<p>There is little peer effect at selective colleges… From the Carnevale study jym cited:</p>
<p>“It is in the consideration of peer effects that the consensus on the standard model for the current system of selectivity begins to unravel. Hoxby’s explanation of the effects of affluent peers on spending in selective colleges does make intuitive sense. But the view that there are peer effects that improve individual learning, persistence, graduation rates, and subsequent career success are more muddled in the data. The notion of campus-wide peer effects on learning loses considerable authority when researchers look at actual students and their peer relationships on college campuses. The evidence of peer effects on persistence and learning shows up not in college class cohorts, but in more intimate relationships, such as those between roommates and friends. Peer effects are hard to find in the data. To the extent they are measurable, they do not tend to matter much, especially among the most-qualified students, but they do matter to some extent among less-qualified students.79”</p>
<p>BTW that report is full of interesting stuff regarding real impacts of college–especially elite vs less elite.</p>
<p><a href=“http://tcf.org/publications/2010/9/how-increasing-college-access-is-increasing-inequality-and-what-to-do-about-it[/url]”>http://tcf.org/publications/2010/9/how-increasing-college-access-is-increasing-inequality-and-what-to-do-about-it</a></p>