Exploring Colleges
College information is an integral part of the career exploration process. With occupational profiles, the Cost of College module and other tools, you are never far from finding more information on how to get the education and training you need to reach your goals.
Choosing a College
Virginia CareerExplorer for Mecklenburg County Public Schools provides many ways for you to find the right college to meet your needs.
By Location - The Find a College in Your Area option allows you to search for colleges by location. When you select a location on a map of the United States, Virginia CareerExplorer for Mecklenburg County Public Schools will show you a listing of colleges in that area. Like other listings in the system, this list can be filtered by additional criteria.
- By Major - You can search for colleges by available major, average wage of graduates and the number of graduates in the major. You can also search for projected job openings based on a given major.
When you search based on average wage, the system will show you a list of majors based on the average wage of the occupations chosen by students who graduated with that major. When you filter your search by projected job openings, you can see the majors which have the largest number of projected openings.
Finally, when you search by number of graduates, you will see the majors that are most popular in an area. No matter how you filter your search, you will be able to narrow down the resulting list to interesting majors and the colleges that offer them.
- College Profile - The college profile provides you with a detailed view of the institution you select. Every profile contains information on location, majors and costs. For some institutions, additional information about sports and financial aid is available.
Cost of College
The Cost of College is a unique tool that allows you to consider the cost of college in relation to your projected future earnings. When you begin the Cost of College module, the system will ask you about your current occupation or the occupation you anticipate having. The system will provide you with a list of colleges that offer degree programs that can lead to that occupation. Once you select a college and desired occupation, you can explore your financial future. The tool allows you to enter and adjust the amount of money you expect to make, student loans, interest rate, loan terms and more. The Cost of College tool will calculate loan repayment costs and project how much money you can expect to have left over.