifetime earnings by half a million dollars.”
Brookings report
Within a month after the Scorecard was unveiled, Brookings issued a report offering both praise and criticism, dubbing it “a valiant effort but nonetheless a kludge with many data quality issues.”
Some of the criticisms reflected those raised by local administrators, including the fact that the salary data is based only on students getting federal college aid. At some schools, Brookings noted, that could exclude up to two thirds of graduates. Other problems were more subtle.
Brookings noted the salary figures are for any student receiving federal aid who enrolled in a school, regardless of how long they stayed there, so a student could take one semester at one college then transfer to another, yet 10-year salary data would still be including in calculating the average for the first school.
Brookings also bemoaned the lack of salary breakdown by field of study and a student’s socio-economic background. The report suggest several relatively simple changes that would allow addition of that data in the future, primarily by adding two questions to a form all colleges and universities already file.
Conceding a 2008 federal law banning the collection of detailed work data from graduates means the Scorecard will remain a “kludge,” Brookings concluded:
“The question is whether there is a better kludge than the administration has been able to put forward with the Scorecard.”
