The U.S. Department of Education released a much-anticipated, updated version of the College Scorecard this week that includes, for the first time, information on the median earnings of a school’s graduates, based on their chosen field of study. Combined with the program-level debt levels that were added to the Scorecard in May, it’s now possible for students intending to study geology, for example, to compare first-year earnings and student loan debt among geology programs at the various schools they are considering.
Previously, the Scorecard, first introduced by the Obama administration and since revised under President Trump, displayed only median earnings and median debt at the institutional level. The Scorecard now shows the range of earnings for many of the academic programs an institution offers.
As other contributors have noted, the new Scorecard is a useful tool not only for students, many of whom consider earning potential as one important factor in their college selection process, but also for university administrators as they evaluate the viability of their program offerings – particularly in an environment of shrinking enrollments and fiscal constraint.