University of Colorado

A Message from the President

March 2013

Back to email

College Measures fails to measure up

The Colorado Department of Higher Education recently teamed with the vendor College Measures to produce a report aimed at providing students and families with data about earnings after college. While the authors had good intentions, devils in the study's details gave an inaccurate and therefore misleading picture for students and families.

At the risk of being perceived as killing the messenger, it is important to point out the many shortcomings in the study, all of which its authors acknowledge. Findings were based on unemployment insurance information provided by the state's Department of Labor and Employment. Yet the report does not include graduates working out of state, the self-employed and those working for the federal government (Colorado's largest employer). More than one-third of the 30,000 students at our campus in Boulder are non-residents and most will return home after graduation. They don't count in the data set, nor do Coloradans who work out of state. The study also doesn't fully account for those who attend graduate or professional school, about a fifth of our students. Additionally, the data account for only a quarter of Colorado's graduates, hardly a representative sample of our students.

Importantly, the study tracked graduates only a year out from graduation and did so in the midst of a significant recession. A college education is an investment that appreciates over a lifetime, so measuring its value after a year is misleading.

We in higher education must be accountable for the education we provide. But studies such as College Measures do not help that cause with incomplete and therefore misleading information. While we at CU have long assessed where our graduates get jobs, even before this study was released we had planned to significantly increase our efforts to see how our graduates fare. We will do so through increased questionnaire surveys coupled with political-style phone polls across majors and careers.

Given the cost of higher education and the prevalence of student debt, it's important for students and families to be educated consumers of higher education. College Measures falls short of providing them a tool to do so.

Back to email


Make a difference. Give today!

CLICK HERE TO GIVE TO CU


Office of the President, University of Colorado
1800 Grant Street, Suite 800, Denver, CO 80203
General Phone: (303) 860-5600 | Fax: (303) 860-5610
officeofthepresident@cu.edu
www.cu.edu