Is Going To an Elite College Worth the Cost? 391
Pickens writes "Jacques Steinberg writes in the NY Times that the sluggish economy and rising costs of college have only intensified questions about whether expensive, prestigious colleges make any difference. Researchers say that alumni of the most selective colleges earn, on average, 40 percent more a year than those who graduated from the least selective public universities, as calculated 10 years after they graduated from and found that 'attendance at an elite private college significantly increases the probability of attending graduate school, and more specifically graduate school at a major research university.' But other researchers say the extent to which one takes advantage of the educational offerings of an institution may be more important, in the long run, than how prominently and proudly that institution's name is being displayed on the back windows of cars in the nation's wealthiest enclaves."
Contacts (Score:4, Insightful)
Its about if the preppy boy you shared a room with can get you a job at his dad's company.
Re:Contacts and relatioships generally (Score:5, Interesting)
The Harvard Longitudinal Study of Adult Development studied groups of men since the 1940s. The only correlation the study could find with anything was personal relationships.
http://adultdev.bwh.harvard.edu/research-SAD.html [harvard.edu]
Men with good relationships in childhood and young adulthood did better in almost every facet of their lives than did those with poor relationships: income, social status, marital status, health, etc. etc.
There are also lots of studies that show that, once employees meet the minimum qualifications and are hired, their performance has nothing to do with where they graduated, their marks, their IQ or any additional degrees they have. The big thing is their interpersonal relationships.
Of course, this is Slashdot, populated with geeks and nerds, so I don't expect that most of those reading this will believe it; sigh.
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Oh, I believe it, and it's consistent with the anecdotes I know about. Sucks for the average nerd like me, sure, but that doesn't mean it isn't true.
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Re:Contacts and relatioships generally (Score:5, Insightful)
You provide a link to the study, but not to any results supporting your claim. The only results I found with a bit of searching were in an Atlantic Monthly article -- and those indicated that personal relationships were most important, but only among the Harvard men studied, not the "Glueck men", for whom the most important predictor was industriousness in childhood. Further, there were other factors as well, for both groups.
Old adage (Score:2)
Depends on who you want to be employed by. (Score:3, Insightful)
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One thing that top schools also offer is experience, in the form of top internships. As a current student at one of these so-called elite universities, I have had a difficult time applying to internships. I can only imagine how difficult it is for someone with a weaker college on their resume to get these positions. For college freshmen, other than GPA the biggest factor in whether or not they get picked for an internship is their school. I've talked to recruiters; a 4.0 at a non-top 3 state school vs. an i
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I think you are suffering from a sampling bias. "from what I've seen, and from what my friends have seen"... How many of those friends go to an ivy league school? You, being from an ivy league school, are more likely to encounter, at every step of the process, people and organizations who prefer ivy league students. If there are recruiters out there who prefer state school students (and there are, I assure you), their candidates would have the exact opposite impression of yours.
Not for undergraduate (Score:5, Interesting)
At Duke I was pretty much told "Go buy the textbook [$200+] and come to class if you have questions [which probably won't be answered]." The profs were just that. Profs. Not teachers. They were more interested in their research than educating the lowly undergrads.
I switched to a state school. I actually have TEACHERS now! (at 1/10th the price!)
Re:Textbook Revolution (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I both agree and want to push this further.
Although he was phrasing it rather snarky, the AC elsewhere who said it was about the preppy contacts and schmoozing was part right - if you're a people-person and know how to be in the popular crowds, the Who-You-Know factor can be an instant ticket.
However, I treated a degree as "something to defend" and didn't want a glaring Scarlet Letter following me around. I agree that the undergrad experience in some of the Name Schools is awful and a borderline-scam. I switched to a state school and started on a mostly ordinary business career.
But Education is the next big Bubble. I was in Uni in a precisely dated "last of the old" time slots - 1993-1997. A typical undergrad course = 2 textbooks, "40 podcasts" and your choice of "2 answers per podcast + 1 office hour". Thanks to the RIAA's screaming, we now know that 40 podcasts = ... $0! And now the Two-Questions can be answered on the net. So the real price of the class is a $50/hour "consulting hour" plus the rent for the dorm + meal ticket.
Re:Not for undergraduate (Score:5, Interesting)
If you go into academia and research, you need to be self-educating anyhow, needing to read esoteric and lingo-filled journals as part of your general career. This is why research institution "teachers" suck and can suck.
It all depends on what your future focus is. A "practitioner" can generally do fine at a middle-level institution, and may even make it big via entrepreneurship etc. And save a lot of money to boot.
However, if you want to move up in academic and research standing, you need to play the academia game, and the big-name universities control that game.
The rift between the practitioner/entrepreneur route and the academia route tends to be growing such that you pretty much have to pick a side fairly early. Are you a "get it done" kind of person, or a intellectual thinker who prefers somebody else do the nuts and bolts of carrying something to production?
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Well, it's more about the opportunities than anything else.
Many of the top tier firms (particularly in certain industries like management consulting or high finance) will not hire from regular colleges, unless you are a rock star. In which case, it isn't the college that does it anyway, it is the individual.
You go to a top school, you work at a top firm, you get admitted into a top school for your MBA, you get into an executive position. Having a pedigree just makes it a lot easier, that is all.
