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It’s no secret that the cost of college has risen dramatically over the past ten years. At the same time, the job market has been very difficult for most people. The goal of our site is to provide information that will help prospective students find and complete degrees that might actually move their careers forward.
In a way, all the information they might need is already out there. It’s just spread out across a number of different locations: the federal government’s many web sites; the web sites of independent organizations like the College Board (check out their BigFuture site, by the way – it’s an incredible resource) or accrediting agencies; and the web sites of the colleges themselves.
If prospective students had infinite time on their hands, they’d be able to visit all those sites and gather the data they’re looking for. But since infinite time is hard to come by, we believe that there’s a role for us to play.
Our mission is to bring together disparate bodies of data to produce a more holistic (but also focused) view of which colleges are likely to be the best value for the money. We end up with one number, an Affordability Score, with two main parts, a “Getting In” score and a “Getting Out” score.
We use these two measures because we think that most of the resources about college affordability focus too narrowly on the cost of getting to college. We think it’s just as important to look at what happens when you get out. Do students get out with degrees? Or do they drop out halfway through with a bunch of credits they still owe money for? And once they’ve gotten out, are they able to repay their student loans?
If you’re interested, you can read a more detailed explanation of our ranking methodology here.
CollegeAffordabilityGuide.org was launched in 2013 by Degree Prospects, a small team based in Washington, DC that has been publishing education-focused websites since 2008. The other websites we’ve created now serve millions of visitors every year. Most of them focus on post-secondary education. If you have any questions for us, we’d be happy to answer them. Here’s how to get in touch:
To get in contact with us for updates or anything else, please email here: olm@wiley.com
For additional information, you can also consult our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Companies like ours that publish informational websites about college-related topics, unless they’re non-profits (i.e. registered 501(c)(3) entities), typically make money from university advertisers. We’re no exception. This site is currently supported by advertising revenues from other websites we run.
Absolutely not. Even the big nonprofits have to have a revenue model. Take the College Board, for example. As we said above, their BigFuture website is one of the best, most information-rich sites out there. If we didn’t already have degrees, we’d probably use it ourselves. But the writers, editors, and designers who made it that way have to be paid, and the College Board has the money to pay them because it sells lots of standardized tests (more on that here). Moreover, we only attract advertisers if the content we produce is compelling (and objective) enough to attract web visitors. In the articles and rankings we produce here, we’re not shilling for any specific college, or group of colleges. No colleges have paid us to be included, and that will never be an option.
The main reason a lot of name brand schools aren’t on these lists is that they’re not (compared to the schools that did make it) cost-effective for the lowest-income families. There are plenty of exceptions, though.
There are different release cycles for different kinds of federal data (see this, for example). We update the major data sets annually, but in between, we’re constantly monitoring the links on our site to detect things like university name changes and closures. Tip: if you want to see how up-to-date a college directory website is, check for some of the more recent name changes on a list like this.
We’re just the messenger. We set some pretty specific criteria in our methodology, and we let the chips fall where they may. That said, we plan on continually evaluating our algorithm and tweaking it as we see necessary, so the rankings may evolve over time.
We’re Here To Provide Information But Encourage You To Conduct Your Own Research
We believe everyone should be able to make educational decisions with confidence. It’s important to note that our site does not feature every university or educational option available on the market. We encourage you to perform your own independent research before making any education decisions.
This website is owned and operated by Wiley. Many of the education programs included are from our Wiley University Services partners and schools that compensate us as a paid advertiser. This may influence which educational offerings we write about and where and how they appear on a page. Our content is free and originates from many different education content writers; our views and opinions are our own and for information purposes only.
