Mark Gordon stumbled across the College Scorecard this past fall while searching online for information on college outcomes. Mr. Gordon, whose son, Zeb, is a senior in high school, realized it was the same consumer-information website that President Obama had beenpromoting.
The Scorecard provided the kind of data that Mr. Gordon was looking for. "The schools are very expensive," he said. "Now is a time when you’re looking for a great education, but you also want to make sure you’re not overpaying for a brand that doesn’t necessarily bring with it any commensurate value."
Playing around with the Scorecard’s filters brought new colleges to Mr. Gordon’s attention. Zeb, who plans to study computer science and engineering, applied to one of them, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, in Indiana. "They’re not a school that is high-profile," Mr. Gordon said, but on the Scorecard, the college stacked up well against others that are better-known.
Ever since the Scorecard — which replaced President Obama’s controversial college-ratings plan — was unveiled in September, higher-education experts have been digging through the data. They’ve explored what the numbers can tell us about colleges and documenting theirlimitations. Researchers have certainly been using the Scorecard. But what about the intended audience: people trying to make informed college choices?
So far, the curious have had to draw their conclusions from anecdotes and the Education Department’s tally of the site’s unique users: 1.3 million and still growing steadily, according to Michael Itzkowitz, director of the College Scorecard.
A new study from the College Board seeks to shed more light on the question, providing the first evidence that the Scorecard had an impact on student behavior.
Read more at The Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/article/Early-Evidence-The-College/236470