Times Post Relies In Part On Report From Questionable Source

Here is the link to the article. (Also, my previous post is a comment on this article.)

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/college-counseling-and-job-prospects/#more-165893

I have commented before on the National Association of Colleges and Employers here Median Starting Salaries for College Graduates $27,000 or $40,735? | Inside Higher Education

Here is my comment on the Times site:

“This post reports data from the National Association of Colleges and Employers.  I believe that their reports can be misleading.  The following quote is from the second paragraph of the Executive Summary of their 2012 Salary Survey, “…Overall, the average starting salary for a Class of 2012 graduate is $44,442…”  (See their website for the surveys.)  First, they report an average, which is higher than the median, but, far more importantly, the number is probably more like $27,000.  (See the report, Work trends, by The John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. www.heldrich.rutgers.edu.)

Why the difference?  The National Association of Colleges and Employers reports salaries from employers who have hired graduates.  Worktrends gets their data from graduates, which means that Worktrends counts employed, underemployed, unemployed and part-time employed.  Since “unemployed” is probably not an employer, the National Association of Colleges and Employers, probably doesn’t count zero as part of their average.”