Google and College Information
September 2, 2019
Google has been expanding its search functionality in some useful ways. Beginning in 2017, it was about supporting job searches, and as of last year the platform gives prospective college students a helping hand. Google Search now supplies a user-friendly list of statistics about any university alongside the results of a search for that institution’s name. The tool pulls this information from the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard and data from the National Center for Education Statistics. Unfortunately, there is one problem–AEIdeas tells us about “Google’s College Search Bias.” Reporters Jason D. Delisle and Cody Christensen write:
“Google’s college search has a major blind spot that its champions have either failed to notice or aren’t willing to call out: it only covers traditional four-year colleges. Even worse, community colleges appear like any other business rather than institutions of higher education. For-profit colleges are also given short shrift. In other words, Google’s search-display magic is reserved for students interested in just one part of our higher education sector — the one that mostly caters to traditional, full-time students seeking academic credentials who are often from upper-income households.”
The writers give some examples of this uneven treatment, so navigate to the write-up for those details. (Or just experiment with your own searches, if so inclined.) The article observes that the College Scorecard includes community colleges and for-profit colleges, so why doesn’t Google do the same? Delisle and Christensen ponder:
“Maybe Google didn’t realize there are many types of higher education pathways. Or on a more cynical note, perhaps Google believes that prospective community college and for-profit college students don’t care about this type of information. Ironically, these students could potentially benefit the most from additional information, since community colleges and for-profit colleges have some of the weakest student outcomes. Fortunately there’s an easy fix. Google already has access to all of the information it needs to include two-year and for-profit schools in its search display. The company simply needs to add it.”
DarkCyber hypothesizes that Google wants college search traffic. The firm’s data driven approach may lack some of the old razzle dazzle of the paper-centric Peterson’s guides. Do you know what an “inclusion” is? Yep, college guides used to sell ads and maybe still do. Ah, advertising.
Cynthia Murrell, September 2, 2019
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