I’m not saying that elite universities or institutions don’t confer an advantage, I’m saying that I think many people actually do think think (overtly or covertly) that attending Ivy+ is a ticket to a great life. There’s never 100%, so I admit to some hyperbole, but 10 minutes on this board makes it clear that lots of people of gunning for the same 50 schools.
I said waaay up thread that I think there are several factors influencing how we are talking about USNWR rankings—I referenced the Chetty study and other recent news articles.
I’ve said in this thread (or perhaps another parallel thread…they start to blur) that I don’t think rankings are worthless. I think they need to be contextualized to ensure that the criteria used in forming the ranking aligns with your own values and priorities.
In general, though, I look to college as first and foremost an educational institution. Upward mobility and good job and salary “outcomes” are, imo, a byproduct of that education. I value the enrichment of education (reading, thinking, analyzing) for its own sake, whether or not it ever results in a salary bump.
I wonder if, in our effort to level the playing field, we forget that not everyone will succeed in college no matter how equitable we try to make admissions. College is, and should be, intellectually challenging. Unless we water down the academics—in which case we lose what I believe to be the primary objective—it will never be accessible to everyone.
We’re starting in the wrong place by asking universities to solve an educational discrepancy that began in preschool (if not before).
If you are referring to Dale & Krueger, that’s not what it found. A quote from the abstract is below.
When we adjust for unobserved student ability by controlling for the average SAT score of the colleges that students applied to, our estimates of the return to college selectivity fall substantially and are generally indistinguishable from zero. There were notable exceptions for certain subgroups. For black and Hispanic students and for students who come from less-educated families (in terms of their parents’ education),
Not here, but I do encounter this attitude quite frequently other places, and it is encouraged by generic rankings. And I find it sad because some kids are under enormous pressure to get specific college admissions that more likely than not will make little or no difference to their actual outcomes.
I actually do suspect that the watering down of academics you mention is exactly what is going to happen as admissions criteria soften. colleges aren’t going to want to see their investments fail and are going to be ranked and judged based on the outcomes of their students.
also some people feel this new generation of kids is entitled and won’t stand for weed out courses (remember what happened to the NYU organic chem prof).
It is not like academics were not watered down in the past to make colleges more accessible to desired demographics. How do you think that elite universities handled “gentlemen C” students from SES elite (not necessarily academically elite) prep schools decades ago?
Of course, college will not be accessible to everyone. But perhaps the goal should be to make it so that accessibility of college is based on personal ability and motivation, rather than based on other things like amount of parent money that is the primary factor in determining college accessibility in the US.
Which reminds me of another issue when we measure outcomes by salary: becoming e.g. a teacher would be a “bad” outcome in the study, but I’d argue that for society at large perhaps a wonderful outcome.
EDITED to clarify that I meant measuring outcomes by salary
At least they got Cs. These days, it’s more like a gentleman’s A-.
Don’t get me wrong, I was a first-gen college student and Pell Grant recipient. I’m in favor of including students from all socioeconomic backgrounds. Colleges should–and do–expect more from higher-income kids when it comes to admissions (grades, scores, activities, etc.).
But no one is served if admissions standards (and academic standards upon arrival to college) are relaxed to the point that students who are prepared to excel academically aren’t challenged. Our nation will fall behind globally. I’m not saying all low-income students aren’t prepared, I’m saying that we’re asking colleges to compensate for a huge variance in K-12 instruction. Not sure what to do about it, but I think we’re trying to fix the problem at the wrong point in the educational cycle. The rankings are, in part, measuring how colleges essentially address the sub-par K-12 education received by many, many students in this country.
Colleges do offer varying levels of courses to challenge students of varying levels of preparation, since no college gets entering student cohorts with a uniform level of academic preparation and interest across all subjects.
The colleges with the most grade inflation are by reputation among the most highly rejective in the country. Are their students not sufficiently academically challenged during their undergraduate education?
