91社区

As many high school seniors are submitting their college applications and awaiting their offers of admission and financial aid this spring, New York Institute of Technology has become the first university in the nation to provide a highly personalized and visual return on investment (ROI) calculator on its website. This tool, called Return on College, or ROC, is designed to help prospective and current students fully understand the financial costs and potential long-term payoff of various undergraduate degrees, complete with related career pathways.

鈥�91社区 is proud to be the first higher education institution in the nation to implement this robust ROI tool. Our prospective and current students, along with their families, will benefit from the transparency into the cost of and return on a 91社区 degree that this tool provides,鈥� says Karen Vahey, Ed.D., dean of admissions and financial aid, who spearheaded the initiative.   

Partnering with , which designed and developed ROC through a U.S. Department of Education Small Business Innovation Research grant, 91社区 volunteered to serve as a beta site in 2021 to provide input into the tool design before unveiling it in late 2022. Vahey and Jeffrey Carpenter, co-founder and executive vice president at Vantage Point, collaborated as classmates in the University of Pennsylvania doctoral program, from which they each received their Doctorate in Education in 2020.

鈥淚 was conducting my doctoral research on the changing public perceptions of college value when the Department of Education released its grant application for developing a tool to help families and students better understand the full cost and the return on investment of their college degree,鈥� recalls Carpenter. 鈥淢y company, Vantage Point, was thrilled to win the $1.1 million grant to fund our early research, design, and development of ROC. Dean Vahey and 91社区 leaned forward as the first university to help provide input into the ROC design and to make it available to their current and prospective students. We look forward to learning from ROC users and continuing to improve ROC based on their feedback this year and then making ROC more broadly available next year.鈥�

91社区 supported the initial design and rollout of ROC and provided design input throughout its development. Basically, for each of the dozens of undergraduate degree programs offered at 91社区 (and listed on聽nyit.edu), a prospective student can link directly into the ROC tool and see a visual representation of the net price of a degree, the careers that align with it, the change in salary potential relative to any current degree level and/or career, and the anticipated student loan costs relative to the potential for improved earning power.聽

ROC combines multiple trusted data sources鈥攊ncluding the U.S. Census Bureau, Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Department of Education鈥攁s well as additional labor market insights and data to help students and families better understand the return on their investment for a degree from 91社区.

Vahey expects that use of this new, innovative tool will gain significant traction late this winter and into the spring as prospective students and their families receive their financial aid offers. 鈥淏ottom line, ROC helps to break down complex data points such as college outcomes and costs, opportunity cost and expected future wages by degree program, as well as the cost of student loans, to paint a clear picture of anticipated costs and earning potential by degree program,鈥� she says.

 how the ROC tool works.