The gender pay gap looms large for Penn graduates

A report released by College Scorecard suggests that Penn is worth the price tag, with Penn alumni earning a median salary of $78,200 ten years after graduation. But men and women, however, may reap different benefits.

The earning gap for Penn alumni is modest within the first year of graduation — a $2,000 to $4,000 gap depending on degree — but it climbs to a gap ranging from $15,000 to $100,000 in ten years, according to data released by Career Services. The gap is largest for engineering students ten years after graduation — men earn a yearly average of $106,339 more than women.

According to a recent New York Times article combing through the College Scorecard data, schools such as Duke, Princeton, Cornell, MIT and Yale all see gender divides in salaries ten years after graduation. At Duke, the difference between men and women is $29,900; at Princeton, the difference is $47,700. MIT, with a difference of $58,100, has the largest earning gap.

The College Scorecard, created by the U.S Department of Education, traces annual costs, typical total debts, graduation rates and salaries in nearly every university and college in America from 1996 through 2015. Aiming to provide students and their families a “truer picture on college cost and value," the report forgoes traditional ranking methods such as acceptance rate and academic reputation, and instead focusing on “the earnings of former college graduates and new data on student debt.”

According to the scorecard, 89 percent of Penn students earned on average more than those with only a high school diploma. While Penn’s annual cost (the average net price or federal financial aid recipients) is $22,948, higher than the national average of $16,789, Penn graduates earns an average of $43,857 higher than the national average in ten years.

Among fellow Ivy League universities, Penn ranks number two in salary after attending only after Harvard, whose graduates earn $87,200 ten years after graduation. While many medical colleges occupy the top spots in the charts, MIT, Stanford and Georgetown are among universities whose graduates have the highest annual salaries.

The report also measures socioeconomic diversity in each school. At Penn, 14 percent of students have a family income less than $40,000 and receive an income-based federal Pell Grant to help pay for college.

President Barack Obama commented on this new data release in his weekly address on September 12. “Right now, however, many existing college rankings reward schools for spending more money and rejecting more students — at a time when America needs our colleges to focus on affordability and supporting all students who enroll,” Obama said. “That doesn’t make sense, and it has to change.”

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