Updated 30y Football ROI

[Whiskeyjack]

I dont understand this, both schools are great... They'll apparently do whatever it takes to win.

USC and UCLA only graduate 46% and 51% of their African American football players, respectively. So regardless of how much value you ascribe to a degree from one of those schools, if a football player doesn't graduate, the "education" he received is worth very little.

 

[palinurus]

FWIW, Forbes Top Colleges:

ND #12
UCLA #45
USC #95

 

[PraetorianND]

Compared to both USC and UCLA, ND offers roughly double the degree value to Caucasian recruits, and triple the degree value to African American recruits.

No, they're not bad schools. But in light of their GSR figures, they're not offering a "top notch" education either, at least not to prospective football players.

Quality of education is not necessarily reflected by pay over a 30 year career after graduation. So yes, the education is "top notch" but perhaps UCLA grads don't make as much money as ND grads which may have little or nothing to do with the quality of education and everything to do with other factors like alumni network, choice of careers by graduates, etc. UCLA and USC are both fantastic academic schools. Ok you may make more money over your career graduating from ND but money and quality of education are two different things.

I love ND as much as anyone, hell I'm a grad. But UCLA is an outrageously good school. Comparing salaries is ONE objective way to compare the "quality" of career success of graduates of particular schools, but it does not necessarily reflect the "quality of education" which is what we are discussing here.

Money is great but it is not everything.

FWIW my step brother graduated from MIT and now makes 40k per year working at a not for profit.

 

[PraetorianND]

I agree completely that the capacity of a degree to enhance one's future earning potential should not be the end all of what constitutes a good education. But it's the only objective criterion by which we can make such comparisons, so TIWFIW.

As I've mentioned many times before, Football ROI is a recruiting tool. Virtually all blue chip recruits believe they're going to get drafted and become independently wealthy (despite the overwhelmingly bad odds), so it makes sense to sell "academics" as an insurance policy to them. From that perspective, equating academic quality with degree value is very defensible.

I'm not really sure if that's true. There are lots of factors you can look at to determine quality of education beyond income.

Quality of professors - while I dislike this tool because generally you must look at number of publications or some secondary method of appraisal, professors are the people educating the students so it stands to reason that better professors will equate to better academics. I personally like the pracademic but that is a way of measuring aside from income - law school rankings are frequently based on it (which I don't like).

Better programs - not 100% of education is based on lecturing. This may even go against my argument that UCLA is a great academic school, I don't know for sure. By programs I mean out of classroom tools for education. So, does the school have a nuclear reactor, does it have an observatory, does it have connections with art galleries, etc? Does it have parachuting or gliding (Air Force Academy)? Does it have access to biologically important resources (UCSD)?

Skills - I work at a big accounting firm and whenever we interview people from UCLA (ironically) we have trouble with them because they don't know excel and other tools as well as kids from Chapman and Fullerton. We prefer kids who have experience with the tools of our trade rather than the highest ranked school.

Now I understand that you like the ROI metric because it is purely objective, but I think that is my biggest problem with it. Because of that metric you can say that UCLA is not a good school (comparatively).

There are problems with every metric. I could use acceptance rate as my "quality of education" metric claiming that the market knows best making UCLA better than ND. I won't go into the obvious problems with this metric but it could be used to compare the schools academic quality.

I agree that ROI is a fantastic recruiting tool, and if you go to ND you do have the potential for high income over your career; but, that does not mean the quality of education is better.

 

[PraetorianND]

And now that my post has been moved to the "degree value" thread my arguments are worthless. I'm arguing quality of education not pay.

 

[PraetorianND]

Not really. I think that you could even say there is a correlation between the two. I think that your argument along with Whiskey's are mutually supportive, not mutually exclusive.

There are other ways, IMO, to rate a school objectively, but I don't think any of those things, on their own, are a sufficient indicator to rate a school as far as quality of education OR degree value.

For example, would you really care about quality of education if you weren't trying to get "degree value?" Why would you go to the school that offers the best quality of education if you didn't think you would maximize your investment in that education at that school? I mean there are certainly some exceptions to this (grad school, etc.), but it is the exception, not the rule.

