LONDON, ENG. — On September 12th America’s Department of Education unveiled a “college scorecard” website containing a cornucopia of data about universities. The government generated the numbers by matching individuals’ student-loan applications to their subsequent tax returns, making it possible to compare pupils’ qualifications and demographic characteristics when they entered college with their salaries ten years later. That information offers the potential to disentangle student merit from university contributions, and thus to determine which colleges deliver the greatest return and why.

“The Econimist’s” first-ever college rankings are based on a simple, if debatable, premise: the economic value of a university is equal to the gap between how much money its graduates and former students earn, and how much they might have made had they studied elsewhere. Thanks to the scorecard, the first number is easily accessible. The second, however, can only be estimated.

Indiana colleges were ranked as follows, with expected earnings and median earnings in parentheses:

23. Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology ($70,532/$78,900)

75. Butler University ($46,780/$52,400)

97. Wabash College ($44,721/$49,900)

193. University of Notre Dame ($66,059/$69,400)

226. DePauw University ($44,883/$47,800)

312. Saint Mary’s College ($43,506/$45,600)

338. University of Indianapolis ($39,693/$41,600)

358. Franklin College ($39,249/$41,000)

393. Holy Cross College ($34,816/$36,300)

432. Hanover College ($43,182/$44,400)

479. Manchester University ($37,023/$38,000)

487. Indiana University-Bloomington ($44,380/$45,300)

551. Ball State University ($38,495/$39,000)

572. Purdue University-Main Campus ($52,267/$52,600)

731. Indiana University-Northwest ($36,613/$35,900)

744. Marian University ($41,203/$40,400)

783. Indiana University-Southeast ($35,061/$34,000)

792. University of Saint Francis-Fort Wayne ($41,111/$40,000)

794. Indiana State University ($37,120/$36,000)

808. University of Southern Indiana ($36,715/$35,500)

871. Indiana University-Kokomo ($35,254/$33,600)

885. Anderson University ($37,645/$35,900)

888. Indiana University-South Bend ($35,564/$33,800)

895. Huntington University ($37,316/$35,500)

922. Valparaiso University ($50,146/$48,100)

959. Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis ($41,425/$39,100)

962. Grace College and Theological Seminary ($35,563/$33,200)

966. Goshen College ($38,693/$36,300)

976. Indiana University-East ($31,540/$29,100)

1038. Indiana Wesleyan University ($48,937/$46,000)

1070. Oakland City University ($36,958/$33,700)

1100. Bethel College-Indiana ($39,998/$36,500)

1132. Indiana University-Purdue University-Fort Wayne ($39,845/$35,900)

1134. University of Evansville ($43,969/$40,000)

1140. Purdue University-Calumet Campus ($42,226/$38,100)

1149. Saint Josephs College ($44,087/$39,800)

1184. Trine University ($47,396/$42,600)

1195. Taylor University ($43,706/$38,600)

1212. Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College ($35,581/$30,200)

1220. Purdue University-North Central Campus ($40,968/$35,200)

1272. Earlham College ($42,902/$32,300)

The Economist says “for students who want to know which colleges are likely to boost their future salaries by the greatest amount, given their qualifications and preferences regarding career and location, we hope these rankings prove helpful. They should not be used for any other purpose.”

Source: The Economist