This is just
This was also my experience at Georgia Tech. (Score:2)
At Georgia Tech, the core classes of Calculus, Physics, Chemistry, and some others were taught in auditoriums with over 200 people in them. There was no opportunity to ask questions during lecture - it just would not be practical or fair. Consequently lectures were about as useful as watching the MIT free course ware you can now watch online for free. You went to lecture 3 days a week, and then went to a session 2 days a week with a teacher assistant, who was a graduate student doing this as a requireme
Grade inflation (Score:2)
It's worth going to an elite college because elite colleges give better grades for the same work. As a student your goal is to get the best grades possible to get into the best graduate school.
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That's an irrelevant comparison. There's no meritocratic entry requirement or competition for an 'elite family', whereas (with few exceptions) you only get into an elite university with high intelligence, hard work or both.
Would you dispute that the average ability of students at, say, Harvard, where they can pick and choose the best of the best from their pool of applicants, is higher than at a mid-range state university which accepts most applicants even with mid-range grades?
I'm not saying students at Harvard are (generally) smarter because of anything inherent to Harvard, I'm saying that a school with a greater pool of highly capable applicants will have the ability to only select the best of the best.
Even if the professors and the exams are the same (especially if they're the same, in fact), I'd definitely expect the higher ability group to achieve better grades.
Harvard and other elite schools reward students based on what quality of education they received in childhood. An elite family can put their child in a school with a high track record and probability of getting their child into an ivy league school. These children will have books, computers, good teachers, a safe environment where they aren't worried about being shot, stabbed, robbed, etc, where all they have to think about in life is getting into the elite school.
Then you have kids who grow up in ghettos,
90% of everything is crap, but (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:90% of everything is crap, but (Score:5, Interesting)
I've found complete idiots at some top schools, but I've also found smart people
I guess these two groups are the ones that benefit the most from an elite college.
If you're the dumb kid of a wealthy family, the elite college will help you to get a job that requires that you are looking good in a suit and have a prestigious degree.
If you're smart, the elite school will have the resources you need and after college you will more easily be given the opportunity to prove yourself.
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Or (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Or (Score:5, Interesting)
absolutely - that 40% extra over the "lesser" colleges tend to be because the students tend to come from wealthier families anyway. I wonder what the spread of the increase is across all students? ie - is it that 10 of them become billionaires which brings that average up among all students there?
That has to be considered too (Score:5, Interesting)
Though there is a flipside to that: High end schools are often well connected themselves, as are their faculty, so going there can get you connections. Thing is that tends to be more true on a per-program basis. So in the event you have a field you really want to be in, particularly if it is something involving graduate work, then you need to look at what professors are good in that and choose the school accordingly. May turn out a "lesser" school in fact has a better, more connected, program in the area of your interest.
But yes, it is another problem with the study. If the people have the connections anyhow, and a job is "waiting for them" so to speak, then the school they go to is not all that relevant.
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Which is basically what TFA said - there is more variability within schools than between schools. Just because a school has an excellent Computer Science department doesn't mean it's particularly
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Just because a school has an excellent Computer Science department doesn't mean it's particularly good in Biology.
To take that a step further (depending on what your educational goals are):
Just because a school is considered to have an excellent Computer Science department (that is, it puts out great/important research in that field ) doesn't mean it's a good place to learn as an undergrad, and it doesn't guarantee you'll get a chance to touch any of that research even if you're an undergrad with an eye towards academia.
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even made a couple of real good enemies for me in the administration
What in God's name were you doing with some chick that got you in trouble with administration?
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Are those that go to the big elites more connected anyway, thus enabling them to obtain the higher paying jobs out of college? I would assume a Rockefeller could go to community college and still land a rather well paying job. Who you know and all that jazz...
And if you're from an ordinary middle class family, what do you think would be by far the most effective way to become more connected?
;-)
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I agree with this to an extent. I went to an elite program at a semi-elite university on a scholarship (USC Film School). I learned a bit, but I also met several influential people and people who were well-positioned to become the next generation of leaders, and when I got out I had no trouble getting work through contacts.
I learnered a lot as well, but if someone asks me how they can learn about production, I tell them to volunteer at the local public access station -- this is how I got started, and no, sh
Speaking from experience... (Score:3)
Are those that go to the big elites more connected anyway, thus enabling them to obtain the higher paying jobs out of college?
Coming out of an Ivy can open a very powerful network. I council undergrads at my alma mater to not focus on grades, but networking, unless they're going to grad school. Corporate recruiting is a good way to get a big-salary job you don't really deserve, and that typically sets a floor for your career. If you're pulling in $80K to start instead of $40K, does an extra $150K in debt
How many are paying sticker (Score:5, Insightful)
The article seems to assume that lots of folk attending elite schools are paying sticker for their education. From my understanding that's not the case.
With the move to substantially increase tuition at all universities in England, there will be growing comparison against the sticker price at the top US schools. That, of course, is an unfair comparison as top US schools while undoubtedly expensive also have exceptional financial aid packages.
While an in-state public university tuition will almost always be the most affordable, many will be able to attend top private schools for a similar amount. Very few will be paying the $45-50k talked about in the article.
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So you've done research on this? My wife attended a state college and paid nearly 60k, thankfully her grandmother paid for it all. In the end she was crowded out by foreigners and now works for less than what she trained for. BSEE.
