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College Scorecard enhanced with more information

By Beth Ziehmer

December 03, 2020

Prospective college students can make better-informed decisions about careers and colleges with recent enhancements to the College Scorecard.

On December 2, the Department of Education announced a redesign of the College Scorecard, a tool which students can use to search and compare colleges and find out about their fields of study, costs, admissions, and results.

With the redesign, students can find customized and relevant data on potential debt and earnings based on fields of study. In addition, the scorecard provides information on graduation rates and information on apprenticeships.

According to the announcement, students will now have access to information on the median earnings and median debt of a school's graduates, based on their chosen field of study.

“That means, for example, a student interested in studying engineering can now compare outcomes, such as first-year earnings and student loan debt, among engineering programs within an institution and among those offered at other schools. Students will be able to see if a career and technical education program at a two-year institution might generate a higher return on investment than a more traditional program at a four-year institution. Rather than having to rely on reputation-based rankings, the Scorecard will also allow students to choose a program based on the outcomes of students who have already completed that program.”

Previously, Scorecard users could only see the median earnings and median debt at the institutional level.