WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Saturday debuted a redesigned online tool with college-specific information about student costs, loans and potential earning power, scaling back a planned ratings system that critics derided as too subjective and unworkable.
The College Scorecard provides a snapshot of what former students of each school might earn, how much debt they leave with and what percentage can repay their loans.
“Everyone should be able to find clear, reliable, open data on college affordability and value,” President Barack Obama said in his weekly radio address. “Many existing college rankings reward schools for spending more money and rejecting more students — at a time when America needs our colleges to focus on affordability and supporting all students who enroll.”
The department’s original scorecard had allowed users to search schools by majors offered, ZIP code, size and campus setting, among other things.
The updated site provides fresh data to help students choose the right college, with an emphasis on cost and postgraduate results, department officials said in promoting the changes.
For example, the scorecard offers the first comprehensive look at after-college earnings for students who attended all types of undergraduate institutions, based on tax records.
Someone heading to college could see the proportion of students at a school who earned more than they would have had they entered the job market right after high school. Also available: the median earnings of former students who received federal financial aid, at 10 years after entering the school, with a comparison to the national average.