Lets do a study showing how H1B's are crowding out our college graduates because businesses have learned the costs savings vs having to pay a living wage. Until this problem is fixed, our wages are going to be flat for a long time, recessions or no recessions.
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Skeptical -- Citation needed.
In my case, coming from a rural middle-class family, I was accepted to an Ivy school and got bupkis for a financial aid offer. It would have beggared my family, which is why I went to state school instead.
Selection effects (Score:3, Insightful)
Are they considering selection effects at all? Yes, those who go to Ivy league may earn that much more - but would the same people have earned that much less if they for some reason didn't?
Re:Selection effects (Score:5, Informative)
In 1999, economists from Princeton and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation looked at some of the same data Eide and his colleagues had used, but crunched them in a different way: They compared students at more selective colleges to others of "seemingly comparable ability," based on their SAT scores and class rank, who had attended less selective schools, either by choice or because a top college rejected them.
The earnings of graduates in the two groups were about the same — perhaps shifting the ledger in favor of the less expensive, less prestigious route. (The one exception was that children from "disadvantaged family backgrounds" appeared to earn more over time if they attended more selective colleges. The authors, Stacy Berg Dale and Alan B. Krueger, do not speculate why, but conclude, "These students appear to benefit most from attending a more elite college.")
Contact (Score:5, Insightful)
From what I have seen it is the close personal contacts among wealthy families that make the difference and not the actual education. There are not so many people that can make a few phone calls and bring heavy investment money into a situation. After all, how many people can invest multi-millions in any project? They tend to know each other and their family members have the path prepared for them due to endowments to old ivy.
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That's assuming that these are the kind of people who actually need to succeed in business in order to make a pile of dough. Lots of serial entrepreneurs do exactly the opposite, living on investment capital from one venture to the next.
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As with so many questions, the answer is it depends. By going to elite school you get to hang out with people who are both smarter on average (to be able to get in) and whose families are wealthier on average (to be able to afford it). It's not a coincidence that so many successful startups come from Stanford, Harvard etc and not at some random state university. The faculty have better connections to (at Stanford you are likely to bump into a few Nobel prize winners when you wander around campus) and your f
Quality of a child's peers (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, you build up a network of contacts in the world of the most successful people. But that is important. But interacting with successful people does more than just give you "contacts"; there is inherently automatically a "mentoring" effect.
"But other researchers say the extent to which one takes advantage of the educational offerings of an institution may be more important, in the long run"
This is theoretically true at an individual level. If I think to my own days in a third-world mediocre public school and university, I would say I ultimately managed to get a good education 'in spite of' my school/university, not because of it --- but even so, I often performed very poorly (regretfully), and if I had to name THE single-biggest thing that negatively influenced my performance, I would have to say it was being surrounded by almost 100% uniformly poor-performing peers; they were stupid, they were lazy, they didn't care, learning was the least important thing imaginable, and stupidity and laziness was basically celebrated. When 99.9% of a child's peers are like that, as happened with me, it is almost impossible not to be negatively influenced and 'dragged down' to some degree.
Now, many years later, I have a baby on the way, and have to start thinking about where to send her someday. And I definitely feel that if I can afford it, I want her in one of the top-notch universities. Why? Not because I'm expecting miracles from the professors or infrastructure, but because I know she is most likely to be surrounded by a comparatively higher percentage of peers who are amongst those in society with the highest focus and motivation on hard work and success.
It is oddly seldom mentioned, but beyond parenting and teachers, I think the quality of peers that your child sits with must have a huge influence on their outcomes.
The other reason is that I indeed want my children to mingle with society's successful people, not just to build contacts, but because there is an inherent mentoring effect. Even spending a day with someone highly successful at something can make a young persons entire career. The most successful people in finance and investing, tend to have had top-notch mentors, and you can mostly only find those people in the upper echelons.
Like it or not, many of the most successful IT entrepreneurs etc. do come from backgrounds that allowed them to attend top-notch universities, and there are reasons for that.
Can children be successful in cheaper schools, sure, of course, but suddenly when parenthood looms I just think I want the statistically best chance for my kids, so they can have opportunities I never had.
I question the validity of the study (Score:4, Interesting)
So they say that you earn more if you went to a highly selective school than a non-selective one. Ok, fine, but the problem is that it doesn't mean you earn more BECAUSE you went to that school. The thing is if the school is being highly selective, it is getting only the best and brightest students, not to mention motivated. Those people are likely to go on to better things because they are smart, motivated, and so on.
What you need to examine for something like this is how it compares between people that went to these schools and people that could have, but didn't. Those who had the grades and test scores, maybe even applied, but elected to go to a state school instead. My bet? Not much difference.
In the job market you'll find that your university education matters little past your first job. It isn't 100% irrelevant or anything, but employers start to care a whole lot more about experience and references than they do about education. Where you went to school and what your GPA was will take a back seat to what you've done at work.
Then, of course, in terms of it being "worth it," you have to consider the costs. Suppose you can go to a public school on scholarship, and the course load will allow you to work to cover other expenses. You can come out with a 4 year degree and zero debt. Now suppose you go to Harvard and have to pay $50,000 a year in tuition, and have no time to work so you accrue $15,000 in other living costs. You get out and owe $260,000, presuming interest was handled during your time in school (with costs that high, probably not). You now have to pay that, and its interest down. So you HAVE to make a lot more to break even. The money you spend on repaying your outstanding loans is money a person who did not accrue them could put in savings or invest.
