<p>As an international, who does not know anything about USA except for applying to colleges, I felt that any college or university is good. </p>
<p>I thought that after graduation from a US institute would guarentee and good job.</p>
<p>At CC, however, things are wayyyy different. People say its either, attend an Ivy and become a CEO (or something like that)....OR...attend anything else and start filling up forms for McDonalds.</p>
<p>Seriously, is this really true??????</p>
<p>Does education really vary so vastly in these colleges, or are you only judging these places by their age and reputation (harvard's the oldest and the most reputed.....william and marry comes second I guess).</p>
<p>I've seen people in my country DIE to go to places like Minnesota state university or wichita state university.......etc.
They think that a degree from this place guarentees a job (provided they study well).</p>
<p>WHAT GUARENTEES A FINANCIALLY SECURE FUTURE: AN IVY (OR SOMETHING EQUALLY REPUTED) COLLEGE........OR.....HOW YOU PERFORM IN ANY COLLEGE......OR A COMBINATION OF BOTH?</p>
<p>I wanna hear comments from an experienced american on this one!!!</p>
<p>
[quote]
WHAT GUARENTEES A FINANCIALLY SECURE FUTURE: AN IVY (OR SOMETHING EQUALLY REPUTED) COLLEGE........OR.....HOW YOU PERFORM IN ANY COLLEGE......OR A COMBINATION OF BOTH?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Success on the job is based on a variety of factors: working hard; having good luck and a modicrum of intellegence; being a nice person; willing and able to work in groups and take on a variety of tasks including those not directly related to your job; not being cynical; and, taking advantage of all the opportunities offered to you. </p>
<p>None of these require an ivy league education.</p>
<p>And by the way: really successful people do not use all CAPS on the Internet unless they are yelling. Are you yelling?</p>
<p>nope.......i know using CAPS means yelling.....i actually wanted to bold it or focus on that part.......but dunno how to do that......so i decided to use caps!</p>
<p>That aside, what do you think about the rest of my comments? They are based on observations made during a 30-year career in the US Government. Neither my wife or I went to elite schools although we both went UNC-Chapel Hill for grad school, an institution which is highly regarded. We wound up with very successful government careers, and made, relatively speaking, lots of money. Not Wall Street money, but put it this way: had our son been interest in HYP we could have afforded to send him there without any aid.</p>
<p>I know Ivy grads who are not well-off financially-but they are people who had other priorities than making as much money as possible.</p>
<p>Probably Ivy grads who want to make money more than they want other things can find a way to do so. </p>
<p>A good education and ambition/drive is more important than the prestige of your institution--although elite-college networking can help a career.</p>
<p>You might also be interested in the thread posted in this forum about two days ago entitled, "Krueger & Dale study of income of graduates from elite colleges." It's about two pages back at this point.</p>
<p>Three thoughts: Most CC posters are mainly interested in the immediate future (that is, where they will go to college) rather than what they will do with the degree afterward. This leads to an emphasis on prestige rather than practical concerns (practical work preparation or student loan debt, for example). </p>
<p>Second, like all internet posting communities, CC has developed its own culture and set of conventional wisdom. In part this is created by the site's structure (for example, the home page lists Ivy League forums prominently and individually, while state flagship universities are more difficult to find and lower-tier state schools aren't listed at all). If you go to other online discussion sites (such as the education forum on craigslist.org, for example) you will see alternative opinions.</p>
<p>Third, most CC posters are high school students who have had limited experience in the world of professional work. When eleventh graders insist that a Wichita State University degree will doom you to McDonalds, you might want to consider their experience and age when deciding whether to take the comment seriously. "You'll end up at McDonalds" is a standard epithet rather than a serious prediction.</p>
<p>If we're to be honest though, in this Country the students from lower tier colleges do not have the access to top jobs that kids from top schools have. There are a hugely disproportionate number of highly successful people who went to ivy schools and similar. There is also a highly disproportionate number oif ivy grads at top grad schools.</p>
<p>Also, it's important to define success. If I'm to be totally honest, I was surprised at the above posts which position government jobs as considered successful in this Country in terms of finances. Certainly some of our smartest, most dedicated, highly educated people work for our government. We should all be thankful for that. But I have to say that to most I know, they are not considered financially successful.</p>
<p>Nothing guarantees success. There are ivy graduates who are in jail or homeless. There are people from second or third tier colleges who are CEO's, newspaper editors, and political leaders. Your success in life depends more on your ambition and personality than on what college you attend. Along with this, however, is that people who are ambitious and likely to succeed probably start out that way when they are in high school, and they are more likely to go to the most elite colleges. If a person doesn't go to an elite college either because of money concerns or personal preference, society does not discriminate against them in terms of how successful they can be. The US society does put a strong emphasis on education, however.</p>
