WSJ College Rankings 2024 — new approach harsh for NC universities

  • Thread starter Thread starter nycfan
  • Start date Start date
  • Replies: 43
  • Views: 630
My goodness
Okay Paywall Can anyone summarize the new approach
Babson?
 
Among ACC:

3 Stanford
8 Cal
9 GaT
17 Notre Dame
19 Va Tech
33 UVa
45 dook
59 UNC

——
A lot of oddities in these rankings (top 20 includes Babaon College, Bentley, Lehigh, San Jose State and Harvey Mudd College) but having Texas A&M (28) ranked above UVa, dook and UNC (not to mention Texas) throws their entire methodology into question IMO.
 
The share feature did not give me the option to provide a gift link.
 
They must be using a pretty screwed up formula to have VT that high. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good school, but there is no way it’s better than Duke, UNC, and UVA.
 
salary impact is 33%
Time to payoff cost is 17%
graduation rate 20%
Learning environment 20% (equal parts opportunities, career prep, facilities, students there recommend going there, character score)
Diversity 10% — half of which is student survey about opportunities to interact with people with different backgrounds the rest split evenly among economic diversity, ethnic diversity and disabilities diversity)


Character score component:
  • Character score (4%): New this year, this measures the extent to which students feel the college has developed character strengths that will help them to make a meaningful contribution to society, including moral courage, hopefulness, resilience, wisdom and a sense of justice, based on our student survey. The questions for this score were developed in collaboration with the Oxford Character Project.
 
nycfan said:
salary impact is 33%
Time to payoff cost is 17%
graduation rate 20%
Learning environment 20% (equal parts opportunities, career prep, facilities, students there recommend going there, character score)
Diversity 10% — half of which is student survey about opportunities to interact with people with different backgrounds the rest split evenly among economic diversity, ethnic diversity and disabilities diversity)


Character score component:
  • Character score (4%): New this year, this measures the extent to which students feel the college has developed character strengths that will help them to make a meaningful contribution to society, including moral courage, hopefulness, resilience, wisdom and a sense of justice, based on our student survey. The questions for this score were developed in collaboration with the Oxford Character Project.
Click to expand...
So half of the formula is a trade school/value proposition ranking.
 
farce© said:
So half of the formula is a trade school/value proposition ranking.
Click to expand...

Surprised Davidson is that high if there's a payoff component. That's an expensive school.

I would have thought NC State would have been much higher based on those criteria.
 
farce© said:
So half of the formula is a trade school/value proposition ranking.
Click to expand...
It’s worse than that. The salary factor isn’t how much graduates earn but how much more they earn than students with similar ACT/SAT scores. So, average students can do well if they get vocational training. This will almost always mean engineering and business programs will come out ahead of those that prepare students for advanced degrees or success in lower-compensated fields like teaching, social work, counseling.
This also explains why HYPSM still ranks highly, but well-regarded schools like duke, Vandy, Rice, NWU, UChicago (75? Really?) and JHU (92!!!) don’t fare as well. Those students have similar test scores to HYPSM, but HYPSM for a variety of reasons, places more graduates at Citadel, Blackrock, McKinsey, Deloitte, etc. If they used family income as a basis to judge how well the college boosted a graduate’s salary it would be a very different ranking.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
Surprised Davidson is that high if there's a payoff component. That's an expensive school.

I would have thought NC State would have been much higher based on those criteria.
Click to expand...

"In 2007, Davidson announced a groundbreaking policy which eliminated loans from all financial aid packaging, allowing students to graduate debt-free. Today, we proudly stand as one of only two dozen schools in the United States that admit students independent of their family’s ability to pay, meet 100 percent of calculated need, and do so without loans in their aid package."
 
BlooVooDoo said:
It’s worse than that. The salary factor isn’t how much graduates earn but how much more they earn than students with similar ACT/SAT scores. So, average students can do well if they get vocational training. This will almost always mean engineering and business programs will come out ahead of those that prepare students for advanced degrees or success in lower-compensated fields like teaching, social work, counseling.
This also explains why HYPSM still ranks highly, but well-regarded schools like duke, Vandy, Rice, NWU, UChicago (75? Really?) and JHU (92!!!) don’t fare as well. Those students have similar test scores to HYPSM, but HYPSM for a variety of reasons, places more graduates at Citadel, Blackrock, McKinsey, Deloitte, etc. If they used family income as a basis to judge how well the college boosted a graduate’s salary it would be a very different ranking.
Click to expand...
It also means that if you get a job in the region where you get your degree and you are not in a top paying region, your University gets dinged even if your grads have best/better outcomes in that region. Pay scales are generally lower in NC and the Southeast compared to California, NY, Northeast and Texas. If the metric is not adjusted for that, it basically is ranking the regional pay scale (without adjustment for regional cost of living).
 
gtyellowjacket said:
Surprised Davidson is that high if there's a payoff component. That's an expensive school.

I would have thought NC State would have been much higher based on those criteria.
Click to expand...
farce© said:
"In 2007, Davidson announced a groundbreaking policy which eliminated loans from all financial aid packaging, allowing students to graduate debt-free. Today, we proudly stand as one of only two dozen schools in the United States that admit students independent of their family’s ability to pay, meet 100 percent of calculated need, and do so without loans in their aid package."
Click to expand...

As a parent of a Davidson student I can tell you for a lot of folks it's actually cheaper than state schools as farce pointed out. Factor that with the % of students going into medicine, law, business and you can see the value proposition.

Sticker prices for private schools are just that. And the higher the sticker the more elite folks think they are. Nevermind the fact that unless your name is Rockefeller you aren't paying that.
 
nycfan said:
It also means that if you get a job in the region where you get your degree and you are not in a top paying region, your University gets dinged even if your grads have best/better outcomes in that region. Pay scales are generally lower in NC and the Southeast compared to California, NY, Northeast and Texas. If the metric is not adjusted for that, it basically is ranking the regional pay scale (without adjustment for regional cost of living).
Click to expand...
Right. UC-Merced in the top 20 is absolutely ridiculous. It’s a great school for some students. It’s not among the nation’s elite universities.
 
336Heel said:
As a parent of a Davidson student I can tell you for a lot of folks it's actually cheaper than state schools as farce pointed out. Factor that with the % of students going into medicine, law, business and you can see the value proposition.

Sticker prices for private schools are just that. And the higher the sticker the more elite folks think they are. Nevermind the fact that unless your name is Rockefeller you aren't paying that.
Click to expand...

Very curious about this. I always wanted to give my kids the option for private school but we were really scared of the sticker price. I'm trying to come up with a way to ask a question without asking something that's very personal on an anonymous message board where no one knows who you are.

Maybe it's best if I just say it. Our family makes over 300K but less than 400k. What percentage of the 70k tuition would you guess that we would be paying if we sent our kid there? And if you feel truly anonymous, would love more specifics about the range your family makes and what you ended up paying.
 
No e
gtyellowjacket said:
Very curious about this. I always wanted to give my kids the option for private school but we were really scared of the sticker price. I'm trying to come up with a way to ask a question without asking something that's very personal on an anonymous message board where no one knows who you are.

Maybe it's best if I just say it. Our family makes over 300K but less than 400k. What percentage of the 70k tuition would you guess that we would be paying if we sent our kid there? And if you feel truly anonymous, would love more specifics about the range your family makes and what you ended up paying.
Click to expand...
no expert here
My guess is you pay full rate
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top