And does a school that does NOT have any of the things that you talked about (that provide quality of education) really have degree value? Again, there are exceptions, but the general rule is no.

The wildcard is alumni network. I think that a solid alumni network can skew the ROI statistic a bit.

I agree with a lot of this.

An example I can think of pertains to law schools. Yale has been considered the best law school for decades. It is ranked the highest and is generally consider to offer the best "quality of education." However, it does not have the best ROI because many people who go to Yale go into teaching, clerkships, other areas of research and academia, etc.

TaxProf Blog: PayScale.com Law School Rankings by Median Salary of Recent Graduates

Columbia -- $162,000 (Starting Median Pay, Private Sector)
Harvard -- $143,000
Stanford -- $133,000
Virginia -- $130,000
Chicago -- $119,000
NYU -- $115,000
Georgetown -- $114,000
Duke -- $112,000
Northwestern -- $110,000
Michigan -- $108,000
Yale -- $107,000
Pennsylvania -- $102,000
UC-Berkeley -- $102,000
UCLA -- $96,900
USC -- $90,800
Catholic -- $85,600
Fordham -- $84,200
Cornell -- $84,100
Texas -- $84,000
San Francisco -- $83,900
Vanderbilt -- $83,700
Boston College -- $82,800
San Diego -- $82,500
UC-Hastings -- $82,500
Emory -- $80,900

Granted this is law school so take it FWIW.

 

[vmgsf]

Whiskeyjack keep on, keep on, keep on hammering the message. ROI (return on investment) for college is extremely important for everyone deciding on which college to attend. Graduation rate - what percentage of students who enroll actually graduate - is the second indispensible factor.

The relevant, the relevant, the only relevant factor here is - high school seniors who accept scholarships to play football at a a particular FBS college or university. What is the ROI? What percentage of caucausians actually graduate? What percentage of African Americans actually graduate? If a football player receives a degree, is it a JOKE degree that it totally meaningless and will not help you ever get a job or it is a meaningful degree where you actually had to learn something, get an education, go to class, study, write term papers and take exams? Where you actually had to be a student and actually earn your degree?

It is becoming increasingly and overwhelmingly apparent that an NFL career is one bad injury or one bad concussion away from being ended. If a recruit goes to Stanford I am not happy but I respect the choice. If a recruit qualifies for and rejects Notre Dame or Stanford for an SEC school like Alabama, LSU, Georgia - good luck I hope you have a 20 year career in the NFL and do not need a job after your NFL career ends.

 

[TK22867]

Where'd you go to school? There's plenty of data out there regarding average degree value.

My point exactly. You are going to look my school up on chart and thereby determine my 40-year outlook? Are you also the one who, when inteviewing candidates, looks strictly at the degree, go back to your chart, and then pick the candidate with the dgree with the highest rating to work for your company?

It may seem like I have a chip on my shoulder, but I just get offended when the only degree that is worth something (even among USC and U-Dub, in Eddie's case) is ND's.

The point I am making is that it is the candidate/student that makes the degree, not the other way around. If Eddie is driven, it won't matter where that piece of paper comes from....he'll be successful in life.

For those who think I've been trolling, I've been around this site for a while, I am just not an avid poster. Prove it you ask? Well, I remember the whole saga with "Alice" and the Tuitt flip/flop/flip very well.

I'll be happy to answer your question about where I went to school via PM. Just shoot me one.

 

[Emcee77]

My point exactly. You are going to look my school up on chart and thereby determine my 40-year outlook? Are you also the one who, when inteviewing candidates, looks strictly at the degree, go back to your chart, and then pick the candidate with the dgree with the highest rating to work for your company?

It may seem like I have a chip on my shoulder, but I just get offended when the only degree that is worth something (even among USC and U-Dub, in Eddie's case) is ND's.

The point I am making is that it is the candidate/student that makes the degree, not the other way around. If Eddie is driven, it won't matter where that piece of paper comes from....he'll be successful in life.

For those who think I've been trolling, I've been around this site for a while, I am just not an avid poster. Prove it you ask? Well, I remember the whole saga with "Alice" and the Tuitt flip/flop/flip very well.

