Should Colleges Be Judged by Graduates" Pay? Re "New Metric for Colleges: Graduates" Salaries," by James B. Stewart (Common Sense column, Sept. At a time when many of us are pursuing thoughtful ways to measure the "value" of the education we provide, I believe that the PayScale ranking is fundamentally flawed. For example, PayScale does not include graduates who hold advanced degrees, and given that roughly 80 percent of Wellesley alumnae pursue graduate and professional degrees, we are, to say the least, not well represented. This means that the PayScale ranking does not include high-paying careers like medicine or law, fields in which Wellesley alumnae are well represented. Unless and until PayScale refines its analysis to reflect meaningful data, its ranking system is an unhelpful distraction. I disagree with the practice of measuring success solely by money earned. If one insists on doing so, however, then one should use a measure that doesn't defy common sense. H. KIM BOTTOMLY President, Wellesley College Wellesley, Mass., Sept. In a sociology course I took in the 1950s at Oberlin College - today ranked 25th on the U.S. News & World Report list of liberal arts colleges - the instructor announced to the class that he hoped that our college experience would lead us to go on to graduate school and take meaningful, low-paying jobs rather than pursue the hollow, money-grubbing profession of business or law, where we would earn a much higher salary. True to form, that's what I did: follow a 40-year academic career. It's no surprise that Obie grads stand at 218th place on PayScale's ranking: it's an Oberlin tradition. James B. Stewart's column noted that Grinnell College was rated 17th in the U.S. News rankings but was 366th in the PayScale ranking for midcareer median salary. We recalled the parent orientation for the first of our two daughters who attended Grinnell. One faculty member after another spoke to us with great insight, intellect and energy. Particularly memorable was a professor of history who told us, "Our graduates may not always do well, but they always do good." We thought that this would be money and time well spent, and it was.