Study ranks Colgate alumni among top earners

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What’s a Colgate University degree worth?
A study released Wednesday by PayScale, which was reported in Forbes and The Wall Street Journal, may shed some light on that question.


A Colgate education can make a big difference not only in starting pay, but also in your salary throughout your career, according to the 2008 College Salary Report.
Among liberal arts schools, Colgate ranked second for salary potential with a mid-career median salary of $108,000. The study ranked colleges based on the average salary of alumni who have 10 to 20 years of work experience.
“Graduates of small selective liberal arts colleges do well, with median salaries competitive with major private research universities,” said Al Lee, of PayScale, an online provider of compensation data.
A Forbes article about the study also took a closer look at which colleges the top earners, those who take home the biggest salaries regardless of how long they’ve been out of school, come from.
Colgate made that list as well.
According to the article, “the fifth-ranked and first non-Ivy school among top earners was Colgate University located in Hamilton, N.Y., where the highest-paid graduates earn $265,000.” Yale University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, and the University of Pennsylvania hold the top four spots in that category.
“With great specificity, this report brings home the long-term financial impact of the choice of undergraduate school,” said Lee.
Francesca Zambello ’78, an internationally renown director, also made headlines in a New York Times story about the adaptation of the TV series “Little House on the Prairie” into a musical.
Zambello’s the director and main creative force behind the production, which began last week at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.
“Creating a musical is a challenge, no question, but especially one that so many people will have expectations about because of their love for the books and TV show,” she told the Times.
“But we have very high hopes,” Zambello added.
For more coverage of Colgate in the News, click here.