**WINNER OF THE BEST OF SNO AWARD**

Did you know that the average University of Minnesota graduate who received financial aid will earn a median income of $47,800, or that Carleton College has a graduation rate of 93% and 96% of its students return after one year, and even that the SUNY Downstate Medical Center boasts the highest earning graduates in all America? All of this information and more is found in President Obama’s new College Scorecard. Unveiled in September, it is one of many college search services currently out there, but College Scorecard is something different. So what is it?

College Scorecard boasts a new fresh looking design that feels easy to use, rather than the IRS wall of text made-the-year-I-was-born design we all to often see on government websites. It ditches the ranking system we often see on websites like the U.S. News & World Report and Forbes. You can rank colleges by several factors like size and average annual cost, but its main purpose is to help you find a college and to see the facts behind the college. It lets you search schools by state, size, religious affiliation, and pretty much anything else. I was surprised to find out that you can even get a monthly loan estimate too. College Scorecard is really information heavy, but it presents all that information really nicely so you never feel bogged down.

The facts can be a little deceiving though. A NPR report featured a quote from Pat McGuire, the President of Trinity Washington University in Washington, that said, “ ‘There are factoids here that reflect traditional, national norms that don’t reflect who we are,’ says Pat McGuire.” The stats about a college might say that it has a low graduation rate and low income after graduating, but that doesn’t show the full truth, as colleges often have non-traditional students or students with lower socioeconomic statuses who can’t graduate in four years or don’t have enough wealth to steadily pay student loans with. The facts on College Scoreboard don’t show the full picture sometimes.

College Scorecard can help you find a monetarily good school, but sometimes that isn’t enough. Picking a good college is more than just picking a school with good stats; it involves factors like atmosphere, campus life, location, and so many more. You can’t quantify everything about college. College is a place where your mind will be blown. It is a place will you will meet new people from all walks of life and have experiences that might never have again, and College Scorecard lists none of that. It is just purely facts and this is an aspect in which it lacks. College is more than just a price tag.

College Scorecard is a great search tool for finding a college that fits you. It lacks in some aspects, but it is nonetheless a very good tool. It is best used in tandem with other college search tools and rankings like Niche and Big Future; every tool has something the other tool does not.

Choosing the college you will attend is one of the most important decisions you will ever make. Use every tool to your advantage, so that you find the college of your dreams.