Many students would automatically select College ABC because its cost is much lower. But, that logic only takes into account one of several important factors, and it focuses exclusively on a short-term benefit at the expense of a potential long-term payoff.

 

Don’t forget that college isn’t an expense; it’s an investment. You’re only going to pay tuition for the next 4 years, but you’ll be earning a salary for the next 40 years. So, you should consider College XYZ more than you initially did because its average salary is much higher.

 

You can start to see the problem here. Looking at each metric individually doesn’t work. You need to look at colleges more holistically. In other words, you need a way to combine multiple metrics into one overall score. Until now, you really only had one option: college rankings. We’ve all heard about the problems with rankings. One of the biggest is that they don’t give much weight to issues that are most important to FGLI students.

 

Fortunately, you now have alternative to using traditional college rankings – one that is designed to meet the unique needs of first-generation and limited-income students.