<p>The ivies are Harvard, Princeton, Yale, UPenn, Dartmouth, Cornell, Columbia, and Brown. They are grouped that way for historical reasons primarily because they played against each other in a sports league. The two top engineering colleges are MIT and Caltech. With 3500 4-year colleges in the US and 1.2 million high school graduates each year, for all practical purposes there are hundreds of colleges that are "just as good" as these colleges. I could list almost a hundred off the top of my head now.</p>
<p>I disagree that the above attitude is not represented on CC. There are many threads on this. It is true that there is more of a emphasis on the ivies at CC than you will find anywhere else in US society. This is primarily because the high school students on CC tend to be the ambitious people and they are at a point in their lives where they are competing to be accepted in the top colleges.</p>
<p>University of wsconsin has tied Harvard in churning out CEO's</p>
<p>Steve Jobs (apple computers did not finish at Reed)
Mike Bloomberg is a self made Billionare who went to Hopkins</p>
<p>There are plenty of people who make lots of money who did not attend Ivy league schools. There are actors who get $20 a picture who did even attend college.</p>
<p>There are plenty of people in the NHL, NBA, NFL, MLB who did not attend ivy league schools.</p>
<p>There are many ways in which one can be successful. It does not all hinge on whether or not you attend a school that started out as ans still is an athletic conference.</p>
<p>i think the misconception among everyone here is that EDUCATION guarantees you a financially secure life.</p>
<p>sure, many rich CEO and high ranking figures did not graduate from an IVY League, and from a state school. But on the other hand, does getting top grades at a state school mean your financially set? NO</p>
<p>education, among many other factors such as experience and talent are what guarantees a secure life...</p>
<p>WARNING--Apparent unsconsciouable bragging follows, but its just the facts.</p>
<p>Well it all depends on what you mean by successful. Based on what I read on the Parents Forum, compared to a number of the adults on CC, Federal Government employment seems to have left my wife and I very well off financially. We have a house in the Virginia suburbs; two cars; a child then went to private school in DC for 13 years; we routinely vacation in Europe, California, and the Caribbean using our three timeshare weeks; have together guaranteed retirement income of over 6 figures (which goes up with inflation) plus cash in the bank, IRAs, and three other retirement programs all based on government service; we have had no problem sending our child to one of the most expensive colleges in the country; and, we have guaranteed medical insurance until we die. </p>
<p>Like I said it isn't Wall Street rich, but very, very good. Not bad for graduates of American International College, Rutgers, and UNC grad school.</p>
<p>I want to add that for my wife especially it was a struggle. She grew up as an orphan raised by lower middle class relatives in what was then rural MA. She went to a no-tier college and grad school on social security payments. She's work her way up until she is now a government manger, who I might add funds a major discretionary grant program at Harvard. People come to her for money.</p>
<p>I say she's a success. She did it based on her intelligence, toughness, and (sometimes) charm.</p>
<p>ntek511:
The term "financially successful" can mean many things. Some people might reserve it for people making at least a million dollars per year, but it can also mean a big house, two cars, and money left over for vacations. Try not to be too confused by the direction that the thread has taken. One person has insulted another person by implying that government workers are not the first thing you think of when you say "financially successful". Working for the US government in the US is just like any other job. There is nothing special about it either way. Obviously some government workers make more money than others. :)</p>
<p>If Ivies have more CEOs it's because the students entering them are better than state school, so by law of averages. the average student leaving them is better.</p>
<p>The average student who was rejected from ivies and goes to state school does worse than the ivy-leaguer.</p>
<p>BUT</p>
<p>The average id who was accepted to ivies, but chose to go to a lower school des just as good as the Ivy Leaguer.</p>
<p>Point: it has nothing to do with the school, its the quality of students that enter them.</p>
<p>you would have to define "financially secure" ... would it mean having enough money to fullfill the basic needs of house, food, cars, money for children's education; or would it mean making the most amount of money possible. you can go to any college and support a family with a basic job. </p>
<p>This is sort of relevant: there was in interesting article in today's paper about a University of Maryland study that revealed that for business schools, those who graduated from ivy league schools (plus MIT, Stanford, etc) made more money than those two graduated from schools with higher ranked business programs than their ivy counterparts. I think the average was like $12,500 anually. Food for thought...</p>
<p>My friends mom went to M.I.T and then Harvard for grad school. She now makes 40,000 a year, a good amount nonetheless but not the stereo typical Ivy grad salary.</p>
<p>I say you can always be "financially successful" if you have the intelligence and personality, although education from top-tier schools can and often does expedite and make the entire process more painless.
But even if you receive a top education from elite college/university, if you can't take care of yourself and if you're not smart enough, I pretty sure you are not going to end up to be "financially successful."</p>