For the past few weeks, my Facebook feed has been filled with links to a PolicyMic article titled, “These 10 Colleges Are the Biggest Waste of Tuition Money in the U.S.” This article ranked Ashland University as the sixth worst return on investment. According to their statistics, the total income a graduate will earn minus the cost to attend Ashland University, without any financial aid, minus what a student would earn as a high school graduate, equals negative $91,600. 

This is a shocking statistic, which should make students skeptical. After a bit of digging, anyone could find some serious holes in this research.

For example, only 197 AU graduates responded to the survey. Currently, the Alumni Association has over 47,000 members worldwide, according to their website. The responses collected by Payscale, the site that originally published the data used by PolicyMic, among others, make up .3 percent of the Alumni Association. I am no expert in statistics, but I cannot comfortably call that a credible sample size. There are schools with even fewer responses, such as Shaw University, with 50 responses. These are also numbers collected before the tuition reset and the College of Nursing.

Yet even with these flaws, no further research was ever done by the majority of AU students before sharing it on their Facebook pages and using the article as more fuel to trash AU. There certainly are criticisms to be made of Ashland. Every institution will have flaws, and Ashland can certainly go a long way towards fixing some things to improve the quality of the student experience here. However, keeping the criticism legitimate and constructive is important to actually improving AU. It’s the difference between a whining herd of ignorant students and an active, engaged student body contributing to the improvement of Ashland University.

The concerning thing about seeing this PolicyMic story shared so many times is how seriously everyone took these numbers without looking more deeply into how flawed the data is. For the perception of Ashland University to be that poor among the student body is a telling sign, and something to be seriously considered. How can students feel so pessimistic about their University? I see the flaws here certainly, and have been vocal about them at times. Yet, I could never imagine all the positive experiences, the great professors and the lifelong friends existing anywhere else. I have so few complaints compared to the compliments and affection I have for AU. I understand not everyone has the kind of experience here that I have, but if that’s the case, it’s still important to focus on fair criticism, and this PolicyMic story is not that. Take time to know what’s going on with Ashland before sharing stories that unfairly bash the reputation of your school. Again, there’s plenty of fair criticism, and plenty of legitimate ways to express that criticism. Don’t use flawed articles to do so.