I certainly wouldn't tell people not to go to a top school, but I'd say do so only if you can afford it. If they give you a scholarship, or if your family has plenty of money to support you, then sure, go for it. Really can't hurt, though make sure you do research because some schools are better for one thing than others. MIT is famously bad for undergrads, good for grads. However trying to pay for the whole thing just because you managed to get in? Hmmm, I doubt that's very smart. You'd have to be assured a good bit more money, and that it would consistently stay higher, than if you didn't to make it worth it in the long run.
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In the job market you'll find that your university education matters little past your first job. It isn't 100% irrelevant or anything, but employers start to care a whole lot more about experience and references than they do about education. Where you went to school and what your GPA was will take a back seat to what you've done at work.
I second this. A college education gets you into the labor market for your first post-graduation job, but once you're actually looking for your second post-graduation job (or perhaps your third, depending how quickly you change jobs), it becomes far less important than your experience. 10 or 20 years down the road, if you haven't sought graduate school studies relevant to your field, then it is practically irrelevant what your education history is compared to your 10 to 20 years of job experience in your fi
Simple Rule (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't go take your under-graduate degree from a college that is famous for its graduate program, you will never see your professors, just their graduate student teaching assistants.
You should pick a school that is "known for" the program you are going to take at the level you are going to take it. That can be well worth it.
And the definition of famous needs to be curtailed. As some professionals in the field you intend to pursue whether what schools they "know are good". The answers to this are almost always rather surprising and often include some very good near-by or state schools.
Schools "earn their branding" for a reason, but you have to _really_ _check_ the brand details and you also have to make sure that it isn't expired. Only the professionals in the field will know if the school that is famous for X to the general populace is really sitll famous for X amongst the topical peerage.
Re:Simple Rule (Score:4, Insightful)
That is something people really need to appreciate, that programs vary wildly within a school. Ranking overall universities is a bit silly since there is no way a university can be good at everything. It can certainly be fine at everything but you'll find they all have strengths and weaknesses. For example: Suppose you want to be a concert musician. You going to go to MIT? To Caltech? Why not? They are top schools! Well of course they are, but not for music. So going there would be a waste of money.
Something else you'll discover is that state schools often have highly ranked, if not the top, programs in some areas. Now you might think "But the school name isn't as well known, it won't be as impressive." Not the case. While that might be true of the total university, it isn't true of the program and thus of people who are involved in that field. So the people you'll want to know, the people you'll be dealing with, they'll know. Equally importantly the processors there will be connected with those people out in industry.
The only case that overall school name is the more important than program reputation would be if you are just getting a degree, any degree, and are going in to a field where it doesn't really matter. Then people may be more impressed by the name of the school.
Did they factor in legacy admissions? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Did they factor in legacy admissions? (Score:4, Informative)
Many of the most elite schools have a "legacy admissions" policy (that's how the C-student George W. Bush managed to get into Yale). It gives the children of alumni priority admission, because they want their richer alumni to keep contributing money, and denying little Biff or Muffy their admission would be bad business. It's affirmative action for the rich.
W got in just before Yale opened up for coeducation. As soon as women were admitted, admissions because very competitive. This was true across all elite colleges.
Now, he'd have no chance of admission.
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It's affirmative action for the rich.
The difference is that these are private institutions making private decisions with private money. As long as the aren't discriminating based upon race, gender, nationality or sexual orientation there is little to stop them from giving preference to the children of rich alumni. Now in practice the number of slots reserved for children of rich alumni, deserving or not, are limited because at least some (perhaps most?) of these undergraduates must perform well enough to maintain the long term prestige of the
We don't have this issue in Holland (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:We don't have this issue in Holland (Score:4, Insightful)
To answer your question about the SAT it's just a standardized test to see what a kid has learned. It's a way of comparing kids from vastly different backgrounds and educational experiences on a standard scale. It doesn't take into account things like experiences or whether the kid performed community service or played a leadership role in school just his or her knowledge. We send in what amounts to a resume (i.e. CV) along with our test scores and high school transcripts to cover that other stuff when we apply to college.
Yes if there are no jobs (Score:4, Interesting)
Who am I going to hire in a recession? A guy from Kansas State U or someone from M.I.T.? I would pick M.I.T. if both candidates were equally qualified. Experience counts more of course but the deal breaker would be the school.
The debt ... well the guy from Kansas Sate working at Target will make more than you. 50% of yoru income will just go to payback loan and you will need a 2nd job to survive and eat due to the outrageous cost. But in 5 years when you are a manager you can then start to make up the difference. In 30 years when you are getting ready for retirement you will see the difference in your bank account. It just wont show for awhile due to the high outragous costs.
Now if you do not find an I.T. job then you are wasting money. Some of you just wont work in I.T. Indians do these jobs now mostly and it is very competitive. Cross your fingers and take risks appropriately. Also do not bring in more than 100k in debt. Keep that as the limit.
