In keeping with the promises he made in his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama has released the College Scorecard, an interactive tool designed to help college-bound students learn about their college options with regard to affordability and value.
The tool lets students search for schools based on such factors as location, enrollment size and majors offered, and includes information on costs and student loan default rates.
After inputting various criteria into the College Scorecard tool, a student will find a list of colleges along with their locations and enrollment numbers. The student can then click on an institution to look at its “scorecard” to see some statistics on its former students.
Critics of the College Scorecard say that it does not include enough information on employment outcomes and the statistics it uses are geared toward “traditional” college students who go straight from high school to college.
Amy Laitinen, a former policy adviser at the Department of Education and White House, mentioned in a Tweet about the scorecard that the tool leaves out important employment outcome figures, such as unemployment and average earnings for graduates.
Justin Draeger, President and CEO of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA), told U.S. News the federal data on the College Scorecard is very basic and not “comprehensive” enough to actually decide where to go to school.
He said nontraditional students to contact prospective schools to ask them how students in their exact situation are reflected in the overall data shown in federal numbers. Nontraditional students, those who are entering college at the age of 25 or older, represent around half of incoming college students today.
Draeger said the College Scorecard is a “starting point” that should be used in combination with other tools, according to U.S. News. The College Scorecard is one of several different tools offered by the U.S. Department of Education’s College Affordability and Transparency Center. The Center also offers the College Navigator and the Net Price Calculator Center.
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