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Dayton
Business Journal...
Colleges
graded by how much grads earn
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
As
college tuition continues to
increase and the economy lags, how students choose where to attend
school has
changed to consider not just the experience, but also the outcome.
A
Seattle-based company that collects
employee compensation data has calculated the expected 30-year return
on
investment for colleges and universities across the country to find
which ones
promise the biggest bang for tuition bucks, something students and
especially
their parents want to know. PayScale Inc.
compiles the results in an annual list
published on its Web site.
It
is nothing new for students and
parents to look at whether they can swing tuition at a particular
college, says
Sean Creighton, executive director for the Southwestern Ohio Council
for Higher
Education. But the harsh economic climate has forced families to take a
harder
look.
That
has caused schools to change the
way they market themselves to prospective students and their parents,
says
Michael Kabbaz, associate vice president for enrollment management at
Miami
University .
“What
we’re seeing is that there’s a
press on institutions from parents. They want students to have a great
experience, but also get something from it,” Kabbaz said. “They want to
know
who is recruiting on campus, what graduate schools students are
attending when
they finish.”
How
much a diploma from a particular
school returns students in the long run can vary significantly from
college to
college, even between public schools in the same state.
Information
collected by PayScale can
help students and parents choose where to invest their dollars and
businesses
decide appropriate salaries.
Miami
University tops Dayton-region
schools
At
No. 98 on the list on the list of
1,052, Miami University has the highest return on investment in the
Dayton
region when considering in-state tuition numbers. PayScale found that
students
who graduate from Miami having paid 2010 in-state tuition (which
includes fees,
room and board, books and supplies) of $121,900 total can expect a
$713,400 net
ROI after 30 years, or 10.9 percent annually. With a typical financial
aid
package, ROI hits 11.9 percent. For its out-of-state costs, Miami ranks
No. 117
on the list.
PayScale
numbers also show that after
college, a Miami grads earn a starting median salary of $46,000, and
after 10
years in the workforce, have a median salary of $85,500.
Across
Ohio, Case Western Reserve
University tops
the list at No. 46 for
highest 30-year net ROI. Alumni who shelled out $196,200 can expect
$926,300 in
return. That amounts to 10.2 percent annually, or 12.6 percent with
financial
aid.
Case
Western graduates earn a median
$52,600 starting out in the workforce, and after 10 years, make a
median
midcareer salary of $101,000, according to PayScale.
The
college with the lowest 30-year
return on investment in the region and in the state is Cedarville
University at
No. 996.
PayScale
numbers show that Cedarville
graduates who paid $113,400 in tuition can expect an $87,230 ROI in
three
decades. That amounts to 6 percent annually. With typical financial
aid, alumni
get a little more in return: about 6.9 percent annually.
The
median salary of Cedarville
graduates just entering the workforce is $42,200. That increases to a
$56,200
median salary after 10 years.
The
national average midcareer salary
is $73,100.
Nationally,
the university with the
highest return on investment is the California Institute of Technology.
Alumni
who paid $198,700 can expect $1.71 million in net ROI after 30 years.
The school’s
annual ROI is 12.2 percent and 15.1 percent with financial aid.
At
the bottom is Shaw University
, a private, historically black college in
Raleigh, N.C., where graduates who paid $98,240 in tuition can expect
$15,480
in return after 30 years. Annually, that amounts to a 4.5 percent ROI.
It
inches up to 5.4 percent annually with typical financial aid.
How
it works
PayScale,
founded in 2002, collects
information on a voluntary basis from visitors to its website who
usually are
looking for salary statistics on various jobs. Responses go into a
large
database – nearly 30 million profiles and counting – which PayScale
utilizes to
prepare reports for employers who subscribe to its services..
Read
the rest of the article at Dayton
Business Journal
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