In the spirit of March Madness, I have analyzed the NCAA basketball brackets through a different lens—college success. We often spend significant time and energy figuring out how to “get into college,” and not enough time and analysis on what students can “get out of college.”
What should students expect to get out of college? Two important outcomes of college should be a degree which leads to a decent salary. The College Scorecard collects data about colleges' average cost of attendance, graduation rates and salaries after graduation.
Looking at the 64 schools in the 2019 NCAA Basketball Tournament, I rank colleges based on a weighted average salary--a combination of the graduation rates and salary after college. Graduation Rate x Salary = Weighted Salary.
College Success Rankings by NCAA Basketball Regions:
And for the FINAL FOUR:
EAST: Yale
WEST: Northeastern
SOUTH: Villanova
MIDWEST: Michigan
Sadly, as of today, March 30th, 2019, none of those schools are still in NCAA Basketball Tournament, but they would have topped their regions if ranked based on their college success.
If I rank colleges across all regions, the top four colleges with the highest weighted salary are
1. Yale
2. Duke
3. Villanova
4. University of Virginia