Some Colleges Don’t Produce Big Earners. Are They Worth It?

Just 43 percent of the students who start at Grambling are outearning high school graduates six years later. “Our interest is not in getting the elite financially but getting the students who would not have had opportunities at other institutions,” said Gavin R. Hamms, the associate vice president of enrollment management. “It’s deeper than the data.”

Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, N.C., faces a unique challenge. It is a so-called work college, which means students have an on-campus labor assignment. There are community engagement requirements, too, on top of regular classwork and whatever additional job students might need to earn extra income.

The school’s graduation rate is just 53 percent, according to the College Scorecard. If those among the 47 percent enter the labor market without a degree, they’re at a disadvantage. Indeed, just 37 percent of the students who start there are outearning high school graduates six years later.

Warren Wilson’s provost, Jay Roberts, didn’t shy away from the figure in an interview. Warren Wilson has obstacles to completion — and thus to higher earnings — that most other schools don’t have. While it has reduced the campus work requirements in the last few years, the school still won’t be right for every teenager who shows up thinking that it is.

Dr. Roberts does ask that people consider other metrics, too, though. The school, he said, does better than peers on survey questions of those who do graduate about whether the school prepared them for social and civic engagement and whether they find their work meaningful.

Indeed, there are students who are by no means undecided about their studies and careers and do enter college with a reasonably clear sense about their modest financial goals. Those at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., outearn high school graduates 46 percent of the time six years after starting.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/20/your-money/college-graduate-earnings.html