Wall Street Journal ranks S&T among top 20 public universities in the nation, No. 1 public for salary impact
Posted by Mary Helen Stoltz
Graduates depart from Missouri S&T’s commencement ceremony, diplomas in hand, on Dec. 17, 2022. Photo by Kassandra Hayes, Missouri S&T
Missouri S&T is the top public university in the nation for “salary impact” and ranked seventh overall in that category, according to a new ranking from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and College Pulse.
The 2024 WSJ/College Pulse 2024 Best Colleges in the United States ranking, released Sept. 6, evaluates colleges and universities based on a variety of metrics, including measures designed to show how well schools improve the trajectories of their students’ careers. The ranking puts Missouri S&T first in the state and 18th among the nation’s public universities,
The final ranking of the top 400 colleges was based on a survey of students and alumni and a comparison of student-outcome metrics.
College Pulse asked over 60,000 undergraduates and recent undergraduate alumni to provide feedback on colleges that are a great value to their students in terms of tuition, learning environment, degree completion and the likelihood of a higher salary after graduation.
Student outcomes account for 70% of the rankings, and the WSJ used a variety of metrics to determine the salary impact versus those of similar colleges, the number of years required to pay off the net price, and graduation rates compared to similar colleges. The analysis also included an assessment of the level of diversity on each campus.
Every college included in the ranking received a minimum of 50 survey responses, with the majority receiving more than 100. Survey responses on the learning environment account for 20% of a school’s overall score and placement in the ranking. Another 10% of the overall scores was determined by the diversity of the student body and the faculty at each institution.
WSJ/College Pulse worked with data scientists at Statista on the ranking, which uses the most recent available data to put colleges on a more level playing field, comparing the outcomes of each university’s graduates to what those students were likely to achieve no matter where they went to school.
Best public university for salary ‘impact’
The WSJ/College Pulse rankings also list S&T as the nation’s best public university in terms of “salary impact.” This specialized rankings “lists schools in order of their impact on graduates’ salaries and how this relates to the cost of attending the college,” the WSJ reports.
S&T is the only public university to make the top 10. The top 10 list also includes five Ivy league universities.
Other top rankings
The WSJ/College Pulse ranking joins several other rankings and studies that have recognized Missouri S&T’s value in recent years. They include:
- The New York Times, which published an online tool last March that identified Missouri S&T as one of the country’s top 10 “high value institutions.”
- SmartAsset, which ranked S&T sixth in the nation for best value and No. 1 in Missouri.
- The Princeton Review, which ranked S&T third in the nation for career placemen t and 24th among public universities for return on investment.
- Money, which ranked S&T as No. 5 for engineering majors in the U.S. and one of the nation’s top universities.
I see you check on salaries of graduates. I remember getting a survey asking how much I made when I gradated back in December 1971. I signed up for the Navy and then afterwards I messed my knee up playing intramural football. In order to get it back into shape for the Navy after an operation, the school let me use a whirlpool one time and the gym to try to rehab before entering the Navy. Since I could use the gym to rehab, I looked for work in Rolla and landed a job at the Wayfair Inn washing dished for $1 an hour plus eats. I’m not sure you entered that into the data base. A fellow grad, Lindell Rutherford, with a degree in Ceramic Engineering went on to Navy Greatness. I saw his name in the local newspaper which noted he was the Commanding Officer of the USS George Washington, nuclear powered aircraft carrier. I googled Navy.mil and then Aircraft Carriers and then George Washington. His bio said he had been the East Coast fighter pilot of the year. Very impressive. Then years later I was watching the Military Channel (Now the American Heroes Channel) and I saw him walking down the hallway. He was a retired Admiral and was in charge of the virtual design of the new X carrier. I ended up working as a civilian Nuclear engineer for the Navy. The only other Navy mighty might I met was Lynn Lammers, a Naval Academy graduate whom I went to School with at Electric Boat in Groton, Connecticut. I had a date and no car one evening so I asked him “Dad, I have a date, Can I have the car tonite.?” You can only have so much fun in life.