Is a School Good or Bad?

TuitionCoin only refinances people from “good” schools. If anyone assumes we mean “ivy league,” we absolutely do not. The VAST majority of schools are “good”. Some of the best schools are public schools.

This is what the data says. Most schools, regardless of degree, lead to jobs making significantly more than high school graduates. By significantly, I mean the cost (including opportunity cost) of college pays for itself multiple times during a person’s career. The tremendous value of higher education is one of the contributors to tuition growth.

TuitionCoin rated over 4,000 schools and assigned grades from A+ to F. Ratings are primarily based on default and graduation rates. We use default rates because they are the best indicator of a schools success.

People default from student loans for two reasons. The school charged too much, or the school delivered too little value. Imagine a quadrant of cost and value. (Value being the school leads to increased earnings for graduates). I put most public schools in the top quadrant because they are cheap, and provide good value.

High Value	Ivy League	Public Schools
Low Value	Crap Schools	Community Schools
	High Cost	Low Cost

When I talk about “crap” schools, I mean schools that charge too much, AND deliver too little. These are often for-profit online schools.

My problem is primarily the cost. It would be okay if on-line schools were significantly cheaper than brick-and-mortar schools. But, and this is what is crazy. Many for profit, on-line institutions charge MORE than public brick and mortar schools. Of course people are defaulting from those schools. They charge a ton and on average aren’t delivering enough value.

The other issue I have is low graduation rates. I think schools should take some responsibility in supporting enrolled students and making sure they can get to graduation. People who don’t graduate, don’t end up with degrees that lead to higher paying jobs, yet they still have the student loans. This is one area that brick-and-mortar schools excel at. They invest in advisors, and foster a community that supports people toward graduation.

This does not mean ALL on-line schools are bad. There is absolutely a marketplace for on-line schools that charge a fraction of what traditional schools charge. They are on-line. They should be able to deliver content and education at a fraction of the cost. If they did, people wouldn’t default from them, because the debt wouldn’t be that high. And YES, TuitionCoin would absolutely refinance people from on-line schools with low default rates.

To be fair, I should also point out that many for-profit online schools are aware of the public out-cry and are working towards improving graduation rates, and lowering default rates. They are not where they need to be. But they are improving.

Default rates are a good proxy for success of a school; but I REALLY WISH we had two other data points.

First, I wish we had a comprehensive test on entering college and on graduation. This would demonstrate that a school improves a person’s knowledge-economy capabilities. It is really tough to distinguish between a schools performance and a schools entrance criteria. In other words, if a prestigious school only accepts geniuses; only geniuses will graduate; regardless of the education provided. If we had these tests, schools could show their ability to increase capabilities.

Second, it would be awesome if the government provided aggregate data tying social security earnings to graduates of different schools/degrees.