The White House recently launched a new website to help students and their families to have access to more information about college and finances. How much does this college cost, how much you will make after graduating, how is the college doing financially… All the answers are provided on individual college’s score cards. A good effort to increase transparency about college finances but some problems already come up.
There is no information on the colleges besides their finances and we all know that an educational experience is not only about its price. The website completely avoids the quality of the education and the opportunities after graduation. Also, there is no personalization possible so the families from a low income background do not know how to use the information provided and will not work out how to come up with a right financial plan to fund the students’s education.
Rating colleges on their finances does only a very small part of the job. When we think that other alternative ratings deal with the « greenery » of higher ed institutions, it seems that the score card model could be improved.
Here is an article on the topic:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-laura-perna/college-scorecard_b_2853435.html