At the sametime academic administrators at the University of Notre Dame (UND) formed a faculty committee to consider reducing UND’s Theology requirement to one course, National Public Radio’s Planet Money team created an interesting ranking of 4-year undergraduate programs.
Here’s how UND ranks:
- It’s not one of the nation’s top 15 “schools for making money,” which measures income 10 years after graduation (50%), on-time graduation rates (25%) and net price (25%). (Hoyas have no fear: Georgetown is #7!)
- It’s #8 for “schools that make financial sense,” which measures share of students who receive Pell Grants (16%), net price for families making <$48k (16%), share of students who are first-generation college students (16%), default rates (16%), on-time graduation rates (16%) and average income 10 years after graduation (16%). (Once again, Hoyas have no fear, Georgetown in #4!)
- It’s not one of the nation’s top 15 “schools that emphasize upward mobility,” which measures on-time graduation rate (50%), default rate (16%), share of students receiving federal loans (16%), average income six years after graduation (16%). (Have no fear, Fightin’ Irish, neither is Georgetown!)
Clearly, Georgetown is the better choice for parents whose primary interest are that doing so makes financial sense and their children are likely to earn more $$$s following graduation. Isn’t that what most interests many parents today?
The data suggest to parents that they shouldn’t send their children to UND so they’ll make more $$$s and/or be more upwardly mobile. However, correlating the curriculum review with these findings, does it make greater financial sense for parents to send their children to UND for a distinctively Catholic undergraduate education?
To read UND’s curriculum review document, click on the following like:
http://curriculumreview.nd.edu/
To Planet Money’s rankings, click on the following link:
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/09/21/441417608/the-new-college-scorecard-npr-does-some-math
To read The Motley Monk’s daily blog, Omnibus, click on the following link:
http://richard-jacobs-blog.com/omnibus.html
