I posted this as part of my response to another thread, but it was suggested I give it its own thread.
The study in the article below seems to show that students who graduate from a higher tiered college make more money after grad school—up to 60% more than a student who attended the same elite grad school but who had attended a lower tiered school for undergrad.
What are your thoughts? D18 chose $ and fit over prestige and is very happy at a top 30 LAC. Starting the process again with D20 and not sure how I feel about the article.
It’s always worth it to dig in to the data rather than look just at headlines.
If you look at just men in the data (who don’t tend to drop out of the workforce after having kids), there is zero difference in outcomes.
For some reason, the women who went to state schools don’t do as well financially, on average, but we also know that women are more likely to make lifestyle decisions that curtail earnings.
In other words, there could be some other factor other than what the study looked at (Cultural? Norms? Who knows; the study didn’t look at them).
Also, as others have noted, the classifications she uses are wacky. She puts Dartmouth in the same tier as no-name directionals, for instance. All LACs (of all sorts of reputations) are grouped together. In other words, it’s a poorly done study.
Ah, in another thread, someone mentioned familial socioeconomic status. That could be a factor too. Maybe it simply comes down to richer families being able to afford nannies?
Again, what’s notable when you look at the data is that when you compare just the men (who have a more level playing field vis-a-vis each other), there is zero difference.
I also think the social currency needed and networking of women is still developing. And this is backwards looking data. Men have an embedded networking equality at this point. Women are just starting the game. There’s no old girls network.
And the Harvard women et al probably have to use it a bit less or someone makes the call for them.
The main problem with the study is that it doesn’t control for the individual student, but is merely observational. The article itself says that the students at Tier 1 schools come from higher socioeconomic backgrounds. Therefore, that factor alone probably explains why the students have higher incomes later in life. A better study would have been one that compared outcomes of equivalent students at Tier 1, 2, 3, and 4 schools, e.g., by controlling for their socioeconomic background. In other words, what you want to know is: for a given student, does it matter what undergraduate college they attend, rather than what are the differences are among all students at the various undergraduate colleges.
The socioeconomic status factor is an excellent point. Maybe a weak study and do end of story?
If there is any substance to the article it did make me question another theory—Gladwell’s David and Goliath (being a big fish in a small pond can be advantageous) since it seems to refute that case.
Gladwell is a very entertaining author, and very adept at selecting the statistics he needs to “prove” what he wants to prove. Fish vs pond size is a very individual choice.
May have missed this above but an important aspect is what you start with. An advantage of coming from a wealthy family is that it’s easy to justify the extra cost because it doesn’t impact anything else. The impact for a middle income family can be huge, as can the net effect of debt repayments on the extra income you earn. There’s never a one size fits all “yes” or “no” to these questions.