<p>I've noticed that when discussion revolves around the merits of certain groups of colleges, CC members rarely analyze the actual education said group provides. Instead, when someone perfoms cost-benefit analysis on different groups of colleges (I.E. elite vs non-elite, Instate vs OOS, etc.), that person makes a decision on factors such as cost, prestige, and job opportunities. While I don't deny the immense importance of some of those factors, shouldn't the actual quality of education your child receives come into play? For example, I recently stumbled onto a thread debating whether or not sending your child to an "elite" college was a good idea. The thread quickly degenerated into whether or not the prestige at an elite college would provide more income down the road. </p>
<p>While future job prospects are important, isn't there an inherent benefit in receiving the best education one possibly can? Instead of looking at prestige, shouldn't we encourage children to pursue the best education they can because educations transforms you into a better person and gives you the tools to to contribute to society?</p>
<p>I guess my question to you all is: </p>
<p>How much importance should be given to the quality of education received as a factor for choosing where to attend college (vs other factors)?</p>
<p>I’m all for learning and “transforming into a better person” but one can also do that through travel, volunteerism, and many other types of life experience. The bottom line is that I want my kids to have good jobs that they love. If a particular college helps open the doors a little wider for them, then I’m all for it.</p>
<p>P.S. Edited to say that I imagine that the colleges that will help open the doors for them will also give them a good education; otherwise, I doubt those doors would be open in the first place.</p>
<p>Quality of education is again one of variables that is difficult to quantify and impressions will vary from person to person. One person’s conception of quality may not be another. What about the highly rated schools where many, many classes are taught by TAs. What about the not so highly ranked schools in gorgeous locales that have amazing writers and artists as profs. What about the kids that just click with a prof and end up with the enrichment that those sorts of relationships bring. Too hard to quantify but definitely those things make a huge difference in one persons educational trail. So yes, of course, advanced education is about enrichment, growth, experiential learning and all those things but it’s mighty difficult to “parse”. Some of this is the underlying principle in the CTCL books. Transformational education. I cannot remember anything in the CTCL books about the “job outcomes” of that education. I think there is also a huge difference in kids taking a professional tract where the outcome is a job/a profession. That is advanced “training” if you want to cut to the chase. Very different from philosophy, divinity or other such majors or kids that intend to remain in education.</p>
<p>^I’m not suggesting a school’s rank determines the quality of education; nor am I suggesting that quality of education is easy to quantify. Rather, I’m more curious as to why more people aren’t discussing it. Prestige isn’t easy to quantify, but people tend to do so anyway. Why isn’t quality of education at least discussed on CC?</p>
<p>Quality of education is subjective, but it is discussed – but it is a little like discussing politics or religion – can get sticky if you start saying one school is better in this regard than another – people take offense if the school mentioned is not the one they chose. And indeed, what is better quality to one person is not necessarily better to another.</p>
<p>I think that one of the reasons IS that it’s so hard to define, and so different for different people. When I have seen it discussed, people end up talking past each other, and it gets frustrating for everybody, and ends up being more of an argument about how to define the phrase than anything else.</p>
<p>Also, when it gets discussed, it is sometimes brought up as a pretext to slam particular schools or groups of schools, or to promote the OP’s pet school or group of schools, rather than being discussed for, shall we say, discussion’s sake.</p>