I'll be happy to answer your question about where I went to school via PM. Just shoot me one.

Oh this should be good.

Before Whiskey gets started, I'll just say that I've always thought that the "40-year decision" pitch refers to the alumni network as much as the degree value in economic terms. That's something that pays huge dividends and is a truly unique benefit of a ND education.

 

[Rack Em]

Oh this should be good.

Before Whiskey gets started, I'll just say that I've always thought that the "40-year decision" pitch refers to the alumni network as much as the degree value in economic terms. That's something that pays huge dividends and is a truly unique benefit of a ND education.

I'll start making popcorn. Anybody want some?

 

[Emcee77]

I'll start making popcorn. Anybody want some?

I've seen this movie before, but I love it every time.

My favorite line: "By that rationale you could get an excellent education reading Wikipedia articles."

 

[Whiskeyjack]

My point exactly. You are going to look my school up on chart and thereby determine my 40-year outlook? Are you also the one who, when inteviewing candidates, looks strictly at the degree, go back to your chart, and then pick the candidate with the dgree with the highest rating to work for your company?

No, a degree value ranking obviously would have little correlation to your individual 40-year outlook, particularly if you've been out of school for a while. By the same token, the alma mater matters less the further removed from graduation you are. But surely you understand the statistical significance of sample sizes, no? You're a sample size of one, so regardless of how you've done in life, it really has no bearing on how valuable an average degree from your alma mater is.

But for a blue chip recruit who wants to secure the best possible insurance policy against the overwhelming odds that he won't become independently wealthy in the NFL, degree value is very much relevant to where he should play football.

It may seem like I have a chip on my shoulder, but I just get offended when the only degree that is worth something (even among USC and U-Dub, in Eddie's case) is ND's.

Compare the degree value ND offers to prospective football to those other schools. It is unequivocally better. Whether ND is the optimal choice for non-football players is a more complicated question. The "40-year-decision" and Football ROI are relevant to football recruiting; you're upset because you think it's a general commentary on ND's superiority to all other schools.

The point I am making is that it is the candidate/student that makes the degree, not the other way around. If Eddie is driven, it won't matter where that piece of paper comes from....he'll be successful in life.

This is a bullsh!t truism. Yes, individual effort is obviously a hugely important factor in anyone's success. Do you believe that inner-city kids fail so frequently because they're mostly just lazy? According to statistics "on a chart", an African-American male born to a single mother in most poor urban areas has very little chance to succeed in life. But it's all about the individual, right?

 

[IrishJayhawk]

Whiskey -

We've had this discussion before, but let me add one point.

I'm a researcher. I do very much appreciate your data. I trust data. You're right about the value of the ND degree.

My one problem with the discussion is this comment that recurs periodically: "Well, he didn't pick ND, so he must not care about his education."

Statistics and probability are very very important. Kids generally do better with the ND degree than with another. That's true in large numbers. But that's not always the case. There are outliers.

I have a problem with going from the general data to the specific case and making assumptions about the kid.

Again, I agree with nearly everything you're writing. Just wanted to clarify my position.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Whiskey -

We've had this discussion before, but let me add one point.

I'm a researcher. I do very much appreciate your data. I trust data. You're right about the value of the ND degree.

My one problem with the discussion is this comment that recurs periodically: "Well, he didn't pick ND, so he must not care about his education."

Statistics and probability are very very important. Kids generally do better with the ND degree than with another. That's true in large numbers. But that's not always the case. There are outliers.

I have a problem with going from the general data to the specific case and making assumptions about the kid.

Again, I agree with nearly everything you're writing. Just wanted to clarify my position.

That's entirely fair. Take Ronald Darby, for instance. He flipped from ND to FSU, which are at opposite ends of the Football ROI ranking. Did Jimbo sell him some BS about Myron Rolle? Was he aware of the poor degree value and GSR figures, but was determined to be the outlier? Or was he simply blowing smoke about the importance of academics?

Many of us naturally assume the last option, but these blue chip recruits are frequently impressionable and over-confident. It could easily be some mix of all three.