Re:Yes if there are no jobs (Score:4, Interesting)
Doesn't quite mesh with the statistics I've heard. I've always heard that in a recession, the person with the lower education (assuming they're still qualified) is likely to get hired, because they're the one who is less likely to jump ship as soon as a better job comes around. It's the basic problem of being overqualified during a recession that a lot of people are facing.
Only if you're good enough (Score:2)
it's like buying a top of the range car. If you're a good enough driver to make use of the high performance then you'll reap the rewards. If you aren't interested in pushing the limits and only use it for day-to-day driv
Go to a "name" school for the highest degree (Score:3)
If you have the money (or want the debt), go to a "name" school for the highest degree you plan to pursue. If you set out to get a Masters degree, then you can get your Bachelors at a less recognized school (such as a decent quality state school). You just don't want to get the lower degree(s) from a low-quality school (e.g. no accreditation, bad reputation, degree mill, etc.), because that could impact your ability to get into the higher-level program. For the most part, once you have the higher-level degree, nobody cares where you started, so don't waste money and effort (e.g. busting your ass for good grades at a high-difficulty school, when an easier program somewhere else would get you to the next level) at the beginning.
If you aren't sure about the higher-level degree, or you don't always have good follow-through, go ahead and go to a bigger "name" school to start with.
Name school undergrad. (Score:3)
Contacts
Mathematically... (Score:2)
How would you calculate the average worth of a college that costs money compared to any university in for example Sweden, where you're actually paid some money to attend? Worth/monetary unit should be pretty good for most people.
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Let's drop the idea that University is free or better in Sweden. It is paid for with your taxes over your working life.
Self-selection of successful people (Score:2)
It's not about the quality of the education, or even the prestige of the institution on your resume.
It's about being around the people most driven to be successful. It drives you to try equally hard to succeed, gives you an opportunity to learn from people who are or will be successful, and allows you to build relationships with the people most likely to need you as a business partner or employee later.
some of the nation's wealthiest are good old boys (Score:3)
some of the nation's wealthiest are good old boys where there family will get jobs any ways and they don't need to go to any College but do so as part the high class system.
Is going to a University at all worth the cost? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is going to a University at all worth the cost?
I was a computer geek from elementary school and knew where my career was heading. After an addiction to Ultima Online that resulted in too many absences I was given a choice of retaking a whole 6-month semester of high-school and being separated from my peers or dropping out of school. After a few months lounging around and playing the game some more I went to work in a large computer chain doing desktop and printer repairs, then worked as a junior server & desktop admin at an account firm trying to become a Dot-com, then started as a Wintel Server Admin (Systems Analyst) in a major Wall Street investment bank, and after 9/11 I worked for most of Wall Street firms as a contractor doing essentially the same thing making well over 6-figures.
When the last economic slump hit even New York I took a position last year to move to Houston Texas to work for a major health care/hospital organization and I've been working as a Senior Windows Server Admin. I'm much happier now in this new city and the quality of life here is much better than what I had in NYC, even though I took a 20% pay cut but still remained in the 6-figure range with a higher or equal pay rate than some who have gone to universities.
That's my story and I sometimes wonder how it would have turned out if I did go to a university? Would I have been working at a more difficult and prestigious job than a server admin making more money? Would I be happier? Or would I have turned out like some of my friends who went to college and came back no smarter or more educated but with a large financial debt making half as much money as I am?
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Sometimes it is, but for a few it's not (Score:3)
What most college graduates fail to understand is that you still have to work hard, network, and always continue learning.
You did that anyway, and were successful. You started at a pay range no college grad would consider, but you used it as a stepping stone. Very successfully.
You also got lucky. Without your contacts, if you were to lose your job, you'd be up a creek without a paddle. That's the danger of not having a degree - HR won't even shake your hand.
The flip side is that most college grads feel that
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This is obvious.
As a university student I find that university is less about "these are skills" and more about giving you a good background, and putting your mind into "I need to learn" mindset. Last summer I worked as an intern in a company. The amount of stuff I had to learn very quickly - or 'as I worked' was quite a bit. If I wasn't 'trained' to study and to research at university - I'm pretty sure I would have given up.
The time when I learnt most skills at Uni was when I entered a competition over 3 mo
What college did you go to? It's not listed... (Score:3)
"What college did you go to? It's not listed on your resume."
In my life I've found that the question and statement "What college did you go to? It's not listed on your resume." was only asked or me less than two times during all the interviews that I went through to score full-time and consulting gigs for investment banks on Wall Street. The interviewers were always interested in "tech-ing" me out with complex problem solving questions and then listening to my detailed explanations of the projects that I w
it's merely the effect of expectations (Score:5, Interesting)
look at Steve Ballmers (Score:2)
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he attended Harvard, met Billyboy and became later a very rich man!
(I'd rather not look at him, thanks... but...) If the school has instructors good enough, they'll get the students so insanely motivated and empowered that they'll bring out their best work during their peak early years. Whether or not they graduate at that point, the school will have succeeded in educating them, and succeeded admirably.
A state school was the best investment for me (Score:2)
Go to a flagship state university (Score:3)
A lot of states have terrific public universities. Just to name a few: California, Texas, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Washington, Arizona, North Carolina, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio, Iowa, Virginia, Maryland, and a few others have top public schools that are exceptionally good. The most important thing though is to have a focus on your career goals from early on. Set a goal from early on, and work on it. Don't wander around lecture halls and departments until your the end of junior year to find a major that fits you and then pick some lib arts major like political science or history. You'll end up with a lousy career. Think of a career path you like, think about subjects that you like, and think about how being in college can help you get there.
