Executive Editor
Millions of students each year are putting thousands of dollars into the hands of an institution for a higher education, hoping to get a good return on their investment.
Last month, Payscale released a report comparing the cost of attending college and the return of investment. The College of Saint Rose was ranked 88th in New York with a 2013 cost of $161,000 and a 20-year return of investment of $35,450.
Those numbers gave Saint Rose an average of 1.2 percent on the annual RIO. All the data used by Payscale are self-reported.
“As the report indicates, not every college can report a positive return on the investment,” Interim College President Maggie Kirwin said. “However, we consumers must always keep in mind that the most important return on investment for a college education is the positive transformation that college graduates likely experience in their lives.”
The report ranked colleges in order of the top calculated 20-year ROI. The 20-year ROI includes the total income that a graduate will earn after graduation in 20 years of working, minus both what they would have earned as a high school graduate and the cost of college, and minus the average financial aid amount awarded to students at that school.
The cost to attend college includes tuition, room and board, books and supplies, which is weighted for the length of time it takes most students to graduate with a bachelor’s degree.
Payscale also reported Saint Rose had a 65 percent graduation rate.
“There are a number of these reports out there that try to quantify the value of an education, and to put a dollar and cents value on something that is in many cases you can’t do that,” said Marcus Buckley, chief operating officer and vice president for finance and administration for Saint Rose.
Buckley said there are so many other good measures and factors that go into deciding which college to attend, and it shouldn’t be based just on the Payscale report.
“It’s a snapshot, it’s a reference point,” Buckley said. “I certainly hope nobody is deciding whether or not to go to any school on the basis of just that.”
Since the report is only using data on bachelor’s degrees, that means statistics for master’s degrees were not included in it. Lisa Keating, director of institution research for the College, said not including master’s degrees in the data plays a big role since the school of education is a huge part of Saint Rose. And those who graduate with a bachelor’s degree in education typically earn a master’s degree within five years.
“So that pretty much wipes out a lot of our people,” Keating said.
“It’s hard to compare Saint Rose with even Siena, for example, where many of their students do have the bachelor’s degree and not necessarily the master’s degree,” said Lisa Thomson, vice president for public relations and strategic communications for the College. “But we are a very different institution in that way.”
Siena College was placed 67th with a 2013 cost of $169,900 and a 20-year return of investment of $182,200. According to Payscale, Siena also has a 50-50 split on the female to male ratio, compared to Saint Rose, which has a 65-35 female to male ratio.
“What it actually says is in this date, 2014, there’s still a salary difference between males and females,” Thomson said.
According to a study released in 2012 by the American Association of University Women, full-time working women, on average, earn 82 percent of what their male counterparts earn upon graduating college. Those numbers are based off the 2009 U.S. Department of Education statistics.
Payscale reported Saint Rose females who graduate with a bachelor’s degree had a salary range of $34,754 to $54,668, while male graduates had a range of $41,789 to $75,836.
“I think it’s the biggest reveal out of it all,” Keating said.
Along with gender, the different field that a college offers also plays a big role. Many of the schools that rank at the top of the RIO report are technology schools, which offer some of the fastest growing careers in the nation.
Le Moyne College, which has similar enrollment numbers as Saint Rose, had a 2013 cost of $169,800 and a 20-year return investment of $210,300. But Le Moyne also offers a field for orthopedic physician assistant, which has an average salary of $88,928 per year. Saint Rose doesn’t have a program for orthopedic physician assistant.
Thomson said this report would be discussed further in future meetings.
“We really keep an eye on all of this, and it definitely informs our conversations,” Thomson said. “The last time this came out, we talked about it at cabinet, we talk about it in leadership circles.”
Another local college that was ranked on the report was UAlbany, which was placed 24th with a 2013 cost of $85,560 and a 20-year return of investment of $368,600 for in-state students. Sage College of Albany was not ranked in the report.
Topping the Payscale report on return of investment was Polytechnic Institute of New York University with a 2013 cost of $223,900 and a 20-year return of investment of $724,500. At the bottom of the list was Nazareth College of Rochester with a 2013 cost of $166,900 and a 20-year return of investment of -$27,500.
The full report can be seen at www.payscale.com.
