The first time I heard of “college” was when my father had told me about his college experience as an immigrant. Without any resources apart from the word of friends and relatives who also had minimal contact with western education, my father decided to attend whichever college that was willing to accept him as long as it wasn’t too expensive. If no college accepted him, he would find work wherever he could. Accepted into the University of Massachusetts as an electrical engineering major, he only learned the location of the campus on his train ride there.

Thirty-three years later, college has become a necessity for most of America’s youth, but as debt from student loans accumulates nationwide, choosing the right college is more important than ever.

In 2010, 59 percent of all jobs in America required a high school diploma. Based on projections by the Georgetown Center for Education, that number will be 65 percent in 2020. In response, Congress created the  College Scorecard, a website which provides the information, such as average annual cost and post-college salary, for several colleges. The site is managed by the U.S. Department of Education and targets applicants who will likely need financial aid. Though a step in the right direction, there are gaping holes in the government’s solution to the college selection conundrum. The website’s simple comparisons and incompleteness of data prevent it from reaching its potential. Instead, the site promotes the oversaturation of the workforce into very limited fields.

The College Scorecard provides important statistics, but it fails to paint an accurate picture of the programs provided from each school. Many colleges are missing their average annual cost, post-college salary, and graduation rate, and popular international colleges are not shown at all.

As a result, choosing a college boils down to cost, graduation rate, salary and university reputation. Though this methodical process seems like the most practical one, applicants, allured by high post-graduate incomes, might choose colleges with programs unsuitable to them. Attending an expensive college with no immediate return on investment or with programs that do not match one’s interests can financially set back the average American significantly.  

The changes do not just affect applicants. As the judgment of education becomes more statistically focused, colleges must adjust also. To become more attractive to candidates, colleges must lower their costs and increase their graduation rates and attempt to increase annual post-graduate salary. Cutting out extracurricular programs and retract their support from clubs is a quick way to accomplish this. Individual interests, student activism, and other things important to the college experience will fade. Students from certain colleges may experience reductions in quality or quantity of amenities, such as dorms, cafeterias, and socializing areas.

Academically, the Scorecard incentivizes colleges to reduce funding in high-risk and comparatively low-salary majors and to funnel all students into low-risk, high income professions such as accounting, computer science and healthcare. According to a report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers, the median starting annual salary for graduates with an engineering degree was $64,367, $49,035 for graduates with business degrees, and $36,237 for graduates liberal arts and humanities degrees. As low-risk, high income professions become oversaturated, new graduates may find themselves out of work while other industries will experience an occupational deficit.

The encouragement of entrepreneurship and innovation will decline as the risk of failure is too high, and art programs will be all but forgotten in non-specialty colleges. Many potential visionaries will be bogged down in the college process and will be corralled into the safe path to success as the damage that accumulating college debt without a high-income job post-graduation is too great.

The College Scorecard must include more comprehensive, relevant statistics, such as post-college salary by major, to improve upon the black and white comparison that it has now. Only then can the youth of the U.S. attend the appropriate universities to compete in the diverse, global economy.

This piece was originally published in the pages of the Winged Post on Oct. 16, 2015.