A new report was released by the Beacon Center of Tennessee on Wednesday examining the return on investment for students and taxpayers at Tennessee’s public universities and colleges.
NEW REPORT: Higher Education and Higher Debts: Which College Degrees in Tennessee Cost More Than They’re Worth?
Read it and see the complete list of college degrees and their return on investment here: https://t.co/SWmj9M04DX pic.twitter.com/7mw6dzH7gD
— Beacon Center of TN (@BeaconTN) October 26, 2022
The Beacon Center of Tennessee describes itself on its website as “a nonprofit, nonpartisan, and independent organization” that is “dedicated to providing concerned citizens and public leaders with expert empirical research and timely free-market solutions to public policy issues in Tennessee.”
A press release announcing the report states that the organization used data from the U.S. Department of Education in order to analyze the 320 bachelor and associate programs in the state, finding that 72 percent of majors had a positive return on investment, 8 percent had a negative return on investment, and 20 percent had a neutral return on investment.
“With billions of tax dollars going to higher education, taxpayers deserve to know which programs at public colleges and universities are leaving graduates in a position where they are unlikely to repay their loans,” the organization states as to why it organized and published the report.
According to the organization’s report, the top five Tennessee university programs with the return on investments are:
- Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research, and Clinical Nursing at Walters State Community College. The debt as a percentage of earnings reported to be 8 percent.
- Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research, and Clinical Nursing at Motlow State Community College. The debt as a percentage of earnings reported to be 8 percent.
- Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research, and Clinical Nursing at Northeast State Community College. The debt as a percentage of earnings reported to be 10 percent.
- Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research, and Clinical Nursing at Dyersburg State Community College. The debt as a percentage of earnings reported to be 14 percent.
- General Computer and Informatics Sciences at Pellissippi State Community College. The debt as a percentage of earnings reported to be 17 percent.
The report also highlights the worst five Tennessee university programs with the return on investments. Those are:
- Anthropology at Middle Tennessee State University. The debt as a percentage of earnings reported to be 178% percent.
- General Agriculture at Tennessee State University. The debt as a percentage of earnings reported to be 152 percent.
- General English Language and Literature at University of Tennessee – Martin. The debt as a percentage of earnings reported to be 140 percent.
- International/Global Studies at Middle Tennessee State University. The debt as a percentage of earnings reported to be 131 percent.
- Drama/Theatre Arts and Stagecraft at University of Memphis. The debt as a percentage of earnings reported to be 127 percent.
With billions of tax dollars going to higher education, taxpayers deserve to know which programs at public colleges and universities are leaving graduates in a position where they are unlikely to repay their loans.
View the full list here: https://t.co/79Z7nYwHrh pic.twitter.com/t4xoIQwRTi
— Beacon Center of TN (@BeaconTN) October 26, 2022
The organization’s full report analyzing the return rate for each program at public Tennessee universities is available at https://www.beacontn.org/higher-education-and-higher-debts/.
In reaction to the report’s findings, Beacon Director of Policy and Research Ron Shultis stated, “With the news of President Biden’s student loan forgiveness and the fact that the state of Tennessee continues to spend more and more tax dollars on higher education, we decided to take a look at how effectively we are spending that money. It turns out that the majority of majors in state universities have a positive return on investment, which is good news.”
He went on to state that it is “important to realize that nearly one-in-ten degrees are serving neither students nor taxpayers,” so, he encourages those universities to “find a way to make their programs more useful for students, else lawmakers may need to step in to either fix or eliminate the programs.”
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network.
Photo “College Graduates” by COD Newsroom CC2.0.
