Calculating the True College degree value

How much does a college degree really worth? The eternal question asked by every former English, philosophy, and art history major now answer some countries. For students of the University of Virginia, to pay $ 60,300 for the approach, on average, 18 months after graduation, rather than sociology ($ 33,154), or worse, biological ($ 27,209). In Tennessee, Dyersburg State Community College graduates with a bachelor's degree in health generates about $ 5,000 more on average than someone who majored in health and took a degree at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, the state schools very. With skyrocketing tuition and student debt and dim job prospects waiting for many graduates, the state attempted to show people back what they realistically expect to invest at a level of public universities. That is why Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and collect data on the salaries of their graduates and post them online CollegeMeasures.org, a website run by a former Bush administration education official. The database, which does not display the name or other identifying information, show the students how much money they can expect to earn based on large school they choose. Colorado, Nevada, and Texas will start using it in early 2013. "The we want is for students to make decisions," said Tod Massa, director of policy research and data warehousing in Virginia State Board of Higher Education. Massa, who will push for a database for years, with little success until 2011, when the Virginia legislature passed a law mandating that the state publishes salary data for graduates of all colleges and universities, public and private. Schools' need to coordinate the level of loans students have [students] tend to ability to pay, "said Massa. Running the Virginia share information CollegeMeasures and its own website, which publishes the data for graduates in five years the federal government school.The tried, but failed, to do something similar. In 2005 the U.S. Department of Education floated the idea of ​​collect notes from college students to measure student performance and compare it with the data work. Measures are required by an act of Congress, but the Bush administration dropped the idea after protests from civil liberties and schools are concerned about the privacy of students. In 2008, Congress banned collection of transcript of the Ministry of Education. Americans, though, does not comply with the ban. To gather their data, both higher ed and Virginia CollegeMeasures appropriate council department 'notes of the students of their wages held unemployment insurance program state. (Only graduates working in state salaries are recorded in the database.) Mark Schneider, president CollegeMeasures, said protecting the identity of the people 'by not publishing information about academic programs with fewer than 10 graduates. Plus, Social Security numbers removed from the records before making their website Schneider. However, the school concerned file sharing may lead to privacy violations. "People are not told what they did with the records," said Sarah Flanagan of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, walking group in Washington. College administrators say the collection of data will prevent students from majors such as English, philosophy, and art history. They fear that these countries can also use the data to reduce public funding for programs with low income prospects. "All that counted does not necessarily count," said Flanagan. "There are many things of value that provides high-quality education can not be reduced to a number or data points." Meet Schneider data publishing his best viewed with a critical eye. A student with a nursing degree from a two-year college can be more than a year after graduating from an English major at a liberal arts school, he said, but over the span of a career , those with a bachelor's degree will end up making more than the degree of relevance. Database also excludes federal employees and self-employed. In some cases, higher wages may be a result of the higher cost of living in the areas in which new graduates looking for work. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has proposed legislation to force all 50 states to disclose salary data for graduates of public and private schools. Bill has not gone anywhere, but Schneider said he thinks Congress will come around. "People look at higher education in a way that is completely different than the usual." Bottom line: Before choosing college majors in the country, students in three countries can go online to see how much money you make new graduates.