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Bang for the private school buck
By SCOTT NIEDERJOHN | Spring 2022
With retail price tuitions at several of Wisconsin’s private universities topping $50,000 a year, it might help those paying the bills to know which schools do the best job of moving students up the economic ladder.
Using tax data collected in an earlier study, we have for the first time ranked the state’s private schools for their graduates’ success in moving from the lowest to the highest income bracket, their median incomes at age 34 and their likelihood of moving up at least two income brackets.
The question of upward mobility is more urgent at this time of surging tuition and increased attention to economic and social inequality. Tuition rates at Wisconsin’s most expensive private colleges, Beloit College and Lawrence University in Appleton, exceed $50,000 per year. The average tuition at Wisconsin's 21 four-year private schools is more than $36,000 per year.
While the Milwaukee School of Engineering has the sixth-highest tuition in the current school year ($43,284), it ranked first in all three mobility metrics. Half of MSOE graduates from low-income families went from the poorest bracket or quintile to the wealthiest quintile by age 34, not surprising for a school that produces primarily engineers (see Table 1).
By this measure, Herzing University in Milwaukee, Lakeland University in Plymouth and Northland College in Ashland were the weakest performers, with fewer than 10% of their low-income students moving from the bottom to the top income brackets by age 34.
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