Educate to Career, Inc. (ETC), a California-based nonprofit, announces the release of its 2017 ETC College Rankings Index. Educate To Career offers educational attainment data to academia and colleges throughout the U.S. Over 2,200 colleges rely on ETC’s outcomes data for college and career planning development.
The 2017 ETC College Rankings Index is not just another compilation showcasing Ivy League schools. ETC’s methodology empirically ranks schools by economic value created for their students. For example- ranked #20, CA State University-Long Beach is a good exemplar of a college that performs well in our Index. CSU-Long Beach enrolls significant numbers of lower-income, minority students- offering low net tuition (so they are not burdened with onerous student loans). The faculty do a stellar job of graduating a relatively high percentage of their students and preparing them for jobs that lead to real careers. CSU-Long Beach is one of many state schools from around the country that do an exceptional job of preparing students for the real working world.
“The 2017 College Rankings Index highlights the schools which have excelled at graduating students on a timely basis and preparing them for the workforce,” according to Michael Havis, President of Educate To Career. “Young people face a myriad of challenges, including unemployment, underemployment, shifting industry trends, and a job-market where employers have a vast pool of potential candidates from which to choose from. The ETC Index identifies the colleges that have a proven track record of graduating students and preparing them for the labor market.”
“Using our outcome-focused methodology, the Index empirically determines the economic value added by each of the over 1000 colleges ranked within our system.” Mr. Havis goes on to explain, “The most substantive change for 2017 was that we significantly increased the weighting of graduation rates in relation to other factors in our methodology. College graduation rates are considerably lower than they are assumed to be, and successfully graduating college is a central predictor of labor market success and the ability of a student to pay off loans. Other category weightings were also adjusted to further refine our Index.”
ETC’s charter is to ensure that students have access to facts and data enabling them to make informed decisions so as to succeed at college- going on to secure stable careers, pay off student loans, and become contributing members to society.
Educate To Career considers its ETC College Rankings Index to be the most authentic college rankings index available. Mr. Havis explains, “Other ranking systems are ranking colleges based on the academic caliber of their students, while we rank colleges on the value-added by the school.” Mr. Havis further states, “The schools in the top third of our rankings a doing a good job for their students, while those in the bottom third need improvement.” Unlike other ranking systems, Educate To Career neither requests nor accepts data from colleges themselves. All data are pulled from publicly available sources.
The ETC College Rankings Index is found on the Educate To Career website, along with Educate To Career’s other leading-edge college and career planning tools.
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