Comparing program (major) completions at private colleges in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

Hi, it's Gary Stocker back with another weekly Top Bottom Report. This week we're going to do program completions, programs and major completions, for 3 states: Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin. And we're doing that for just private colleges. You'll be able to see the number of graduates from 2020 through 2022, the last reported data for these 3 states, all the private colleges in those states, to determine better if that college might be good for you or your student based on the number of graduates from those individual programs. And we're going to look at a handful of those programs. So let's get started. We're going to start with biology majors, and you'll see that I've highlighted the 2022 bachelor's degrees in biology for— this is a program level. This is for the top performing colleges in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota. You can see the higher end numbers there. And of course, throughout this video, you can pause it to compare the colleges and the enrollment numbers for the given degrees, different programs that I am showing. And you can even see some of these have pretty strong master's degree programs. Of course, we have the top enrollment numbers, graduation numbers for biology. Let's look at the bottom. And we're gonna look then again at colleges in that, in those same 3 states that have lower numbers of biology majors. Now, the question you ask yourself is, 6, an acceptable number of biology majors? You decide that, I'm not gonna decide that. Is 18 enough? Especially when we compare that to programs at Marquette at 300+ and Calvin University at 70+ and Concordia at Moorhead at 60+. That's the decision you want to make when you look at these comparisons. Now you're only going to get to see a sample set here, and the full app for completions is not yet ready for release, but I want to give you, start giving a feel for how you would use this kind of data. You can do it on your own in College Navigator. Just bring up the colleges you want to look at and expand on Programs and Completions, Programs and Completions, and you'll see the data available. The app that I'm developing let you compare dozens of colleges at one time and over 3,000 colleges when I get all public and privates listed, probably later in 2024. Let's move on. Let's take a look at Communications and Journalism. This is Journalism, and this is at the program level. Again, the same approach. I'll go a little bit faster here. These are the top colleges. You can see the list. Let's take a look at the bottom colleges. And again, make your own judgments, but if you're looking at a journalism major at Andrews University in Michigan, and they have 4 folks who graduated with a bachelor's degree in 2022. Be careful, be careful, and here's why. If colleges are facing cost issues, and they are, they are more likely to close low-enrollment or low-graduation majors than they are high-graduation majors. So you might be better off looking at colleges with a high number of majors graduating in the given majors or programs that you're thinking about. Let's take a look at Computers and Computer Information Systems. Again, this is at the program level. This is not the individual major level. And again, you can see the strong performers. Davenport has a specialty. You can see the numbers here. Pause the video to take a closer look. Here's the low performers. Same argument I made for both Journalism and Computers as well, Communications as well. And let's take a look then at the top for Social Sciences. You can see the data and you can see the trends for the 3 years of data. These are the last 3 years reported. I've even added a 3-year change to see if the program is growing or shrinking. And again, the bottom performers, you can see what's happening to their program. St. Catherine's is down a lot. You have to wonder what's going on with their Social Science programs. If you're looking at St. Catherine's, ask them. Why has the number dropped so much in the last 3 reported years? So the program and majors comparison is just kind of provided as a public service right now. The app itself, I'm trying to decide if it is commercially viable. If it is, drop me a note, gary@collegeviability.com. But of course, we do have the 2024 series of College Viability apps. We've got the private college versions and the public college versions. You can see the number of colleges reported for each, and of course, each case I have a higher-end executive analysis version, one for faculty and staff, and then one for students and their families, and you can see the number of reports for each. We are most definitely in the era of Moneyball, if you remember that back from the Oakland A's back in the 1990s, I believe. Moneyball for higher education, where there's a whole line of data entrepreneurs like us here at College Viability looking at data for both consumers, students and their families, and those in the higher education business. Look at these program reports for your, for your best interest, whether you're a college leader or you're a parent or a student looking at a college for a major or majors that you want. Do comparisons. There is no absolute right or wrong rule for how many majors a college needs to have a strong program. But certainly the logic between, the logic associated with a higher number of majors in a program is almost certainly going to provide a better experience than those with a lower number. For College Viability, I'm Gary Stocker. Thanks for making time to listen.