Gallup Will Survey College Graduates’ Outcomes

Career College Central summary:

In a new attempt to judge the value of a higher education against which any campus can measure itself, the Gallup research organization will poll graduates nationwide about their success and happiness. The survey, which will begin this week, will ask 30,000 graduates of four-year universities questions that can help determine whether or not their educations improved their lots in life, something Gallup Education executive director Brandon Busteed said campus leaders say is the primary mission of their increasingly expensive institutions, but which they have few existing means of gauging.
The national survey will question graduates about their careers, incomes, social lives, and other things. It will be able to track college graduates’ happiness based on their race and major and whether or not they transferred or went to public or private institutions and in which state or athletic conference. What it won’t do is break down the answers by institution. Instead, colleges can opt to work with Gallup on compatible surveys of their own alumni and use those to compare themselves with national outcomes.
Only one of the schools that will be doing this has been identified: Purdue University, which Busteed said intends to make the results available publicly, including to prospective students and their parents. He said other institutions have also signed on, but declined to name them. And while the national survey results will be publicly available, individual institutions that participate will not be obligated to disclose what they find.

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