How Does UT Fare on President Obama’s College Scorecard?

By Andrew Roush in Promote & Protect on February 13, 2013 at 12:14 pm | No Comments

In his State of the Union address, the President spoke about college affordability and accountability. We compare UT against its national peer group.

On Tuesday night, President Barack Obama urged American colleges and universities to focus on affordability.

Here’s an excerpt:

Through tax credits, grants, and better loans, we have made college more affordable for millions of students and families over the last few years. But taxpayers cannot continue to subsidize the soaring cost of higher education. Colleges must do their part to keep costs down, and it’s our job to make sure they do. Tonight, I ask Congress to change the Higher Education Act, so that affordability and value are included in determining which colleges receive certain types of federal aid. And tomorrow, my Administration will release a new “College Scorecard” that parents and students can use to compare schools based on a simple criteria: where you can get the most bang for your educational buck.

As promised, the White House released its “College Scorecard” this morning. The interactive site features a few major metrics for colleges, including yearly in-state tuition and fees, six-year graduation rates, default rates on federal loans, and median student borrowing per month.

We compared UT-Austin to its national peer group using the site. UT sits near the middle of the pack on tuition and graduation rates, but trails behind the group of national research universities in defaults and borrowing. UT has recently prioritized on-time graduation to ensure more students graduate and do so with less debt. Measurements like borrowing and loan defaults can be affected by outside factors such as cost of living and employment.

Employment has yet to be added to the Scorecard. Last year, SmartMoney named UT the 3rd-best college in the nation for alumni salaries.

You can see the comparisons below.