SMU Nursing Graduates Earn Highest Salaries in Federal Study

We learned last week that Samuel Merritt University came in first among California higher education institutions on the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard for how much our students earn after receiving a bachelor’s degree.

It was the second time since 2015 that SMU topped the scorecard’s list in California for the highest salaries after graduation. This is great news for our alumni and current undergraduate nursing students in the Bachelor of Science in Nursing and Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing programs. It demonstrates that an SMU nursing education is a good investment for their future careers and that SMU is succeeding is preparing our student nurses for success.

President Obama initiated the College Scorecard to help guide prospective students in choosing which school to attend and to hold colleges accountable for cost, value and quality. As President Obama put it, he wanted to offer information that would enable parents and students to “get the most bang for your educational buck.”

The interactive, fact-finding tool uses federal data to compare schools based on metrics such as college costs and graduation rates. But unlike commercial rating systems like U.S. News & World Report, the scorecard includes post-attendance earnings as an indicator of student outcomes.

The median earnings for SMU students a decade after starting their bachelor degree studies are $106,700 on the updated scorecard’s key metric of “salary after attending.” The information is based on the average reported earnings of former undergraduate students who received federal loans or grants.

SMU also comes in fifth in the nation for post-graduation salaries and is the only health sciences university in the Western U.S. in the top tier, according to the scorecard.

SMU’s high score — well above Stanford University, which comes in at number two in California— attracted some significant media coverage. To learn more, go to:

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/College-students-make-the-most-after-attending-12339984.php

http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/article183651041.html

http://kron4.com/2017/11/09/video-which-california-colleges-lead-to-best-salaries-after-graduation/