GradBetter helps students preview their postgrad lifestyle by comparing projected graduate earnings, college costs and living expenses. Our radar graph aims to visualize these tradeoffs so families can find the combination that best fits their personal and financial goals.
We combine data from multiple government and non-profit think tank sources. With that said, we are not economists. The information is organized on a best efforts basis for illustrative purposes. Refer to our disclaimer and consult a qualified professional regarding financial decisions.
Earnings data from graduate tax returns is compiled by the U.S. Department of Education and made available for each college on a per major basis within the College Scorecard.
GradBetter provides location-based earnings that adjust for the cost of living where graduates live. Simply put, colleges that send most of their graduates to high cost of living cities, such as NYC, reflect this premium in their graduates’ earnings. Why? Because employers increase salaries to compensate for the higher cost of living in those cities. As argued in Inside Higher Ed, by the College Scorecard making “no adjustment for where those graduates live, it ends up providing misleading information about how successful the graduates of different colleges are.”
Please refer to Doug Williams’ article and our story for a further explanation. We have organized our methodology to match the order of the data presented on each colleges’ lifestyle tab.
Costs
Earnings
Lifestyle
Expenses
Families can adjust their sticker price and total cost of living by entering values in the other box.
Our calculations are for educational and illustrative purposes only and should not be construed as financial or tax advice. Please consult a qualified professional regarding financial decisions.
In addition, we wanted to document the overall college score, which is the number inside the purple circle. This score is the weighted average of the below factors:
Each factor is normalized on a scale of 0 to 100. Users can personalize their search by adjusting the weight applied to each factor. For example, if 100% of the weighting is assigned to publisher ranking and 0% to the other factors, then the score will be the normalized total for publisher ranking as it’s multiplied by 100%.
If the weight for publisher ranking is kept at 100%, and student review is moved to 50% weighting, then the publisher ranking is multiplied by 66% (100/150) and the student review is multiplied by 33% (50/150). Below is the formula for reference.
Overall Score= Ei ( oi x wi / Ew )
Where i represents a factor (eg. publisher ratings or student review):
wi represents the weight given to factor i and ranges from 0-100
oi represents the scaled value of factor i and ranges from 0-100