Yikes! Bad Stats on Wash U Student Paper
On last Friday's edition of Student Life, Washington University's student paper they put a big article and graph stating the median household income of the student body is $180,000. Unfortunately, their own graph does not reflect this number, as one other commentor "Bryan" already stated. First off, an incredible 27.39% of the 520 respondents did not know their family's annual household income. But come to think of it, I am not sure how accurately my daughter knows ours either! So only 72.61% of the respondents gave an answer. In the chart they list percentages so that they all add up to this 72.61% when they really should have recalculated them to reflect a full 100% of "survey takers who specified a household income amount". So for their sake I am recomputing the numbers for them:
| Income Bracket | Survey % | % of respondents |
|---|---|---|
| $29,999 or less | 4.67% | 6.43% |
| $30,000-49,999 | 3.61% | 4.97% |
| $50,000-69,999 | 7.22% | 9.91% |
| $70,000-89,999 | 6.79% | 9.35% |
| $90,000-99,999 | 7.01% | 9.65% |
| $100,000-149,999 | 15.07% | 20.75% |
| $150,000-199,999 | 8.28% | 11.40% |
| $200,000-499,999 | 13.8% | 19.00% |
| $500,000-999,999 | 3.82% | 5.26% |
| $1M+ | 2.34% | 3.22% |
| Totals | 72.61% | 100% |
| Combining some groups: | ||
| $0-69,999 | 15.50% | 21.3% |
| $70,000-99,999 | 13.80% | 19.0% |
| $100,000-149,999 | 15.07% | 20.8% |
| Over $150K | 28.24% | 38.9% |
So I agree with Bryan that the median income must be in the $100-$150K range since the bottom 40% of the respondents are under $100K and the top 40% are above $150K. Looking at the numbers this way, the demographics are still skewed to higher income brackets, but not as much as the chart in the paper portrays. They really should have broken up the large $100K-$150K bracket as well as the $200K-$500K bracket, both of which span a large range and compose about one fifth of the people who responded. I think someone just wanted to have a couple large bars in their graph in the higher income values! So about 60% of the Wash U students who responded come from households earning over $100K and less than one in eight report earning less than $50K. So there definitely is a lacking of socio-economic diversity here, but they should really check their numbers better! This is definitely a good college choice if you want to hang out with students who do not lack for money.
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