Tools – comparing colleges

There are three websites that are really useful for comparing colleges and building your college list.

  • collegescorecard.ed.gov
    • tells you how much you’ll make, on average, 10 years after you’ve graduated from a given school
    • can search by name of school or size, location, program, other characteristics
Screenshot of College Scorecard
Search for a college on College Scorecard and you can view annual cost, graduation rate, and salary 10 years after graduation (among other metrics)
  • collegeresults.org
    • this has TONS of stats that you may never knew existed, such as:
      • underrepresented minority graduation rates
      • Pell grant recipient graduation rates
      • graduation rates by race and/or gender
    • you can also compare similar colleges
    • it also identifies schools that are “engines of inequality” – schools that do not do a good job of supporting students from working-class and low-income families
College Results identifies schools which are engines of inequality
  • bigfuture.collegeboard.orgthis allows you to see how much need a particular college meets, and what percentage of students get their full need met
On Big Future, search for a school, click Paying, then Financial Aid By the Numbers to view how much need they meet, what percentage of it comes from scholarships/grants, and what percentage of students had their full need met

You can find more information about building your college list here!

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