Rankings of research universities.Based on factors (e.g., academic reputation, financial aid offerings, overall cost, and success of graduates in the post-college job market) that actual college freshmen said were most important to their college decision, College Choice developed their 2015 Rankings of National Research Universities. Data for the top 50 universities are saved in the TOPUNIVfile. Several are listed in the accompanying table above.

a) The average financial aid awarded values were determined by recording the financial aid awarded to each freshman who attended the university in 2015. Does this statistic represent a population or sample mean? Interpret this value for Harvard University.

b) The median salary during early career values were determined by recording the salaries of a random selection of alumni with 0 to 5 years of experience. Does this statistic represent a population or sample median? Interpret this value for Harvard University.

Rank	University	Public/ Private	Academic Reputation Score (100 pt. scale)	Average Financial Aid Awarded	Average Net Cost Attend	Median Salary During Early Career	% High Meaning	%Stem Degrees
1	Harvard University	Private	99	\(41,555	\)14,455	\(61,400	65%	28%
5	Yale University	Private	97	\)39,771	\(18,479	\)60,300	68%	21%
20	University of California Berkeley	Public	79	\(16,141	\)16,178	\(59,500	50%	31%
23	University of Virginia	Public	76	\)16,834	\(12,672	\)54,700	52%	24%
27	Carnegie Mellon University	Private	76	\(24,263	\)33,257	\(64,700	46%	51%
47	Pepperdine University	Private	60	\)29,926	\(25,345	\)48,300	51%	4%

Step by step solution

01

Interpretation of value for Harvard University

The statistic represents the population because the mean is calculated using the values recorded for each freshman.

The mean is the average value of the data collected from the total population.

According to the values given for Harvard University, the average amount of financial aid awarded to freshmen was $41,555.

02

Analyzing value for Harvard University

The statistic represents the sample median because the data is collected only by recording the salaries of randomly selected alumni with 0 to 5 years of experience. The entire population of alumni is not taken into consideration.

The median value lies at the center of the data set.Hence we can interpret that, half of the randomly chosen alumni of Harvard University get paid $61,400 or more than that, and half of them get paid $61,400 or less.

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