What if a prestigious school harms you? (Score:4, Interesting)
What if you go to some famous school, but all the good jobs are reserved for the "insiders" who have been going there for generations? Outside of this crowd, other employers may feel intimidated by your background and not want to hire you. Not all employers want a super-smart employee. Or if they do hire you, they may set you up for failure, because the boss wants to laugh about firing someone who went to a prestigious school.
I went to a prestigious school, where everything people said had many layers of meaning, and everything was an advanced mind game. It took me a long time to trust simpler people who really mean what they say; people couldn't understand why I was so "paranoid". Well, I was in an environment where you had to be.
Maybe, if my kids had the drive and smarts (Score:2)
Unseen University for me (Score:2)
Laundering privilege into qualifications (Score:4, Insightful)
As Walter Benn Michaels puts it in "The Trouble with Diversity," universities are where the rich send their children, in order to "launder their privilege into qualifications." What a great phrase!
The USA claims to be a free and open society, where anyone can, through natural talent and hard work, rise to a higher class, and become wealthy and influential. But of course that's a lie. Social classes exist here just as they do in all countries, and the rich upper classes will always remain dominant, the poor you will always have with you, and the middle class will always be insecure and will strive to move into the upper class. It's not different here, it's just that we've been sold on the myth of equal opportunity.
Because of this lie, the rich have to hide their inherited advantages, and must show evidence that they actually have talents and are hard-working. Middle-class workers have to be kept asleep, lest they realize that the people who own the corporation do so through wealth, and not through merit. Hence the corporate owners send their kids to Yale, Harvard, Princeton and Stanford, to mask that inherited privilege with the trappings of actual skill and effort.
I've walked through the campus at Princeton, and the undergraduates there all appeared to float through space, as if life had never presented them with any obstacles, as if anything was possible, as if the future held great delights. They weren't snobbish. They were very nice people, but they truly knew that they were masters of their universe.
So how does this relate to the NY times article in question? Why do private-university graduates have higher salaries than state-university graduates? Simply because they are rich and connected *BEFORE* they enter the hallowed halls. That wealth and advantage are there after they graduate, and helps them land great jobs. They would probably land those jobs if they didn't attend those schools, but then the resentful middle-class workers would smell a rat.
In other words, the school you attend makes no difference. What matters is what class you were born into.
depends upon field and career, of course (Score:4, Interesting)
There are many factors at work here. The various studies all have flaws as there are many interrelated variables and they are difficult to separate out. There is a complex choice here, and it is never as simple as these studies or stories make it out to be. Some things that are typically omitted:
1) If your undergraduate degree is the last degree you are going to get, the importance of that institution is elevated somewhat.
2) If you plan to get an advanced degree, one main goal of undergraduate education is to increase the likeliehood that you will get into a top graduate program and do well there.
2b) Top graduate programs in science and engineering are much more likely to take strong students from research universities, particularly those undergraduates who already took some graduate-level courses or had specific productive experience with undergraduate research.
Expounding a bit:
1) For careers in finance or management, many strong firms only consider students from very strong universities. If that is your career path, that could be an important criterion. Similarly, if your only degree will be undergraduate in some other field where generally the expectation is just an undergraduate degree, that choice of institution of course matters more. In terms of studies that look at average salary, this effect can dominate others as these are often high-paying fields with great variance in salary.
2) In general, I recommend that good students go to the "best" place that they get into. That is, the most academically rigorous usually works well. Overdoing it can be a problem, if they go to a place where the expectations are simply to high and they struggle and fail. But most commonly, the advantage of going to a strong place is that the other students are also strong, and the professors can then teach at a reasonable level for their audience. That is, often the other students are the limiting factor to the depth of a course's coverage and so you want to be at the best place you can be and still succeed. That is a good route to the preparation needed for doctoral-level courses.
2b) I've had to serve on various doctoral admissions committees, and students from big research universities are much more known quantities. Professors at these institutions have more experience with students continuing on to graduate school (and seeing their own students and other graduate students in their departments) and the students have a pretty good idea of what they are getting into. There have been too many students from small liberal arts colleges, whose letters of recommendation said "this is the best student I've seen in years" who took all the available courses there and excelled grade-wise, but who struggled and turned out to be poorly prepared or just overwhelmed by doctoral level work, or simply didn't really realize what they were getting into. So occassionally there are students from such backgrounds who do OK, but it isn't common and I can't recommend it as a good route to a strong graduate program. It may be the case that their smaller college instructors there are more involved in their teaching, classes are smaller, facilities are better, and they may in fact actually learn more at their institution and be happier there, but that doesn't really carry much weight for eventual graduate study.
FWIW, I went to an elite US research university for my undergraduate, and went to a top US research university for my PhD. I have taught or held research appointments post-Ph.D. in a wide range of institutions, from one of the weaker Ivy League institutions to top tier public research universities to mid-tier public research universities and I have a strong record of research funding as a professor judged primarily on research. People from many backgrounds ask for my advice about university choices in science and engineering as there is a culture of excessive obsession about "the right institution" for their choice.
