College Reality Check: The College Scorecard Alternative

Comparing colleges and assessing how much you expect to make out of your career is a lot of work, so it helps to have a tool to work off of when doing your research. In the past, I’ve posted a list of websites that can help you in that search, including the College Scorecard, which provides a list of options to sort out which colleges are right for you. Another one just turned up recently–or at least, I didn’t know about it until now–Known as College Reality Check.

Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and run by The Chronicle of Higher Education, College Reality Check does, well, pretty much everything the College Scorecard can. The difference? It’s much, MUCH better. One of the major criticisms of the College Scorecard was its functionality, as much of the information that was promised has yet to become available (typical of a government website, I must say).

Data for College Reality Check comes from a variety of resources, such as Integrated Postsecondary Education SystemNational Student Loan Data System, and Payscale, as wells a data from 3,578 degree-granting institutions. The result is a simple, fully functional tool for both parents and students to use to aid in deciding which college to attend. It really does help you get “the most bang for your education dollar,” as President Obama likes to put it.

For instructions on how to use the website, watch the video below: