Clickbait Lists

 I sometimes will read through some of the lists offered among the new articles on my Yahoo News feed. Most of them are little more than advertising clickbait. Such as a picture of someone famous (or at least previously famous) with some vague and outrageous claim about them, but after going through the entire list, they are never even mentioned.

I digress. There are some interesting lists, such as the ones that tell about behind-the-scenes facts about the actors on some old TV show (The Andy Griffith Show and Gilligan’s Island are common). But even on the somewhat legitimate ones, the facts are often of little interest or are phrased in such a way that what they seem to be saying and what they are actually saying do not match.

Then today I see one that dangles a list of the worst colleges. The headline is “25 Colleges That Just Aren’t Worth the Tuition.” 25, eh? I’m probably getting close to 100 and the scroll bar on the side of the screen would indicate that there are maybe 50 to go. And while they have included few state schools from anywhere, and have identified a few true losers — like the ones that they state upfront have gone out of business for various reasons — the reasons are too often either unrelated to the quality of the school or are vague.

Several are listed because of the amount of property crime in the area. Surely something to think about when you are considering enrolling. But does that truly have anything to do with the quality of the education received from these schools?

And while we are on the topic of quality education, I would first question whether the persons who write the text for these lists have graduated from even the worst of the schools on this list. I realize that I could be picking on someone for whom English is a second language. That might excuse them if they are part of some larger organization that is just too lazy to proof the material they produce, but I suspect this is just an opportunity for someone with computer skills, access to reasonable data and/or market intelligence, and a penchant for telling tales that the data doesn’t actually support to make money on a web of ads surrounding the list data.

And there it is — the ads. Too often these ads are constantly changing in size, therefore moving any legitimate links up and down on the page so that you are too often more likely to hit one of the ads than anything else, or worse yet, a popup that wasn’t even there a few second earlier. Of course, I never see the ads because my rather run-of-the-mill add blocker successfully culls them all out. On the single page that keeps growing as the list of colleges grows, it has blocked 250 ads. If the page recognizes the use of the ad blocker and insists that I shut off the blocker to read the list, I just skip the list. It really isn’t that important to me.

Back to the list at hand. They keep making reference to a return on investment, or ROI, for many of the schools. But they never really identify how they arrive at ROI. It is never a percentage, and the numbers they do give, if any, do not appear to be on a consistent basis. They often compare earnings upon graduation or at 10 years after enrollment to the cost of a single year of tuition. But even when it seems that they are making a clear comparison, there is something in the wording that seems to be saying something else. I think that many of the comparisons are bogus. Sometimes they don’t give any clue as to who is making the starting, or 10-year salary. Just says that it is the “median salary.” Median of what? Those who ever enrolled? Those who graduated? Starting salary? After some years? Depending on what factors go into what is included or excluded, the number-in-the-middle may not tell you anything of importance. Exclude the people who did not graduate and the median might now be 50% higher. Who knows?

This is especially true for those schools whose graduation rate is less than 30%. So is the median of those who graduate, or anyone who ever enrolled? And why are so few graduating? Is it because the state makes them take almost anyone who graduates high school without regard to any evidence that they have what it takes to actually learn at the college level? Is there a significant number who are simply taking specific courses to add skills to an existing degree? Is the school a junior college that is providing education to an array of people from those seeking specific skills without a degree, only an associates degree, to those who are trying to get into a four-year university that they didn’t initially qualify for with some question as to their ability to transfer in or get a degree after they do?

And what about graduation rates? Is that a sign of failure of the school to teach enough to get them through, or of admission standards that bring too many in that will never finish no matter how good the teaching? Once again, even when they admit that this is the case, it is seen as a sign of a bad school. Even one that is a state school that has often lower admission standards forced upon it by the state legislatures.

And I return again to the knowledge of the writers of the lists. Not just to make fun of them, though that is easy to do, but to question whether they really have any idea what makes a good school. Surely there are some dogs on the list. But several were schools that they admitted were not really bad (or were “in the middle of the list”). One school, Strayer University, was compared to “other schools in New England,” implied a 22% graduation rate was sub-par, then admitted that their starting salaries were really pretty good. As for the graduation rate, this school is among many that have a significant online presence where many seek skill improvement and are not after another degree. And where is this school? In the Northern suburbs of Philadelphia. Not even close to being among any “other schools in New England.”

And just a few schools later, they talk about another school that “really isn’t such a bad school,” and is “ranked in the top five in the state for its online program.” There is it again. An online program. But they claim “no amount of value in the world is going to save you if you don’t finish the program, which apparently just around 20% . . . .” I didn’t end that with a period because there was one more word — “do.” Awkward, at best. Did they mean that only 20% do not finish the program? Because of the awkward grammar, it is hard to tell. Of course, I know what they meant. But did they have any idea what they actually said?

And to add insult to injury on this last college, the write-up starts this way: “Location: Baltimore, Maryland. So, we’re still up in New England . . . .” One more state removed from New England than Strayer University in Pennsylvania.

While I passed on several other blunders, my conclusion is that these best/worst lists, while interesting, are too often of questionable value. They are of significant value to the creator who is probably getting paid a little for just putting the ads in front of you, and then some more for every ad that you click on — on purpose or because it has popped up just when you want to click the “Next” button to move on. I will admit that the bad colleges list was on a single page, therefore less likely to get accidental clicks, but still dubious as a source of meaningful information.)

If you don't care about the ad issue (good ad blocker) and think there might be something interesting to discover, or if you are bored and want to see a list of unknown facts about fill-in-the-blank, discover the best city in every state in which to retire (generally unclear basis, factors that are less relevant than they appear, etc. — and almost always vastly different from the last “best place to retire” list), the top 10 worst cars (“nothing really wrong with this one, but it’s just so ugly”), the best cars to buy (“what’s not to like . . . it’s a Maserati”), etc., all while dodging ads that are ready to harvest your computer’s information before they even ask for your consent, remember that the great view in Hood River, OR has one hospital with 25 beds, a good ICU in general, but below average in cardiac, and a difficult place walk unless you are in excellent shape.

Not saying that Hood River is not a good place to retire. But even if the list is put out there by a reputable source, the actual source may not be as easy to determine, the basis upon which they make their recommendations less clear, and therefore the usefulness of their rankings hard to discern. Maybe they base their overall ranking on a number of factors, but separate general economics from the local tax rates. I realize that taxes hit different people differently, but the same can be said of the local economy in general. Do taxes rate a separate impact weighting from the general economy? And is that one of the reasons that one list says one place while another says a different place? Maybe home ownership v renting affects the economics due to property taxes. What presumptions are made on each of these? And does a personal preference on one issue favor a different place?

Read the texts carefully. Ignorance in the process of giving you a narrative probably bodes poorly for the value of the information. But even where the source seems more legitimate, remember that they are not telling you everything about how they came to their conclusions. They generally don’t tell you the alternatives if you make differing but rational assumptions. A few will give you a “runner up” on the same basis as their primary “winner.” And what matters to you? Walkability? Graduation percentage? Shopping and restaurants? A large retirement-age population? Gas mileage? Looks? I clearly mixed questions for different lists, but you get the point. What are they actually telling you, and if you can tell, does it matter?

A lot of questions. Not many clear answers. Except to suggest that clickbait lists are seldom what they appear to be.