On Tuesday, President Obama delivered his annual State of the Union address. It was quite a speech, encompassing many issues that were neglected by this administration during the first term including climate change, equal pay for women, and most perhaps immediate to Her Campus readers, higher education. The President fully realizes that the cost of education is ridiculously high for our generation, so his administration created a tool for high school and college students to examine the cost and benefit of attending certain colleges. This tool, called the “College Scorecard” is available for anyone to use at http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/education/higher-education/college-score-card, but it can be a little confusing to tell what the numbers actually mean. Let’s take a look at how Merrimack did, and what this means for current and future Merrimack College students.Â
Costs- Merrimack’s Score: $26,003/year
The cost section lists the average net price for undergraduates at Merrimack per year. “Net price” means what students pay after awards, grants, and scholarships. Any sort of financial aid that you don’t have to pay back is subtracted from the net price. Merrimack rests in the “high cost” category out of low, medium, and high. The good news is that the price decreased 15% from 2007 to 2009 (it typically takes 3-4 years for financial data to be federally examined.) Most colleges raised their costs during this time.
Graduation Rate- Merrimack’s Score: 69.8%
The graduation rate section reports what percent of students receive their bachelor’s degree within 6 years. This only includes full time students who have never enrolled in college before. Again, Merrimack is ranked “high” in this category out of low, medium, and high.
Loan Default Rate- Merrimack’s Score: 4.6%
Student loans are a huge stress factor for college students. Once you graduate or leave college for any reason, you need to start paying them back at a predetermined time. Private student loans are more flexible in terms of when you need to start paying them back, but if you have federal loans you must start paying them back 6 months after graduation/withdrawal, but you have up to 30 years to pay them off completely. Merrimack stacks up reasonable well to the national average on Loan Default Rate (13.4%.)
Median Borrowing- Merrimack’s Score: $21,500
Loan Payment over 10 years: $247.42/mo
The median borrowing figure refers to the median (middle) amount a student and his or her family borrows from the federal government over the course of undergraduate study. Keep in mind that this figure does not reflect private loans. The loan payment over ten years shows how much a graduate pays per month with a ten-year payment plan. Keep in mind that a ten-year plan is not the only option. Many students opt for longer payment plans. Merrimack ranks “high” of low, medium, and high in this category.
Employment
The employment category of the College Scorecard is still in the research phase. Once the Department of Education is finished collecting data, this section will reflect the average earnings and income of graduates who borrowed federal loans.
What does this mean?
Merrimack is expensive, but not much more expensive than colleges similar to it. Unlike many colleges, Merrimack’s cost has decreased and there is hope that this trend will continue. Merrimack has a higher than average graduation rate. The number of Merrimack graduates who default on their federal loans is 8.8% lower than the national average. Compared to the national average, more Merrimack students have the means to pay off their loans, which is an indication of employment and financial stability among graduates.
Overall: Merrimack has high costs, but according to federal data these costs are generally manageable to graduates.