Students don’t know what they’re getting when they pick a college — data can fix that

Michelle Weise:

When it comes to higher education, so much of what we buy is a black box.

Most students don’t know how much they’ll pay prior to enrollment, let alone where their predecessors landed jobs after graduation. Were they able to pay off their debt? How meaningful did they find the work they were doing after they had graduated?

Besides slick brochures, television advertisements, and highway billboards, little exists beyond U.S. News and World Report’s often criticized rankings to help students and families make sense of what is often one of the largest investments of their lives.

Hidden for most is the fact that while