Recent graduates give high marks to alma mater?

I'm just hanging out in my new pad in Oregon, but was sent a link to that DE story and commented on it.  Next, I check Dave's blog and looked at his Shawnee News aggregator, (which is very cool, good work Dave) and caught this link from the SIU News Service.

Here is what is interesting about the News Service press release, SIU sent out a survey to recent graduates, asking them about SIU.  OK, fair enough.  The problem is, they are now trumpeting the survey results, like they mean something.  Clearly, the responses are going to be self selecting, people who are doing well respond, everyone else pitches it.  They trumpet starting salaries, but we all know that everyone lies about their salaries in surveys.  This is like doing a vote for band of the year, on MySpace, doesn't mean much.  We all know that you can tilt surveys to the response you want, and dollars to donuts, that is what happened here. 

The truth is out there, but I'm afraid, this isn't a good way to find it.  In order to find out what recent grads really think, you would have to go and ask a random sample, of the total number.  Then ask the right questions.  I realize, this isn't likely to generate a self serving press release, but there you go.