<p>I see these studies all the time, and I think a lot of it has to do with who they show it to, who the recruiters are and so forth. If the recruiting firms recruit for investment banks and the like, then the results make sense, because in those kind of jobs where you go to school matters a great deal, and if a lot of them are in Asia, where the school’s name means a lot more then the quality of the education (literally where you go determines your path), then yep, these figures make sense. Obviously, having the name of a Harvard or Yale on your cv for first jobs can help get a foot in the door, but employability comes down to a lot more then where you went to school, other then in certain fields or companies. </p>
<p>There is a rough analogy to this, if you went to certain countries in Asia and asked them what music school to go to, a large percentage of them would tell you that Juilliard is the only place to go, to them the place has a magical name, if you asked people in music about it, they would ask you what instrument you were on, your area of specialty, and they would list a number of top programs <em>shrug</em>. Things like investment banking are inbred, they hire ivy league/top 15 programs because that is where they were recruited from, In Asia, they recruit from ‘prestige’ schools because they likely went there. </p>
<p>In terms of broader employment, I would look at the quality of the teaching, I would look at specific programs, at things like the ability to get internships, of the program being known. Put it this way, if you were in tech, you come out of MIT or Caltech they would prob give more weight to the school then if you came out of one of the other schools in that list. Likewise, in many places, you can be at a disadvantage coming out of an ivy like school, because employers who didn’t go there (the bulk of people out there) often assume kids coming out of ivy schools are stuck up about the fact, think the world owes them a favor, or won’t work as hard as a kid who came from more modest backgrounds (and there actually are some grains of truth in the latter). So if you wanted to go work at CSFB (Credit Suisse First Boston) or UBS as an investment banker, having that true blue ivy diploma would be a major hashmark, if you were hiring into a tech program it may not hold much weight <em>shrug</em>. </p>
<p>Reminds me of when USNR published rankings of schools of music, people who know music programs had a couple of laughs, because the ranking methodology didn’t mean anything.</p>