Kaleb Poor
A new tool developed by the U.S. Dept. of Education is providing prospective and current college students with powerful new insight into the cost and value of specific college degrees nationwide.
The tool, known as the “College Scorecard,” provides the public with significant data on publicly-funded colleges and universities across the United States, including the University of Wyoming. Among the information available are enrollment numbers, demographic information on student populations, average ACT and SAT test scores, graduation and retention rates and more.
Perhaps most noteworthy is the College Scorecard’s information on degree-specific debt and earnings rates. When searching for specific schools, any person can find information of how much student loan debt they can expect to graduate with and how much they can expect to earn in their field after graduation based on the degree they earned.
This new version of the College Scorecard, which was released earlier this year, has been widely received as an improvement to previous versions. A recent Forbes article gave the College Scorecard a C-minus rating, citing incomplete data and an unfriendly user layout. The article noted that the updated Scorecard does not provide data for all degree programs and does not include information from all of a school’s graduates.
According to the College Scorecard, students graduating from the University of Wyoming can expect to spend $13,070 annually on tuition, living costs, books and fees. That comes to $52,280 over four years.
UW students can expect to earn between $25,000 and $64,000 during their first year following graduation. Median total loan debt for those same students falls between $9,312 – $26,995, again depending heavily upon the degree earned and individual circumstances.
Sara Muhsman, a coordinator with UW Financial Affairs, said students may have varying levels of debt depending on whether they are in-state or out-of-state students.
“If you’re a Wyoming resident students tend to borrow less, especially because of the Hathaway,” Muhsman said. “But with our cost of attendance the way it is, it’s sometimes more affordable for out-of-state students to come here.”
Students can also explore debt costs in terms of monthly payments. UW graduates’ median student debt payments fell between $98-280 per month when enrolled in a 10-year payment plan.
The graphic below highlights median debt and earnings for some popular undergraduate degrees at UW.
