click on image to enlargeLong time readers of this blog know that from time to time I present information regarding the academic excellence work being done by the American Council of Trustees & Alumni (ACTA) – mostly ACTA's critique rating & grading of over 1,100 American colleges & universities – see WhatWillTheyLearn. ACTA not only reports the evaluation results of the schools but works with the schools to improve their grades. The best example is the University of Georgia that improved from an "F" to an "A" & a charter member of this readership has a daughter who is new University of Georgia graduate with countless job offers & unlimited potential – the sky is the limit for this girl.
On January 30, @ the National Press Club, ACTA publicly launched their new website entitled HowCollegesSpendMoney. Just like the aforementioned website that evaluates the schools' academics this website puts college spending of almost 1,500 schools under close scrutiny.
ACTA reports that two thirds of college students graduate with an average of over $28,000 in student debt & that the price of tuition continues to rise even faster than healthcare costs. See graphic below.
click on graphic to enlargeThe following graphic shows the inevitable result of such tuition escalation - the default levels of the last two quarters have each exceeded $100 billion.
click on graphic to enlargeThe new ACTA website shows how colleges spend their money so that not only parents & students know where their money goes @ all of the 1,500 universities studied but so do trustees, policymakers, & other higher education decision makers so there is a common ground of financial understanding for all concerned.
After bringing up the website online you can click on the tour of the website to get a capsule view of everything included.
For each school you will learn how much of tuition goes for instruction & how much goes for administration, the upward or downward trend in inflation-adjusted costs, tuition as a percentage of state median household income, graduations rates, & the all-important full time retention rate.
Who would want to owe a large student loan for a poor education with no job potential only to find out you had given your money to an institution with an exorbitant amount of overhead & administration costs meaning you had financed some bureaucrat's salary.
The above two ACTA websites are resources that help you narrow your selection to find a college that will provide a first rate education @ the lowest price.
How valuable is that?
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