College shopping made easy?

The Obama administration is undertaking an initiative which aims to provide high school students with additional information about colleges in order to augment the student’s decision making process. The proposal creates easy-to-access and easy-to-read information sheets that include facts and figures that are often unpublished by universities. According to the New York Times, the system will take the following shape: “The new federal Consumer Financial Protection bureau has developed a preliminary version of a one-page ‘shopping sheet’ with data from the colleges that will allow students to learn how much they will need to pay, what they will owe, how the school ranks nationally in net cost and whether students who have graduated are earning enough money to repay their loans.” The administration is effectively making nutrition facts for universities. The current university-ranking metrics are based on information that is currently public and readily available to college-shoppers — such as average SAT scores of admitted students and the percentage of students accepted. These pieces of information are good guidelines for predicting an applicant’s probability of acceptance into a particular place, but it is not enough information for a family to decide if a given institution is a viable option for its lifestyle. The rankings as they stand now assign prestige to universities for very specific and often unhelpful things.

It is good that the government is providing the student-consumer with more information than was available before. College decisions can be more informed as a result of this measure. The government is holding universities accountable for their steadily increasing tuition regime. It is crucial, however, that the government recognizes the potential implications of providing such information in a public and easily accessible way. These “consumer sheets” can end up taking on more worth than they deserve. It is crucial that the government make it very clear that the information it is providing encompasses but a few variables in a multi-dimensional decision. College decisions are complicated. A high school student ought to be aware of university location, size, structure and general feel. Some information that is currently public includes average class sizes, student-teacher ratios and much more. The available resources must remain at the forefront of a student’s decision-making process and must not be overshadowed by a government-sanctioned ranking system.

It would be prudent for the government to recommend to those who use the new information sheet that it is important for high school students to look at published College Board material as well as the websites of the universities themselves. If the government is altering the metrics by which students choose their colleges, then it ought to state that the newly released information is a piece of a larger puzzle. That is, the government should make it clear that it is not replacing existing rankings, but rather coloring the broader picture more fully. This disclaimer is particularly important for those high school students who don’t have access to college-advising resources, and would, perhaps, use the government-released data as a major decision-making point.

President Obama has proposed that the government may eventually pull money away from universities that score poorly on the new ranking scale and transfer that money to institutions that are better deals for the students who attend. This may be rash and unhelpful given that some students could choose to go to a university for a variety of reasons — only one of which is good value. Furthermore, the government would be sending the message that its score cards are the most crucial data set for decision-making.

One’s finances should not necessarily be the central criterion for choosing a college. Students do not merely go to school to get jobs afterward. Students pursue higher education to learn more about the world, make lifelong friends, expand their networks of contacts, gain exposure to new perspectives and develop emotionally. Whether or not a specific college is a good monetary venture is important, but other things are important, too. If the government plans to cut funding from schools that get smaller returns on investment, it could be hurting students who chose a school that is less economically sound, but provides them with a plethora of other experiences that they had deemed important.

Ultimately, the more information provided to the people making decisions, the better. The government ‘sincreasing transparency in the college system is a good thing; it creates more checks and balances in a mostly unregulated system. The government must realize though that no single set of figures dictates what makes a good college, or at least a good fit for a particular student.

Aaron Applbaum is a sophomore from Oakland, Calif. He can be reached at applbaum@princeton.edu.