Every year, U.S. News & World report famously releases a list of America’s Best Colleges. While many other publications create their own lists, the U.S. News rankings are taken the most seriously by parents and prospective college students. The list is so revered that colleges even attempt to game their admissions policies to appear more […]
There’s no perfect method for ranking colleges, and every media organization that releases a list has its own standards and criteria.
We tend to focus on lists that take a college’s value compared to its cost into account and which colleges leave their graduates with little student debt.
That’s why we’re intrigued–and a little surprised–at these latest rankings from Time Money. The newsmagazine recently ranked 1,500 four-year colleges by which colleges offer the most bang for your tuition buck.
It’s not easy to quantify how much a college degree is worth in dollars. While we know that college graduates make $830,000 more by retirement on average than their less-educated peers, that number can vary widely by individual, college, major and more.
And of course, there are many intangible benefits to going to college. But with costs topping $60,000 at some colleges and continuing to rise, more students and families are realizing they need to consider a college’s future value when determining where to invest their tuition dollars.
A new college-ranking system makes that easier by ranking colleges based on how much better off graduates are financially once they earn a degree.
We’ve written quite a bit about the benefits of starting your bachelor’s degree at a community college to save money on your education.
To make the process easier, SALT has put together a handy infographic showing a semester-by-semester breakdown of how to succeed at a community college and put yourself in the best position possible to get into and pay for a 4-year college.
What’s more important to employers — that a job candidate has a college degree or possesses specific job skills? The majority of working adults believe it’s the latter, according to a new survey by job listing site Glassdoor. College degrees vs. job skills: what’s more important? The site surveyed 2,000 working adults and found that 72% said getting trained in […]
Many of the nation’s top universities, such as Harvard, Stanford and Duke, are lauded for having need-blind admissions policies, meaning they don’t take into account a student’s ability to pay for college when making admissions decisions. These schools say the policy a way to make sure the best students are accepted because of their merit, […]
With college tuition rising every year and student debt at an all-time high $1.2 trillion, it’s not surprising that students and families have begun to question whether college is actually worth the cost.
Most likely due to high costs, high school graduates are choosing to forgo college in favor of working. But at what cost?
While most in the media tend to focus on ultra-low acceptance rates of Ivy League colleges, in reality, most colleges aren’t nearly that competitive.
In fact, at most public and private colleges, the acceptance rate is over 50%.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 84% percent of public colleges admit at least half of all students who apply, and 80% of all private, not-for-profit colleges do.
And these less competitive colleges enroll significantly more students than the small number of schools that have lower acceptance rates.
We work with many students who think that if they can just get into an elite college, their future prospects and lives will be better. But according to a new survey, this isn’t necessarily the case. In fact, it’s even possible that attending an elite college could make your life worse–if you take on significant […]
Choosing the right college can be tough. With over 3500 colleges in the United States, finding that perfect match–let alone paying for it–is no easy task.
The folks at PayScale have put together an interesting interactive map that shows the top colleges for different ethnic groups, along with their graduation rates, locations and returns on investment after 20 years.