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If I were a prospective student interested in making a lot of money out of college, surely I'd still just follow this very simple model: Take all the schools I

by nilkn 11y ago

If I were a prospective student interested in making a lot of money out of college, surely I'd still just follow this very simple model: Take all the schools I could get into, look up their actual median earnings, and go to the one which is highest (let's ignore issues of cost of attendance). If it turns out that the one which is highest isn't ranked high on this particular list, I don't see why that would suggest I still shouldn't pick that school. Imagine these are my options, for instance: (A) A school with expected earnings of $90k and actual earnings of $75k. (B) A school with expected earnings of $50k and actual earnings of $55k. (B) will rank vastly higher than (A) in this study, but I'd pick (A) over (B) every time if I just wanted money. In short, I don't actually see the value add here from this list. How am I supposed to act on these rankings? How are these rankings supposed to change any idea I might have about which school I should attend? It seems if you want to know which school to attend based on earnings we already have much more reliable data for that: actual earnings data.

TheCoelacanth 11y ago
The problem with your method (which this analysis is attempting to although may not actually correct) is what if the difference in the actual earnings between the schools is due to quality of the students admitted into the school rather than the increase in the students earnings that the school causes. For example, if your options are (A) A school that admits 1000 people with IQ of 200 who go on to earn an average of $100,000 and 100 people with IQ of 50 who go on to earn an average of $1,000 (B) A school that admits 100 people with IQ of 200 who go on to earn an average of $1,000,000 and 1000 people with IQ of 50 who go on to earn an average of $10,000 (A) has median earnings of $100,000 while (B) has median earnings of $10,000, so by your criteria (A) is much better. However, (B) has much better outcomes for both groups of students.

by nilkn 11y ago

TheCoelacanth 11y ago

The problem with your method (which this analysis is attempting to although may not actually correct) is what if the difference in the actual earnings between the schools is due to quality of the students admitted into the school rather than the increase in the students earnings that the school causes. For example, if your options are (A) A school that admits 1000 people with IQ of 200 who go on to earn an average of $100,000 and 100 people with IQ of 50 who go on to earn an average of $1,000 (B) A school that admits 100 people with IQ of 200 who go on to earn an average of $1,000,000 and 1000 people with IQ of 50 who go on to earn an average of $10,000 (A) has median earnings of $100,000 while (B) has median earnings of $10,000, so by your criteria (A) is much better. However, (B) has much better outcomes for both groups of students.