Nowhere vs. Big Name for a grad student (Score:3)
In the late '90s I was making plans to go back to school for my Masters, and this was very much an issue I looked at.
I looked at the possibility of going to a relatively unknown school where i could quietly do something really interesting. I also looked at some Big Name schools. I ended up going to a Big Name (University of Toronto), who had more funding. I was poor enough that I had no choice: I took the money and ran, and ended up doing some really interesting stuff.
Since a graduate degree is so much more what you put in to it, doing your own research, do people feel names are as important for grad students?
...laura
Post-Scarcity Princeton & brand cost-effective (Score:3)
A book I wrote: http://www.pdfernhout.net/reading-between-the-lines.html [pdfernhout.net]
"Post-Scarcity Princeton, or, Reading between the lines of PAW for prospective Princeton students, or, the Health Risks of Heart Disease"
From there:
The fundamental issue considered in this essay is how an emerging post-scarcity society affects the mythology by which Princeton University defines its "brand", both as an educational institution and as an alumni community. ...
Consider a prospective Princeton student evaluating whether an elite education at Princeton is a good investment of four years of her or his youth -- as well as a the direct expenses and indirect opportunity cost of lost wages. How should such a person evaluate the Princeton University "brand" these days, given, say, Donald Rumsfeld '54 as a PU poster boy?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Rumsfeld [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poster_child [wikipedia.org]
"Children Pay Cost of Iraq's Chaos"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A809-2004Nov20.html [washingtonpost.com]
And also, how should a bright student interested in a future of independent intellectual effort see a PU investment in relation to perhaps a future PhD and professorship if they stay on the academic track all the way? Is it worth it? Should they really sacrifice, say, creating their own personalized "brand" on their own in the internet age from day one, as opposed to trying to build a life under the Princeton "brand" and so perhaps follow in Donald Rumsfeld's footsteps?
Here is an analogous example of someone choosing to pass up working at Apple to continue developing their own personal brand:
"Why I passed up the chance to work at Apple"
http://www.cameronmoll.com/archives/000809.html [cameronmoll.com]
A visitor comment from that web site:
Apple has nothing on Cameron Moll. Sure, Apple is a wonderful brand. But where Apple is in the business of design, Cameron strikes me as one in the business of the art of design, and that may appear to be a subtle difference at first glance. But it isn't. ... You have built a brand for and of yourself, and I personally admire your accomplishment. I believe you describe an important self-discovery: you value the Cameron Moll brand more than you value the mighty Apple brand.
By coincidence (if such really exist? :-), such a prospective student need look no further that the current (May 14, 2008) issue of the Princeton Alumni Weekly (Cover story: "The new rules of financial aid"):
http://www.princeton.edu/paw/archive_new/PAW07-08/13-0514/table_of_contents.html [princeton.edu]
to understand how the "Princeton University" brand may need to be rethought in a collaborative GNU/Linux & Wikipedia internet age. Is it still advisable to align oneself with the historic Princeton University brand in an emerging post-scarcity society? Or, to be fair, to align one's personal brand with how that historic PU brand is now seen by the public, acknowledging there is always a lot going on at Princeton in different directions? I'd also suggest there are more alumni than just me who have stopped buying PU-related automobile window stickers (see below for more on that).
That choice of self-branding versus main-stream branding in the internet age is related to the idea of "post-scarcity". I will define that better later, but for now, let's just imagine a future where beer everywhere in t
Elite College: $$ Buys Prestige (Score:3)
Any elite school is to some degree in the business of exchanging additional money for prestige. The Ivy League especially. If you plan to enter elite level law and/or finance, it's pretty much a given that you need to exit school with an Ivy dip (esp. if no family connections).
If you don't aspire to the commanding heights of Wall Street, the Loop, D.C. or academia, the added value is slim.
A more important question... (Score:3)
I recall less than 20 years ago going to a stated funded public university with no financial aid, and paying about $1,200 per semester including books. Now, 20 years, later, inflation having slightly less than doubled, my stepson is going to a public university that wants him to pay about $9,000 per semester.
Incomes and Real Estate taxes have risen, and the percentage that we are taxed for eduction has gone up, yet somehow, the cost of going to a public school has still gone up by more than 7 times. Obviously someone is doing a very poor job with our money and they need to be removed from office.
Going to an elite college opens doors... (Score:4, Funny)
I went to a reunion at a very elite college and they had the results of a survey sent out to the alumn.
One answer to the question, "Do you think 's name helped you?" was:
"Yes, it opened many doors... and legs"
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
(warning: anecdotal evidence ahead)
Dunno... I recently had to sit in as technical on a metric ton of interviews for open IT positions here where I work. I turned down an IT ops management candidate who had a Masters' Degree in Comp Sci and 10 years of management experience, but never held down a management position at any one company for more than 3 years (the winning candidate had only a 4-yr EE degree, but nearly 20 years' experience managing at an F100 company).
I also talked them into throwing out resume
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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I'd have to agree with what you're saying.
I have no degree to speak of, however decent people skills (meaning I can wear a suit and talk my way through a decent presentation in front of a decision-making audience) and loads of free time spent learning development (the language doesn't really matter) gave me the opportunity to fly around the world with a 140k+ euro a year job at age 24.
