<p>This ranking is based on something more and more parents and their kids need to be paying attention to vs. "prestige" -- namely, what the average grad earns coming out of these high priced institutions! PayScale.com does a great job ranking schools based on starting salary, mid career salary, job satisfaction AND return on investment! You will be shocked by the Money Mag rankings. Check it out: <a href="http://time.com/money/collection/moneys-best-colleges/moneys-best-colleges-full-list/">http://time.com/money/collection/moneys-best-colleges/moneys-best-colleges-full-list/</a></p>
<p>File under “Tricks To Get People To Buy Your Magazine”. Not saying they’re bad schools, but let’s have a little reality check here.</p>
<p>Babson and Webb are one trick ponies specializing in business and marine engineering, respectively. Color me surprised that they have relatively high average salaries. </p>
<p>The only thing “shocking” about this is that people keep posting this dreck without reading previous Payscale threads. The inherent problems of Payscale have been pointed out many times – students with higher degrees are not included, there is no accounting for COL, the data is self-reported, etc. </p>
<p>I looked back at the threads and many folks posting up had positive things to say about PayScale. My point is this = , considering the fact some of these elite colleges are now costing over $60K per year, and have 90 percent rejection rates, is it worth having your kids try for them (when they have no chance) and live the rest of their lives pissed off they never got in there, or is it far better to pick 6 to 8 schools with a track record of success in college placement or getting kids into good professional schools, which are in reach of the kid applying? Payscale (and this Money mag survey) at least identifies schools many many kids would not think of. </p>
<p>Thank goodness there are still students at MIT and the Ivies who don’t measure everything by money. For a while, anyway.</p>
<p>@Proudfather Babson is great for someone dedicated to business who doesn’t mind being in a completely business-oriented environment. Webb is great for someone who doesn’t mind a tiny, tiny school, is dead set on marine engineering, and wants to be surrounded by like-minded people. That does not describe most high school seniors, or even most prospective marine engineering and business majors. Many of the people who go to Ivy League schools could not and would not succeed at a school like Webb or Babson (Think aspiring authors, actors, professors, scientists - people very important to our society). </p>
<p>Students who will be crushed by an Ivy rejection and become embittered for the rest of their lives shouldn’t apply. The chances of that happening are too high, and many of the factors are out of the student’s direct control.</p>
<p>I agree that it raises awareness of these excellent institutions, and maybe will sway that die-hard business kid who already has a start-up to apply to Babson instead of just throwing apps out to every Ivy. </p>
<p>Take a look at the rest of the rankings, not just the top 2 which are (indeed) specialized schools. Public universities like Michigan, Virginia and Texas A&M rank HIGHER than some of these Ivies. Lafayette, which has a 40 percent acceptance rate, ranks HIGHER than Duke, where most kids waste their money applying. THese are all liberal arts and pre-professional colleges where good students can get into much easier , in some cases. </p>
<p>proudfather, people attend the ivies not because they are better…it is for validation. you can explain to people until you are blue in the face that the world does not revolve around ivy league schools…but you are wasting your time with most people set on going to one. </p>
<p>And lots of IIviers are from wealthy family, they do not care for that 70k ish salaries, they have a business to run upon graduation or they have a job waiting for them. So you can tell them anything else and that is not going to sway their decisions.</p>
<p>Payscale’s data set is woefully inaccurate.</p>
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<p>Guaranteed that they were all math/stats-challenged.</p>
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<p>Uh, no. What it says is, major in Engineering/Business; most top colleges will have similar job placements for those majors. For example, Swat Eng majors will do much, much better than Swat Lit majors. Ditto Vandy grads (#50); their biz grads will do much better than Comm majors.</p>
<p>and what makes any of the data from othe schools more accurate? marvin</p>
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<p>One of the biggest gotchas is that most of the commonly used Payscale numbers do not account for the mix of majors at each school. Of course the school full of engineering majors will show higher numbers than the school full of biology majors…</p>
<p>I would say that people don’t attend ivy league institutions to become millionaires. They can do that at state flagships. For example, the CEO of my employer went to UT Austin, founded his own bank, and is earning more than a million per year in salary and bonuses.
However (I’ll let this one sink in) ivy league are cheaper for pell grant-qualifying students than most flagships, with the exception of VA, MI, and NC.
Those elite tech schools are generally out of reach due to terrible financial aid.</p>
<p>bUT WARBLERSRULE AND BLUEBAYOU – What do US News or the other snob scales use as criteria? Do they use criteria that is important to undergraduate students day to day lives and education, or do they use things like – how many books faculty publish? Pray tell…</p>
<p>@proudfather
If “educational quality” carried more weight, state flagships (all state universities, really) would be most affected. LACs and small private universities would rise up.</p>
<p>Here is Money mag’s criteria. Looks good to me. <a href=“http://time.com/money/3020574/methodology-long-moneys-best-colleges/”>http://time.com/money/3020574/methodology-long-moneys-best-colleges/</a></p>
<p>(
yawn…I’m bored with lists. Find one that resonates with you, be it this one; USN&WR, Forbes (my fav), Princeton Review, Peterson’s, Kiplinger, Payscale or the soon to be invented Government “be all, end all” or whatever? I think its important to have a place to start and I think they provide some value for that reason. Taking shots at the Ivies seems to be in vogue right now.</p>
<p>Happy Hunting!</p>
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We still consider books to be important, but, as I understand it, more weight is put on how often the authors are cited.</p>
<p>Call me a curmudgeon, but add my vote for the intrinsic value of an education. I accept the reality that given the price,the prevailing attitude is college as vo-tech. </p>
<p>What the elite schools have is this. You’re the smartest kid in your high school, and now you’re no longer the smartest, and to keep up you’re going to have to learn how to work hard for the first time in your life. It’s humbling, but like tennis you raise your game by playing against people who are better than you.</p>
<p>Plus, the professors were not only the smartest in their high schools, they were the ones who were the smartest in their colleges. </p>