A new study suggests that this type of college is the most valuable
Most people go to college with the hope that their education will get them a job. This is a key part of the college appeal, after all. Of course, job prospects aren’t the only reason someone might want to continue their education. But if you’re taking on student loans? Yeah, you might want to think about your post-school finances, and here is where most rankings peter out.
College rankings are a notoriously weird business, and many schools with name recognition and large endowments get top billing year after year. But a new study by the Equal of Opportunity Project measures colleges by another metric.
The EOP measures colleges by “upward mobility rate.” Or, how many students enter in the bottom fifth of income distribution, and then graduate into jobs in the top fifth.
It’s a metric that places emphasis on students’ financial transformation. Again, this isn’t the end all, be all of higher education. But since college costs only seem to be rising, it’s not a bad idea to keep these schools in mind:
California State University, Los Angeles
Pace University, New York
State University of New York at Stony Brook
Technical Career Institutes
University of Texas Pan American
City University of New York system
Glendale (Calif.) Community College
South Texas College
Cal State Polytechnic, Pomona
University of Texas at El Paso
Alas, the EOP’s study also includes schools that have more people from the top 1% than any other economic demographic. For a full break down of that information, check out these reports in the New York Times. Education shouldn’t have to come at an extraordinary cost. But until costs fall, we have to do our best to, ironically, educate ourselves and others.
