I googled him. Towson is certainly well known here (a MD public college), but I can understand how it isn’t on CC. I suspect the majority of students attend colleges that are essentially unknown on CC. Towson lists 19,000 for its enrollment. Many succeed too (success defined as being able to support themselves in a job they like).
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I really don’t think that medicine is elite or bust. First, most MD’s are not elite, they are highly competent. Second, the credentialing process places a nice floor under them. Lastly, they are fairly ubiquitous (0.6% of total workforce).
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I would love to know if anyone has the stats about how many in med school within the last 5-10 years came from below median income families. Does it approach 50%?
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What do you mean by “elite”? Almost no profession is elite or bust. My nephew got into a top 20 Med School from a regional U and I know kids from schools like Muhlenberg who are well on their way to becoming MDs. Kids from decent, but not elite, public regional colleges who are successful lawyers. A friend teaches at a law school that is at/near the bottom of the top 100. The top kids still get decent jobs.
Engineering is one profession that does not require a degree from a top 20 or even a top 50 school. CPA is another. Kids that are in advertising or media types of jobs are coming from what CC would consider non-elite (City College of NYC, Fordham, URI, Salisbury State).
Certain types of jobs may be elite or bust. Getting a job at a top finance firm or getting into an elite law school is much easier from a top college. Getting any job in finance probably is not.
Big public Us often have good networking opportunities and recruiting, even if not elite. That is likely harder moving down the quality ladder, especially for kids graduating from small, relatively obscure colleges that have limited alumni networks or recruiting pools.
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I think this is the key. Does one mean an elite college to get there or an above average income (or a lot of loans) to get there?
I agree with you 100% about not needing Top Whatever colleges for almost all professions.
Unless I misunderstood, the question the OP posed is about career paths becoming elite-or-bust, not whether only “elite” colleges will put someone on an “elite” career path.
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Found my data about med school students and family income:
https://www.aamc.org/media/9596/download
“This research shows that roughly three quarters of medical school matriculants
come from the top two household-income quintiles, and this distribution hasn’t
changed in three decades.”
In 2017 just 13% came from the lowest two quintiles whereas 24% came just from the Top 5%. 51% came from the top quintile. 77% from the top two quintiles. This leaves 11% in the third quintile.
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There is a lot of overlap of those two factors though. There are probably more future elite engineers in MIT than at an open enrolment community college.
Yes, there’re likely higher concentrations of “elite” engineers from colleges like MIT, but there’re also “elite” engineers, in even greater total numbers, from the rest of the colleges.
I’m not arguing that an “elite” education at a place like MIT makes no difference. It does. However, there’re few places like MIT.
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Isn’t it usually the case that “elite” job applicants receive the most/best job offers in any field?
In the first post of this thread, I define it as follows:
It does not necessarily mean having to attend an elite college and/or come from an SES-elite background, although it may for some specific examples. However, it is also possible for a job to hire on a purely personal merit basis, but only the very top performers can get career jobs in it, while those who are merely good at the job need to find something else to do.
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While that may be true in many cases, that does not necessarily exclude those who are merely good at the job from getting jobs. An elite-or-bust career path is one where only the elite applicants get (good) jobs, and those who are merely good at the job get nothing (or low quality jobs).
Or, as with a cousin of mine, knew somebody who knew somebody, got some actual experience, and then got into one of the top graduate (MA) programs.
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Blockquote
I would argue that as long as nepotism exists then a field with this purely meritocratic hiring practice doesn’t exist.
I doubt that the CEO of “ elite company” interviewed hundreds of people across the socio economic spectrum and decided to hire his friends son because he happened to be the best.
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It may get worse in academia because of another trend, where there appears to be a trend of student preferences toward existing “elite” colleges and away from all other colleges, based on application volumes. College closures or downsizings eliminate some of the good (tenured or tenure track) jobs available in academia, and leave the remaining ones as even more “elite” / difficult to get.
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^It’s more serious than that in academia. I can imagine a world where lectures are delivered electronically by the best (at least in terms of elucidation) professors in the field, regardless of what college one attends. Other “professors” primarily conduct classroom Q&As.
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I don’t think for a lot of fields academia is an elite or bust. In STEM + many social sciences, the fall back of you don’t make it into academia isn’t too bad. It may actually be better from a purely financial standpoint. I think that the careers that are truly elite or bust have a very narrow skill set that needs to be developed that are not transferable. Good examples are sports and the preforming arts. Spending years perfecting a 15 jumper isn’t really going to help if you don’t make the NBA.
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I don’t believe this is true outside of the rarified world of CC. The trend is not “away from all other colleges”, the trend is away from small colleges in non-urban areas, whether religious, focused on a particular discipline, etc. Take a look at the colleges which have closed-- or are on the danger list- it’s not about “elite” vs. everyone else.
The “low residency” colleges are booming- and they are not elite (SNH?) The online colleges are booming (U Phoenix)-- not elite. The state university system in some parts of the country is overwhelmed. But states which are losing population, are primarily rural so nobody can commute, aging (so education funding loses out to other social sector needs) are in trouble/going to be in trouble.
Not a story about the elites. But for sure a story about how you ignore demographics at your peril. A plunge in the number of 10 year olds means a state has an 8 year head start to figure out how to buck the trend- and most did not.
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^It seems to me the trend is another example of bifurcation. Students and their families seem to prefer either an “elite” (however they perceive it), or a phyically or financially more accessible (local or online) college. The ones in the middle are suffering. COVID accelerates this trend.
Yes, but do they offer desirable tenure-track or tenured faculty jobs, or just more of the much less desirable adjunct faculty jobs?