When Dana Lambert counsels students who plan to major in theater, they usually ask: Will I be able to support myself after college? Yes, it can be done, she tells them — though maybe not at your parents’ standard of living.
But with many other families, says Ms. Lambert, a school counselor at West Milford Township High School, in New Jersey, that question never comes up.
Higher-education purists may not like it, but going to college and getting a job are tightly connected in the public imagination, and that seems unlikely to change.
Should it? The federal government sure seems to think so. One of the most prominent pieces of information on its College Scorecard, the consumer-information website the Obama administration recently revamped as part of its college-accountability push, is the “salary after attending” for each institution. It’s a rather unintuitive data point — counting only federal financial-aid recipients, lumping together graduates and dropouts, and looking at earnings 10 years after initial enrollment — but it does send a signal.
What you stand to make after college, the government is telling prospective students, ought to be a factor in how you choose that college. Higher-education purists may not like it, but going to college and getting a job are tightly connected in the public imagination, and that seems unlikely to change.
Still, there’s a big difference between looking at earnings and using them to make thoughtful college decisions. That’s partly because, for each institution, the scorecard shows only its students’ median earnings and the share of former students making more than the average high-school-diploma holder. That doesn’t provide a real sense of salary variation, much less what causes it.
So let’s say that earnings are part of the college conversation. Where should the conversation go from there?
For Ms. Lambert, discussing earnings is situational. “I take my cues from the family,” she says. Sometimes there’s good reason to evaluate college expenses alongside expected earnings. When students come in with brochures from for-profit automotive programs, she’ll tell them that they can take a similar course at a lower price at a community college. Just because a program costs more, she says, doesn’t mean its graduates make more.
With some families, the conversation is less about the payoff of different college pathways and more about the first-order question of whether students need college at all. Ms. Lambert has worked with some parents who’ve had successful careers without a college degree, in fields like law enforcement. Those parents aren’t always convinced that their children even need a degree, Ms. Lambert says.
The job market changes, too, Ms. Lambert adds. A career that sounds stable or lucrative now could be risky or in low demand by the time students finish college.
So Ms. Lambert encourages students to consider much more than their possible future salaries. What can someone do with a history major? What careers exist in medicine besides being a doctor? “I’m more about, Find your passion,” Ms. Lambert says, “and figure out what you can do with that.”
Variables Abound
Letting prospective students know what they might earn “in the broadest terms” is important, says Jim McCorkell, chief executive of College Possible, a nonprofit organization that helps low-income students get into and succeed in college. Comparing the salaries of workers with and without college degrees can provide a corrective to all the rhetoric questioning the value of a higher education — a narrative Mr. McCorkell worries could dissuade low-income, first-generation students from going.
But when salary numbers get more specific, Mr. McCorkell is less sure they’re useful. Students who visit the College Scorecard are encouraged to “compare schools now” and to consider earnings alongside two other measures — a college’s graduation rate and its “average annual cost.”
Perhaps comparisons along those lines could help prospective students avoid predatory colleges, he says. Beyond that, he says, “I’m not quite sure what to make out of the earnings in terms of distinguishing colleges.”
As Louise Larsen sees it, affordability nearly always deserves consideration in the college search. Ms. Larsen, who teaches Spanish at a public high school in New Jersey and does college consulting on the side, also believes that there are cases in which expected earnings should play into college choice. But not because students will see vastly different earnings if they choose one college over another. The key difference, as she sees it, is debt.
When students tell Ms. Larsen they want to be teachers, she tells them that they’re choosing a great career — and that they’ll thank themselves later if they don’t take on too much debt to pursue it. That means finding an affordable college option.
Whatever prospective students gain from looking at earnings, they’ll gain by considering them in context. After all, lots of variables unaccounted for in college-level earnings data will play into what you’re paid: your major, whether you graduate, the broader economic conditions around you, the sort of work you do, where you live, your sex and race, your job performance, and more. But most high schoolers aren’t in a position to understand all of that on their own.
College is an investment, says Joyce Serido, an associate professor of family social science at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. And anyone making that investment has much to think of beyond financial return. Some students have absorbed the message that they should go to college, she says, but they are still unclear about why — even after they’ve enrolled. Is the goal to land a good job? Is it education for education’s sake?
A sense of their own purpose should inform the choices students make, Ms. Serido says. The path from college to career unfolds over years — sometimes many years. After all the time and money they spend moving toward a professional destination, will students like where they end up?
Even if they have a career in mind, students might not realize what it will take to break into it. “College may just be the starting point for you to get the job you think this is going to lead to,” Ms. Serido says. Many desirable jobs require more time, education, and money than some students may be prepared to invest.
Besides, students may not know what the work in their chosen career would actually be like, Ms. Serido says. “Sometimes,” she says, “we get enamored of the movie-star or TV portrayal of something.” That leads some people down career paths that turn out not to be a great fit. “There are so many lawyers,” she says, “who hate law and don’t practice.”
Personal Missions
For a student who wants to earn as much as possible with only a bachelor’s degree, the advice is pretty clear: Become an engineer. But recognizing that a field pays well and having the skill set to succeed in it are two different things.
Some pathways through college are high stakes, says Laura Hamilton, an associate professor of sociology at the University of California at Merced. Majoring in biology, continuing on to medical school, and becoming a doctor can be a fulfilling and lucrative trajectory. Unless it doesn’t work out. There aren’t many prospects for a biology major with a 3.0, Ms. Hamilton says. Parents with professional jobs tend to grasp those nuances. “They’re well aware,” she says, that “getting a four-year degree — just a general four-year degree — is no guarantee of anything.”
But families unfamiliar with college might overlook those details. And students who grow up in low-income households and communities may not have the same level of exposure to professional paths as do their more-advantaged peers. That’s problematic because low-income students have less room for error. After all, the urgency of making a good living right after graduation depends in part on parents’ ability to buoy their children’s financial lives after college.
With all of that in mind, what does a smarter conversation about college and career look like? Students need to have a backup in case their initial plan falls through, says Greg Johnson, chief operations officer of Bottom Line, a nonprofit organization that helps low-income students into and through college. Above all, he says, they must realize how crucial it is that they graduate.
With students coming to college from such different backgrounds, earning a good living is a matter of perspective. Rosalva Aguilar is a high-school senior in New York who participates in Bottom Line. Ms. Aguilar, who works at a day-care center during the summer and volunteers there during the school year, wants to major in early-childhood education. “I know that teachers don’t make that much money,” she says, “but I’m very passionate.”
She’s comfortable with her plan. “It’s better to have a job you love than a job you’re miserable in,” Ms. Aguilar says. As for her parents, “they think being a teacher is really good,” she says. Teachers earn more than her family does.
Mr. McCorkell, of College Possible, is frustrated by the debate over whether college is about earning a living or building a life. Those ideas don’t have to be in tension, he says. Isn’t the point for students to discover work they are passionate about?
Discovering the doors that college can open, and deciding which one to walk through, is a big undertaking, one that doesn’t end at the point of choosing a college. So perhaps salary data works best as a jumping-off point for more personalized questions. How well those questions are answered depends on who’s on hand to sort out what those numbers really mean.
Beckie Supiano writes about college affordability, the job market for new graduates, and professional schools, among other things. Follow her on Twitter @becksup, or drop her a line at beckie.supiano@chronicle.com.
