<p>Here’s some discussion of the Krueger findings:
[Overcoming</a> Bias : College Prestige Lies](<a href=“http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/03/college-prestige-matters.html]Overcoming”>College Prestige Lies - by Robin Hanson - Overcoming Bias)</p>
<p>I cannot find a link to a free download of the 1999 paper, only one to the original 1998 working paper.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Overvalued</a> tuition a falseassumption - The Chicago Maroon](<a href=“Delays keep Proof from silver screen – Chicago Maroon”>Delays keep Proof from silver screen – Chicago Maroon)</p>
<p>And this:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Half</a> Sigma: Another blogger writes about the Dale Krueger study](<a href=“halfsigma.com”>halfsigma.com)</p>
<p>Prestige does matters. That is why people buy expensive cars, watches, women’s bags and suits. They want people to notice them. It is the WOW factor that most humans secretly desire.</p>
<p>No, my job won’t get taken by an Asian. Especially not if I go into p0rn :)</p>
<p>Honestly, there are reasons why things are prestigous. Cars that are prestigous are generally pretty great cars to drive. A rolex? Who doesn’t want one? They are stylish and classic. The wow factor is a part of it, but not all, or even the majority I’d say. For schools, prestigous places generally have talented students, faculty and administration with focus on students, great research, grad school placement, and other random things (Stanford awesome weather, Brown’s laidback feel, etc.). Students at these places have amazing times. It’s not like they go to the school and are dissapointed that they only came out with the prestige. </p>
<p>Although, there is one Mercedes commercial that basically says: “Buy a Mercedes, well, because of this (camera shifts to the emblem.” That would be like Harvard saying: “Go here because we are Harvard.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You didn’t have to confess that. Sorry…I hope you can get a real job when the economy gets better.</p>
<p>Haha. </p>
<p>Little known fact, female pornstars make on average 8x their male counterparts.</p>
<p>^except, from what I’ve seen, female pornstars (the mediocre ones anyways) may only get one gig or so, whereas the male counterparts commonly appear in episode after episode.</p>
<p>Haha. Many of them are just down on their luck and need a quick couple hundred.</p>
<p>I did a paper on this :)</p>
<p>the research was stimulating</p>
<p>^lol at the last thing</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Thank you. Prestige is hardly the be-all, end-all, and some people don’t care about the specific factors that tend to lead to prestige (or care strongly about factors that don’t tend to lead to prestige), and that’s fine. And there are plenty of really good schools that are relatively less prestigious. But I’m sick of people pretending that prestige is some entirely arbitrary factor that isn’t connected to anything. Is it <em>somewhat</em> arbitrary? Sure. There are plenty of cases where I can’t see any particular reason why Foo is more prestigious than Bar. And there are a lot of underrated schools out there, and also some overrated ones. But there are also plenty of cases where I can. There’s a vast middle ground between “perfect” and “meaningless”.</p>
<p>I applied a lot of top research universities (including four of HYPMS) because I wanted to be surrounded by really smart people - no put-on-a-pedestal honors program where the honors kids are special and separate from the general school population, but a place where being really smart is standard and expected - and because I wanted to be at a world-class research institution (I did not want a liberal arts college where I as an undergrad would be the center of the mission, I wanted to be part of a mission bigger than myself). Also, because in some fields, at least when seeking your first job, a prestigious name on your degree can in fact help you with your job search, as can the contacts that you make at a prestigious school.</p>
<p>^what the previous poster said.</p>
<p>There is a reason these schools became prestigious and it’s not because they pump tuition dollars into a great marketing department.</p>
<p>The natural question for both schools of thought is: could someone who is really smart, really talented, tease out the same accomplishments, opportunities, career prospects, intelligent friends, at a non-elite school that they would have gotten at a top one?</p>
<p>
There’s a great episode of the cartoon “I Am Weasel” which essentially addresses this. In short, I think the most talented people create their own opportunities and excel wherever they go; but most people, even most smart, talented people, will benefit from schools that provide more opportunities.</p>
<p>Please. A $50 watch looks great and tells time just as well as a Rolex. </p>
<p>Seeking approval of others via expensive clothes and cars shows a weakness in character.</p>
<p>There have also been studies recently that show that having more money does not make us happier. So while attending a prestigious school may increase your income, that does not necessarily mean you will be happier. There are great reasons to attend prestigious schools, but I believe you should attend a school because it has specific things to offer that will help meet your personal goals, not just because it has a name. If I need a pickup truck to accomplish something, a Mercedes is not going to be very helpful no matter how well respected and prestigious it is.</p>
<p>^Exactly. Once you reach the income level that allows you to not worry about bills, happiness doesn’t go up much from there. </p>
<p>Honestly, what’s the difference between 60k/yr and 100k/yr? A slightly nicer car, slightly nicer house, slightly nicer watch? Unless you’re a millionaire (scratch that, multimillionaire) and can do whatever you want, having more money doesn’t really accomplish much. And you won’t get that rich working for someone else. (read: your college prestige is irrelevant.)</p>
<p>I don’t know if you’re right about that. Actually, I’m pretty sure you’re wrong. There’s a huge difference in 60k/yr and 100k/yr. Over 12 years, that’s a difference of half a million dollars (and more if you invest it correctly)! I’m sure you’d throw yourself a party now if I offered you that kind of cash. That’s the difference between renting and apartment and owning a house, the difference between median household income and top 20%, etc. If you were to say 450k/yr and 500, I’d agree. I would also agree that very few people become multimillionaire’s without working by themselves. But to say there’s no difference between 60k/yr and 100k/yr, you’re bull*****ing everyone.</p>
<p>Okay, so maybe those specific examples weren’t precise. Regardless, consider this:</p>
<p>The difference in standard of living from 5k to 15k is significant.
The difference in standard of living from 80k to 90k isn’t.
Both are only an increase of 10k.</p>
<p>So once you reach the “live comfortably and not worry about bills” income, ie 60-80k, anything more doesn’t amount to a whole lot of happiness. Most careers will top out in the 60-80 range, so there isn’t any reason to pick a career you don’t like to make more money.</p>
<p>Again, I’m not sure I can agree with that. How would you feel if you weren’t able to afford your child’s school of choice because your income isn’t anything more than the boundary you provided? How would you feel having to work longer after normal retirement age to keep your standard of living high? How would you feel if your spouse got sick and now you can’t maintain a reasonably similar standard of living due to your lack of savings? How would you feel if you don’t have extra discretionary income to take care of sick parents? The list goes on and on. Money surely doesn’t buy happiness, but lack of it breeds unhappiness. It’s not shallow for young students to want to go to colleges that will give them the most opportunities to make good money. It’s quite wise and it would not be prudent to ignore this factor unless you’re already guaranteed comfortable means. Of course someone shouldn’t pick a career that they don’t like to make more money. That would be absurd since they wouldn’t last long at it and probably wouldn’t be very good at it either. However, if there were opportunities to make more money doing the same/similar job, and these opportunities were only offered to a few people, it would behoove a young student to put in reasonable effort to get these opportunities.</p>