White House relaunches database for college search

The Department of Education recently unveiled a set of new tools, including a redesigned College Scorecard and updated data on higher education institutions, to help students make better informed decisions about college.

The College Scorecard allows prospective students to have realistic expectations of cost, the amount debt they will accrue and the average income of graduates. Much of the data was already accessible, but this is the first time that it’s all been put together in one place in a way that is much more simple to search through based on geography and other criteria.

Students can search by graduates’ earnings and debt; they can find a school’s student-loan payback rate in addition to information like majors offered and campus type, available through the department’s original scorecard website.

See how some of Arizona’s 49 listed institutions of higher education fare on the website. The theory is that this measure will shed light on whether a college is giving a substantial share of its students an economic boost in life, by enabling them to meet a minimal benchmark.

The plan, which was to be used to give out billions of federal dollars on financial aid, was ultimately scrapped. He also learns that 80 percent of Virginia Tech graduates earn more than someone who has only a high-school degree.

“It does raise some concerns about the fact that the graduation rates are between a quarter to a half of the national average”, said Rep. Linda Ichiyama, vice chair of the state House Higher Education Committee.

President Barack Obama on Saturday abandoned his two-year effort to have the government create a system that explicitly rates the quality of the nation’s colleges and universities, a plan that was bitterly opposed by presidents at many of those institutions.

Amanda Ziadeh is a reporter/producer for GCN. Only 56 percent of Coastline students earned more than the average high school graduate, according to the College Scorecard.

Understanding the economics of a college degree lies somewhere between “huh?” and “GTFO” for many high-school students and their parents.

Lowest average annual cost: ASU West, where the average cost for in-state students after receiving aid from the government is $9,014.

Some 2 million college students are eligible for federal Pell Grants but miss out because they never apply, said James Kvaal, the deputy director of the White House’s Domestic Policy Council.

Encouraging low-income and first-generation students to go to college – and to figure out which college best suits them financially as well as educationally – is a good way to build the educated workforce that this country needs.

Department of Education officials said the administration backed away from a ratings system because it proved too complicated to develop and that they were afraid it might confuse consumers. While that might be an argument against grading colleges based on their students’ earnings, making the information public is clearly the right thing to do.