Admit Rate: Success is Within Reach

MarketWatch: "Looking at 2017 data, Pew Research Center counted just 46 schools with admission rates under 20%. Only 17 schools had single-digit admission rates. By contrast, 80% of the 1,364 colleges and universities Pew studied admitted half or more of those who applied. And 53% admitted at least two-thirds of their applicants. Kids who don’t get into one of the 46 highly selective schools typically have plenty of other good options. Elite schools don’t produce happier or more successful people. A 2014 study of nearly 30,000 college graduates found no correlation between a college’s admissions rate and future job satisfaction or well-being."

"Earlier studies by the late Alan Krueger of Princeton and Stacy Dale at Mathematica Policy Research found students who were admitted to highly selective colleges but who attended schools elsewhere usually did just as well financially ... Parents mistakenly believe brand-name schools impress employers and lead to more opportunities. Researcher Paul Hill, who analyzed millions of admissions and salary records for student loan lenders, didn’t find that to be true. Consistently, a graduate’s major had a far bigger impact, says Hill, president of Job Search Intelligence in Los Angeles."

"Counselors and parents often encourage seniors to apply to 'reach' schools, colleges where a student’s test scores, class rank, grades or other qualifications are below the school’s average. The idea is that even though the odds are against admission, students might get lucky. Getting into one of these schools may not be a blessing, however. Hill found that students in the bottom 25% of those admitted typically get less generous financial-aid packages and are more likely to drop out or flunk out. At most colleges, he says, scrambling for a place at a school that doesn’t really want your kid can backfire into a higher bill and a discouraged student."

Georgetown Study: The College ROI

The Washington Post: "Is college worth it? Researchers at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce tried to answer that question, using newly released federal data to try to calculate return on investment for thousands of colleges across the country ... Some of the results will come as no surprise: Among the top 10 colleges with the best long-term net economic gain are Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University. Forty years after enrollment, bachelor's degrees from private colleges have the highest returns on investment. But the top three on the top 10 list - eclipsing MIT and Stanford - are schools specializing in pharmacy and health sciences. The only two public schools to make that top 10 list are maritime academies."

"Higher education is a complicated proposition, tricky to measure. The superintendent of one of the leading schools on the list, the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, said he doesn't think candidates to the academy are applying because of return on investment, given the intense, challenging nature of the service academy's program, which includes hundreds of days at sea and a commitment to years of service ... Surveys suggest many students are motivated to go to college to learn more about subjects that interest them - and to become a better person, said professor Anthony P. Carnevale, director of Georgetown's Center on Education and the Workforce."

"The study concluded that even after paying off higher amounts of debt, the average graduate of a private four-year college has a net economic gain of $838,000 over 40 years - compared with $765,000 for a public college graduate. Or a student could choose a theology school near the bottom of the long-term return-on-investment list - because salary is not important."

FAFSA: Flaws in Financial-Aid Formula?

The New York Times: "Now that the latest FAFSA is out — it became available on Oct. 1 — millions of families are plugging in their numbers. The form is the first step to unlocking any potential federal financial aid, including grants, loans and work-study jobs, as well as aid from states and some colleges. But it also generates their expected family contribution, or E.F.C. — a number that can easily be misleading. It’s often higher than many households can afford ... The gap has grown wider not just because of the exponential rise in college prices, but also because of the E.F.C. formula itself."

"The formula, which stretches across 36 pages, often assumes families have far more income available to pay for college than they actually do, financial aid experts said, particularly in high-cost areas. The reason lies in its basic assumptions: that a family of four, for example, can subsist on less than $30,000, no matter where they live ... unless a student attends a college that promises to meet 100 percent of his or her need — and the vast majority do not — students and their families will probably pay more than what the FAFSA estimates."

"The formula also considers parents’ and students’ assets — and some allowances have actually become less generous over the years. Retirement savings and home equity are excluded from the federal formula, but the amount of other savings that parents can shield has plummeted over the past decade."