In my first year of employment, I negotiated two pay raises, and in the second, negotiated a tech lead position for APAC at
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What one goes to college for these degrees is less of the degree, but more of being able to bag an internship. Companies want known goods, and they receive reams full of resumes from people who have degrees from everywhere from Elbonia U all the way from MIT/Harvard/Yale/Miskatonic graduates in the top 10% of the class.
The key in college which isn't told to most students is college isn't about getting grades and beer bong slamming. It is about getting internships and contacts so when graduation day is at
but they should have apprenticeship not work for f (Score:2)
but they should have apprenticeship not work for free internships that are not what internships are meant for as you are to being picking up coffee and other stuff like that or replace a some one who they where paying to do the same job.
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I went to Stanford for Computer Science + Management Science and can emphatically say yes.
Re:No (Score:5, Funny)
I went to Stanford for Computer Science + Management Science and can emphatically say yes.
It's Sunday. You're posting on Slashdot.
You're impressing exactly who now?
Re:No (Score:5, Funny)
I did Applied Math (minor in Statistics) at Stanford and can say with absolute certainty that there's probably a 50-50 chance it could go either way.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, you failed to do all the fun math associated with it. Even without, you're still right.
He has a lot to consider, that doesn't come from the universities recruiter, high school guidance counselor, or his parents that went to the school that they want him to go to.
As a side note, I'll be using "he" as a theoretical person, since neither the journalist nor the submitter were actually asking the question.
1) Does his career choice require a degre
Depends on the cost (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course nowadays students at Cambridge will be looking at £9,000/year tuition fees with lower fees of £3-6,000/year elsewhere thanks to the UK government's appalling mismanagement of education. With fees like that I would have had to think long and hard before going. Partly because of the cost but also partly because selecting student's based on parental income rather than academic ability will mean lowering the education standards and a worsening of the student experience as the fraction of those of us who went through the state school system is reduced.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Depends on the cost (Score:5, Interesting)
Yea because the amount you pay back for your tuition fee loan is based on your parents income.
Yes it is. Those with rich parents will not NEED a tuition fee loan because their parents will pay their tuition for them. Those of use whose parents could not have afforded to do that will get stuck with the bill.
In fact with the new 9k fees it is cheaper to go to places like Canada for a degree - even paying the increased foreign student rate and even with the suppressed value of the pound. Of course there are the cost of flights but the lower cost of living and accommodation probably recoups most of that....and if the pound ever regains some of its lost value on the international exchanges it will become quite a bit cheaper.
Of course you could argue that people should pay for the education they get but in the past that was always counted as part of the higher tax rates that those with greater incomes paid. This also evened out some of the inequities in that teachers get lower salaries than doctors and yet both are just as essential. By charging the same for everyone you will end up with more lawyers, doctors and business-types and fewer teachers, scientists and engineers because the former have higher salaries and can easily afford to pay back the loans. This sort of change is not good for society.
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A coworker of mine earns $10k/year more with his MIT MSEE than anyone else in the department with an MSEE. I say emphatically yes.
How much per year does he pay on his MIT MSEE loans? Is it worth the cost after taxes?
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Re:Only if (Score:5, Insightful)
As other people have noted, people attending top schools may be more successful financially and professionally, but they also tend to be smart, hardworking, and come from affluent backgrounds. Those qualities are probably more important predictors of success than the education itself. The article mentions a Princeton economist who found that kids who were admitted to elite schools, but who turned them down to to attend other institutions, did about as well as those actually attending.
That being said, don't discount the importance of the name. A prof once told me "the name will help you get in the door for the interview, but once you're inside, it's all about you". He meant to emphasize that it's ultimately about the person, not the institution. True, but if you can't solve the immediate problem of getting that interview, your qualifications don't really matter, and in a lot of fields its difficult to even get an interview. Simply being able to get into a good school implies that you have a lot of the qualities- motivation, work ethic, intelligence- that people want. They're more likely to read your application carefully and call you. Maybe that's not fair, but that's the way it is. The name opens doors.
Personally, I think good schools really are worth it; the top institutions really are different. But keep in mind that the "best" school according to U.S. News and World Report is not necessarily the "best" school for you. Different schools have different cultures and you might find yourself fitting in perfectly at one, and miserable at the other. Maybe you prefer a school where people are passing out drunk and vomiting in the halls, or maybe you want a school where people hang out in the halls arguing about programming languages. Maybe you want a school with an amazing English program, maybe you want one with an amazing philosophy program. Maybe you want to go to a huge school in New York City, maybe you want to go to a small college in a college town. It's more important to go to the school that's best for you, than the one that's ranked #1 this year.
But the most important thing to keep in mind is this: you can get a good education anywhere, if you work hard, and a lousy education anywhere, if you don't.
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Re:Only if (Score:4, Interesting)
And the "best" schools aren't necessarily the most expensive schools. That is another important distinction to make.
Quite true. In fact, Ivy League schools can be nearly free if you're not rich and are willing to negotiate with the financial aid office.
Re:Only if (Score:5, Informative)
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Total Sum of Payment / year = X
"40 percent more a year" = X + (40*X/100)
People tend to measure payment in years. Which kinda makes sense since it encompasses bonuses and whatever.