Does it matter where you go to college?

College Search & Selection
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<p>Interesting article from The Atlantic magazine, May 2012. Not sure if this particular article has already been discussed here. I know the issue has been discussed.</p>

<p>Does</a> It Matter Where You Go to College? - Jordan Weissmann - The Atlantic</p>

<p>The main points were:
Years of research show that, when it comes to your future paycheck, the name on your degree really does count.</p>

<p>Study 1: DO THE RANKINGS MATTER AT ALL?
Yes. The more elite the school, the better its alums' paychecks.</p>

<p>Study 2: IF YALE REJECTS ME, AM I DOOMED?
Nope. There's evidence that where you apply is more important than where you attend.</p>

<p>Study 3: IF I CAN'T GET INTO A GOOD STATE SCHOOL, AM I DOOMED?
Actually, yeah. You might be.</p>

<p>Study 4: SHOULDN'T INDIVIDUALS MATTER MORE THAN INSTITUTIONS?
They should, and they do. Exceptional students at superior schools get the biggest lift.</p>

<p>Bonus: WHAT SCHOOL OFFERS THE BEST RETURN ON INVESTMENT?</p>

<p>So speaking very broadly, better schools yield bigger paychecks. But does that mean they're always worth the price? Bloomberg Businessweek has teamed up with Payscale, which collects self-reported earnings data from its users, to estimate the return on investment for more than 500 colleges. Topping the list: MIT, with lifetime ROI of about $1.8 million for graduates, or 12.6 percent a year. It's followed closely by fellow elite engineering school, Cal Tech. The upper ranks of the list is dominated by elite private colleges, though, on percentage basis, some of the best deals are top state colleges, such as Georgia Tech and University of Virginia.</p>

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<p>As usual, the Payscale-based rankings do not account for the mix of majors at each school. Note that engineering / CS heavy schools tend to rank higher than they would otherwise be based on their selectivity.</p>

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<p>Very interesting study.</p>

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<p>Also, the Payscale survey only includes people whose final degree was a Bachelors degree. </p>

<p>So, if a school has a lot of students going to graduate business school, law school, medical school, etc. they were excluded from the results.</p>

<p>That is one of the reasons that the engineering / computer science schools did so well in the survey.</p>