While President Barack Obama’s new college scorecard is a progressive development in providing a comprehensive database of information, college applicants must be aware that there are additional factors that determine the true value of a school.

The scorecard, which was announced in Obama’s weekly address to the country on Saturday, uses Internal Revenue Service data about how much money graduates earn, what percentage of a school’s students can pay back their loans and their debt upon graduation to rate public and private institutions of higher education on their value to students.

The decision to base the scorecard on the value of a school, rather than the popularized factor of affordability, is relevant to all students pursuing a higher education. But while the Obama administration’s scorecard is a tool that all students will be able to reference, these prospective students must acknowledge that this data is just one part of a multifaceted decision.

Syracuse University’s data, which was released along with the new scorecard, showed that it is above the national average in average annual cost ($28,912), graduation rate (81 percent) and salary after attending ($56,600). The typical total debt from federal loans is $27,000, according to the data.

But every student is different when it comes to their financial standing going into and graduating from SU, which creates some deception in the scorecard system. Finances can be influenced by different academic choices of study, which have nothing to do with the value of an academic program or the nature of a university’s campus culture. Some careers simply have higher salaries.

Because this data cannot measure how happy a student is with their college choice, the scorecard must be regarded as an accessible, supplemental source of information in the application process to provide prospective applicants with a realistic expectation of the economic logistics of their degree.

The new scorecard’s centralization of numerical data rather than subjective information is a useful resource that students and their families should take advantage of to place their university options into perspective. However, prospective applicants must realize that this data is only one factor to take into consideration when determining the true value of a higher education.

Published on September 13, 2015 at 11:43 pm

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