Are today's students more pressured to attend top universities?

[ripemango]

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For evidence, I suggest that you start with Colleges that Change Lives and Harvard Schmarvard. While both books have a clear, open and obvious anti-ivy bias, they both do mention studies that have been done that indicate folks who attended non-prestigious colleges, but who had admissions statistics that were high enough to make they competitive for gaining admission to an ivy tend to do just as well 10–20 years after graduating from college as the ivy grads themselves do in terms of both income and contributions.

I’ll look at those, that would be very interesting. I’m assuming that they turn out just as successful, right?</p>

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If you look through CEO biographies, you’ll see that many, many more of them graduate from Podunk U’s than the Ivies. It’s not that the Ivies are under represented amongst CEOs; it’s rather that somebody with the drive to become a CEO of a company has the drive to do what it takes to get the best education anywhere they are likely to go.

That’s true, but I’m pretty sure that’s for the undergraduate education. I thought that most CEO’s got graduate degrees at top universities, like that Google founder guy who went to some state school and then Stanford.</p>

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I’m not saying a degree from a prestigious university makes no difference. I am saying that the difference it makes for most students is far less than they may believe.

Yes, so when Ivy league university makes you pay 30k and state school wants 25k, isn’t it worth it? Also, you really sound like my mom when it comes to this so forgive me if it just sounds like I’m against everything you say.</p>