Ranking Majors Makes More Sense Than Ranking Colleges

The 2024 U.S. News “Best Colleges” list overhauls the vaunted university-ranking outfit’s methodology to focus more on how colleges advance social mobility. Metrics related to graduates’ salaries now account for 5% of the ranking’s weights. The Wall Street Journal’s college ranking goes even further: half of the ranking’s weights come from metrics related to how well colleges increase their students’ earnings.

The new focus on economic outcomes is welcome. Landing good jobs is, after all, students’ number one reason for enrolling in higher education. Metrics such as acceptance rates, alumni giving, and endowment size—which previously formed the bedrock of the U.S. News rankings—are far less relevant to what students actually want. Most students care less about their college’s bank account than their own.

But the college-ranking revolution still misses an important component. The U.S. News and Wall Street Journal rankings focus on economic outcomes for the typical student at each college. But this “typical” student does not in fact exist. Median salaries for all graduates of a particular college conceal substantial variation by field of study.

Students would have a better sense of how they can expect to do financially after graduation if journalists ranked majors rather than colleges. According to federal data, students who study computer science at Purdue University (ranked number 300 on the Wall Street Journal’s list) can expect to earn $124,000 four years after graduation. Those who study English literature at Yale University (ranked number 3) will earn just $64,000.

The Journal highlights CUNY-Baruch College as one of the schools providing the best value. The median student at Baruch pays low tuition and enjoys a relatively high salary after graduation, meaning that the typical Baruch student quickly recoups the cost of her education.

But here, again, the “typical” Baruch student does not actually exist; the outcomes Baruch alumni can expect are contingent on what they choose to study. Graduates of Baruch’s management sciences program will earn $88,000 four years after graduation. But Baruch students who study sociology instead will earn $41,000, less than half of what their peers in the management sciences program rake in.

Those who give advice to prospective college students ought to be upfront about these differences. Merely graduating college is sometimes not enough to recoup the cost of tuition and time spent working towards the degree. Rather than ranking schools on an institution-wide basis, news outlets should consider ranking individual programs. Baruch’s management sciences program might still rank highly; its sociology degree might rank lower. Students should be aware of these nuances before they drop tens of thousands of dollars on a college education.

Constructing rankings at the program level will be useful even for students who decide to pursue majors less lucrative than computer science or engineering. High schoolers interested in psychology might like to know that graduates of the psychology program at Hamilton College earn $73,000 four years after completion. Those who study the same subject at Missouri Baptist University earn just $24,000.

Rethinking college rankings is long overdue, and it’s heartening that news outlets have begun to incorporate students’ economic outcomes into their lists. To best serve students’ interests, however, a more radical overhaul of the rankings is needed. Journalists should consider not ranking colleges at all, and focus instead on how outcomes differ depending on what major students pursue.