Secretary DeVos Expands on Revamped College Scorecard, Adding Second-year Post Graduation Earnings and Cumulative Loan Data to Help Students Make Informed Choices
Contact: Press Office, (202) 401-1576, press@ed.gov
WASHINGTON — Delivering on her promise to continually update and improve College Scorecard, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced today that students can now compare average earnings two years after graduation based on field of study and how much federal student loan debt they can expect to incur, including new information on Parent PLUS loans, based on where they decide to attend school.
Building on Secretary DeVos’ successful revamp of College Scorecard in Nov. 2019, College Scorecard now provides new median income data for students two years out from their date of graduation across the various fields of study an institution offers. Future earnings data will become available through College Scorecard in each subsequent year, creating a long-range view of how postsecondary graduates within a field of study and at different credential levels fare throughout their careers. In the coming weeks, College Scorecard will be updated to include data on federal student loan repayment. Users will be able to see how successfully past federal student loan borrowers from different institutions and, for the first time, specific programs, have been at meeting their repayment obligations.
“Every student’s learning journey is unique, and the decisions about what to study and where to study it are important and personal,” said Secretary DeVos. “As students make choices that impact their future careers and earning potential, it’s imperative they have access to relevant, actionable information like how much money they might make after graduating in their chosen field of study, or how much debt they may have to take on depending on where they choose to learn. That’s why we committed early on to making sure these statistics became fixtures in the Scorecard and to continually improving the available data. I’m so pleased that with today’s new updates, we’ve done just that. The new tools launched today will give students even more of the information they deserve in order to make the best decision for them.”
Today’s updates to College Scorecard make it easier to search for different fields of study and to compare those fields side by side, whether they are within one institution or across several institutions. For instance, a student interested in health professions can now more easily compare health-related fields of study at several institutions or different health-related fields of study within the same institution.
In addition, College Scorecard’s student loan data now includes Parent PLUS loans, allowing users to see how much parents are borrowing to help their children pay for school at each institution. This provides a more complete financial picture of how recent graduates have paid for their postsecondary education, especially if their parents took on debt to help them cover some or all of the costs.
Users can also find new loan debt information about typical amounts borrowed inclusive of amounts borrowed at multiple institutions for students who transfer. Previously, transfer-in loan debt was not reflected in the data offered.
By updating College Scorecard, Secretary DeVos is continuing to deliver on President Trump’s March 2019 Executive Order on Improving Free Inquiry, Transparency, and Accountability at Colleges and Universities. Additional updates referenced in the Order are expected near the end of the calendar year.
Information on the data sources for College Scorecard is available here.
In addition to its consumer website that highlights a subset of its available data, College Scorecard continues to make over 2,000 data elements available to developers, researchers, and others through an application program interface.