Clarke Graduates’ Salaries Among Highest

AffordableCollegesOnline.org has released a list of 36 Catholic colleges with graduates who earn high starting salaries, and that list includes Clarke University.To compile its list, ACO reviewed four-year, fully-accredited private institutions with average starting salaries for graduates of more than $30,000 per year. The website also looked at mid-career salary averages as well as the overall return on investment for the degree.Clarke ranked 35th on the list. It is the only college or university in Iowa that achieved a ranking. ACO said Clarke graduates have a starting salary of $35,700.“We work hard to prepare our graduates to be career and life ready,” said Lorie Murphy-Freebolin, Clarke director of counseling and career services. “This survey attests to the marketability of Clarke graduates.” ACO compiled a list of schools meeting its criteria by using the following authoritative data sets: • NCES ( http://nces.gov), the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education. It provides consistent, reliable, complete and accurate indicators of education status and trends.• IPEDS ( http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds), the primary federal source for data on colleges, universities and technical and vocational postsecondary schools in the U.S.• Carnegie Classification ( http://classifications.carnegiefoundation.org), a framework widely used in the study of higher education, both as a way to represent and control for institutional differences, and also in the design of research studies to ensure adequate representation of sampled institutions, students or faculty.• Payscale.com ( http://www.payscale.com/about/methodology), the premier salary data collection organization, provides real-time salary survey information that changes daily based on new data. The data is rigorously validated to improve algorithms.