Dartblog

Here’s one of those Wall street Journal charts that leave me scratching my head. First of all, the ranking is curious: the Harvard kids are earning $96k/year a decade after graduation, and it’s downhill from there for other schools. Penn is next at $80k, and graduates of the College are only earning a median average of $65k per year. What about all those kids in private equity and consulting who started at >$100k right after Commencement, or the B-school grads and lawyers who should be making well over $200k by now? Shouldn’t they bring the median up?

Also, note the tight grouping of median average total student debt: Harvard is the low man at $7k; Columbia kids owe $27k; and alumni of the College are in hock for $12k. None of those numbers seem outrageous when you divide them over four years of education.

Addendum: An alumnus writes in:

It took me forever to find Dartmouth on the WSJ chart. I think they used a small version of the logo generally used by the athletic department (which is not aesthetically appealing). If someone in PR wants to burnish Dartmouth’s image, they should start with a more prominent logo. How about using the College seal like many of our peers?

Addendum: An alumnus writes in:

I saw the note today about the $65K figure ten years out. It’s worth mentioning that Dartmouth actually used to be at the top of that same statistic ($135K at least according to Forbes in 2008).