Skip to main contentAre you a graduate of an Oregon college? Want to make tons of money?
Turns out you might've been better off going to the the University of Phoenix.
Yes, that University of Phoenix. The for-profit diploma mill that's been losing enrollment and dropping staff by the hundreds while under federal investigation for false promises, high debt loads, low graduation rates and all-around exploitation.
But still: Measured by future salary ten years after enrollment, students who went to the University of Phoenix did better than Reedies.
In a move much ballyhooed by President Obama, the feds released statistics September 12 on the future earnings of students in every college in America.
And right behind OHSU—whose students average salaries of $74,100 ten years after entering school—the enrollees at the University of Phoenix branch in Tigard ended up as the second-highest-salaried group of alumni in Oregon.
The median salary 10 years after enrolling at business-and-marketing-oriented Phoenix was $53,400.
Linfield grads pull in a fairly respectable $51,300—an average I'm doing my best to drag down as an alumnus. And University of Portland grads did likewise well, pulling $51,700, with Willamette University not far behind at $49,200.
The big state schools performed surprisingly: kids from land-granters Oregon State made $5,000 more than the ones from Nike-flush University of Oregon, at $46,400 and $41,400, respectively. Portland State outperformed U of O by $1,000.
But among Portland's two most prestigious privates, Lewis and Clark students end up making $10,000 less than Phoenix, at $43,400. Reed College students make a mere $36,200, one of the lowest figures out of Oregon four-year institutions that aren't tiny religious institutions or art schools. (And you don't even want to know how bad PNCA kids fare, but we'll drop a hint. They're under $25K).
The most surprising statistic? Ten years out, about 49% of Reed graduates do worse financially than people who only have a high school degree.
Don't go rushing to Phoenix just yet, however.
Note that that there are a number of variables that make these direct comparisons spotty—especially when predicting earnings down the road. The website tracks median income 10 years after first enrolling, which means PhD-program feeder schools like Reed may be hamstrung by all the poor grad students toiling away at their theses. The site—essentially meant to provide return-on-investment information for schools—does not provide comparable information after 20 years, when all those physics PhDs have come down the pipe.
And age is also not controlled for, meaning those Phoenix folk might also have a many-year headstart in the workplace on the rest of the field.
There may also be a reason for that federal investigation: Phoenixes average about $35,000 in debt, more than twice that of the average Reedie, who owes a mere $16,000 despite $26K in average annual costs after federal aid (thanks, mom!) or the Lewis and Clark kid, who remains a mere $22,390 in the hole after graduation despite $32K average annual costs (thanks, dad!).
By comparison, University of Oregon and Oregon State University grads both averaged about $22,000 in the hole—even with lower costs than the privates.
Go here for a New York Times analysis of the national figures—including the huge gender gap in income for graduates of elite institutions, and statistics for Bennington "Rules of Attraction" College that pretty much mirror Reed's.
Here are the top schools in Oregon, ranked by income of their students ten years after enrollment. Full federal statistics here.
1. Oregon Health and Science University - $74,100
2. University of Phoenix, Oregon Campus - $53,400
3. University of Portland - $51,700
4. Linfield College—Nursing - $51,300
5. Linfield College—McMinnville - $51,300
6. Oregon Institute of Technology - $50,100
7. Willamette University - $49,200
8. Oregon State - Bend Campus - $46,400
9. Oregon State - Corvallis - $46,400
10. Lewis and Clark - $43,400
WWeek 2015