UW-Madison's Average Family Income is $90,000?

Dr. Sara Goldrick-Rab:

Based on the tweets from today's student conversation with Chancellor Martin, there's a big myth running around campus:

No, the average family income of UW-Madison students isn't $90,000.

That number came from reports like these that were discontinued back in 2008. Why were they discontinued? Because the data they are based on is a train wreck. The information comes from students' self-reporting of their parents' income when they were in high school (reporting is done on the ACT questionnaire) and according to UW-Madison's office of academic planning and analysis 30% of UW-Madison students left the question blank (and that percent has been rising over time).

Is it a high estimate? A low one? Well, what we know is that a study done by two La Follette professors using Census blocks to estimate income (better than student self-report most likely) finds that family income at UW-Madison for Wisconsin residents isn't very out-of-whack with Wisconsin family incomes as a whole. For example, families of Wisconsin applicants to Madison have incomes that are 1.2 to 1.3% higher than the state average.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at April 30, 2011 3:53 PM
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