For the first time, the U.S. Education Department has published data allowing students to compare salary and debt levels for specific college programs rather than for entire institutions only.
The information was made public Wednesday on the agency’s updated College Scorecard website, which was created under the Obama administration to help students evaluate which colleges provide the best value. The update is seen as a milestone in the department’s efforts to shine a light on programs that leave students with heavy debt and low incomes.
Previously, students could use the online tool to compare salary and debt averages for entire schools, benchmarks that the Education Department now says are “fairly meaningless.” Students today can sort through specific majors within a school and see how they stack up against one another, or against programs at other schools, and see which ones lead to the highest salaries or the lowest debt.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said the new tool provides “real information students need to make informed, personalized decisions about their education.” By providing the same statistics for all institutions, she said, students can compare any programs they are considering “without regard to the type of school.”
The website allows students to search for a specific school or to browse by field of study or degree type. It offers information on schools from Ivy League universities to vocational schools and certificate programs.
There are some drawbacks.
The earnings data are available for only 20 percent of the 200,000 programs listed in the department’s database, while others are hidden for privacy reasons because they had few students. The earnings figures were measured a year after graduation and reflect students who received federal loans or Pell grants only. They do not count students with no earnings.
Still, the effort was applauded by advocacy groups and scholars who have long awaited better data on college outcomes. Chiefs for Change, a nonprofit that represents city and state education leaders, said the site gives students important input when deciding what to do after high school.
“With information about average debt and earnings, students will have a better sense of the potential return on their investment in higher education,” Mike Magee, the organization’s CEO, said in a statement.
DeVos promised to expand the College Scorecard in August 2018 as she repealed an Obama-era rule requiring the department to publish earnings and debt data on career training programs that were primarily housed at for-profit colleges.