It’s cold outside. And for high school seniors, parents and college counselors, this time of year isn’t only about the holidays. December also marks the peak of college application season, as January deadlines are soon approaching. 

But, while seniors make their final college decisions, it’s important for them to remember that picking a college isn’t like shopping for a new car or fancy tech product. When it comes to higher education, the most expensive options aren’t always the best. 

A big price tag, according to a recent study, does not translate to high alumni ratings regarding the quality of their education. If anything, alumni are more likely to give their alma mater a lower rating if the cost of attendance was steep.

“Neither net tuition nor the total cost of attendance — including room and board — predict better consumer ratings,” wrote Jonathan Rothwell, the study’s author and senior economist at Gallup. “In fact, total cost of attendance predicts lower satisfaction.”

The alumni surveyed were, instead, more likely to rate their college experiences highly if they thought their college prepared them for a well-paying career, which is “consistent with common responses students give for why they go to college in the first place,” Rothwell wrote. 

There are, without a doubt, many colleges and universities out there that will equip students for a rewarding, well-paying career without taking on a lot of debt. The problem is, it’s not always easy for students to decipher which schools give them the best shot. 

Helping students choose the right college

Typically, when making financial decisions, consumers turn to rating or ranking systems based on the opinions of their peers. When deciding where to eat, for example, consumers may look at the star ratings on Yelp. Or before buying a new car, consumers may look up which are ranked the highest on J.D. Power. 

When shopping for colleges, however, this process isn’t always as easy. 

Although a number of systems have emerged over the years to try to solve this problem, all of them, seemingly, have their faults. 

“There are 7,593 schools in the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard,” Rothwell wrote. “Yet, U.S. News, for example, ranks 311 ‘national universities’ and 233 ‘liberal arts colleges’ but does not compare these to the thousands of other schools, which are either unranked or put in a ‘regional’ category. Forbes ranks 650 schools, and Money ranks 711. With the exception of Washington Monthly, no major media outlet ranks two-year colleges.”

In 2013, President Obama tried to solve this problem by coming up with a rating system that would point out the schools where students were most likely to waste their money. That way, students could “get a bigger bang for their education buck.” It was going to score colleges by weighing information regarding how much students were paying for school, how much money they made after graduation and how much debt they had to take on to earn their education. 

Unfortunately, a rating system was never put in place. However, in 2015, the Obama-era Department of Education did release the College Scorecard, which give students extensive information on the average debt and income of graduates at U.S. colleges and universities, including community colleges. 

And since its creation, the College Scorecard has grown tremendously. Although it still doesn’t rate schools, the College Scorecard offers students just about every piece of information they need to select the school that’s right for them. 

By way of a recent revamp, students can now narrow down their search to find the average debt and income of graduates of specific fields of study available at U.S. colleges and universities. That way, applicants can easily decipher which specific programs are likely to give them the biggest return on their investment. 

College is what you make it

When deciding where to attend college, it’s easy for students to get wrapped up in the statistics of which will school or specific program will give them the best chance to have a good, prosperous life. But other studies make the case that it doesn’t matter as much where students graduate from, as well-being and success after college is, instead, determined by what students do while they’re enrolled. 

“For years, the value of a college degree has been determined not by the most important outcomes of a college education, but by the easiest outcomes to measure, namely, job and graduate school placement rates and alumni salaries (usually only from their first job out of college),” wrote the authors of a Gallup and Purdue University report based on insights from more than 30,000 U.S. graduates regarding what creates a successful future.

“While these metrics have some merit, they do not provide a holistic view of college graduates’ lives. These outcomes do not reflect the missions of higher education institutions, and they do not reflect the myriad reasons why students go to college.”

Among other things, the authors found that where graduates went to college — whether it’s private, public, selective or nonselective — barely matters in terms of their well-being and work lives. What’s key is their individual experiences, namely how supported they felt in college. And support can be facilitated by developing relationships with professors or mentors.