If you look at the Georgetown study, the NPV At 40 years for the top 50 level schools are about 50% greater than the 400 level schools.
First off, UC Berkeley and UCLA are excellent colleges, I know a ton of graduates from those colleges and have even lived in Berkeley and attended a UC myself.
But here is just one small example of where a top colleges like Harvard will differ with a state college like UC Berkeley. For Fall 2020, UC Berkeley cannot guarantee housing for Freshman. Contrast that with Harvard where freshman are guaranteed housing in their 17 residential dorms and upperclassman (sophomores, juniors and seniors) live in 12 upperclassman Houses.
Hereās what one students says about it:
āThe best thing in the world. And Iām not kidding. Houses, I think, are one of the most integral aspects of Harvard. The fact that the community is so small allows you to get to know everyone in the house - sophomores, juniors, and seniors. It means that you get the tiny liberal arts college feel within a medium-sized university. We also have House Masters, a professor-couple, who act as stand-in parents while weāre here.ā
https://college.harvard.edu/life-at-harvard/student-stories/commonly-asked-qs-housing-system
Of course there are many other differences like the average class size, student/faculty ratio, endowment $ per student, academic advising, etc. that is really hard to put a price tag on.
The other issue is that the UCs are very expensive for OOS, so really your comparison is only for CA residents. A student in say NY doesnāt really have a cheap and comparable state flagship, Binghamton SUNY to the UCs?
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I was under the impression that more Fortune 500 CEOs come from public universities, rather than privates.
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@gkunion Not as a % based on actual numbers of graduates. If giant U graduates 30,000 kids a year and Harvard graduates 1,400 then you have to look at %. Itās mindblowing.
@Publisher Iād hire a Harvard College kid anyday over an HBS grad. Even among Harvard alum, itās a well known fact getting into the college is a better feat than getting into the MBA program. Always has been. Not to even get started on how much the MBA program has been watered down by various Executive MBA programs. The only folks who think a Harvard MBA is better than a Harvard College AB are those who missed grtting into the college and got an MBA instead. Not even one of the best MBA programs anyway.
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@Happytimes2001: Did you mistakenly direct your second comment in post #23 to me ?
See post #14 above by @PurpleTitan.
Disproportionately, yes, CEOs come from very selective schools, but certainly not exclusively. But this article points out as a whole, CEOs come from many less-selective universities:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/28/these-30-colleges-produced-the-most-current-fortune-500-ceos.html
And from personal experience, I went to Michigan undergraduate (pretty selective), and Minnesota for my MBA (somewhat selective, Top 30 school, but not as much as Michigan). I didnāt meet anyone at Michigan in my 4 years there that is a high profile CEO. One of my classmates at Minnesota in a class of 90 just retired as the CEO of AT&T Communications. Thatās about as good as it gets when youāre talking about high profile CEOs.
Iām not too worried about how many CEOās attended an āeliteā college, but more importantly, how did the other 99% of their graduates fare in their career?
I would imagine itās a very strong list of management consultants, lawyers, bankers, finance professionals, doctors, engineers, owners of start-ups, politicians, and PhDs. Overall, itās going to be a very, very strong class each and every year.
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I went back to look at your original post. You appear to be moving the goalposts. If weāre talking about CEOs I would think the % of Fortune 500 CEOs would be fairly important rather than per capita numbers per school.
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Thatās disingenuous. Berkeley canāt guarantee freshmen housing because of coronavirus. By that measure Harvard canāt either, because Harvard hasnāt guaranteed being on campus at all this fall or spelled out what de-densifying measures they might take if they do go back.
And it was you that brought up Cal State Northridge as a local i.e. in-state alternative.
I find it fascinating to see how the current crisis has made people even more anxious to justify their decision to pay $80K a year for college.
In addition to the selection effect for high academic achievement to begin with, many of those āeliteā collegesā students also come in with pre-existing inherited advantages and connections (for example, about half come from the top 4% of the income range) that will benefit them in their career goals whether they attend Harvard or UMass-Boston.
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@Eeyore123 Comparing top 50 schools to 400 level schools misses the point.
This discussion is same old, same old. For most students, ROI is a big consideration. And study after study has shown that for most, the ROI isnāt there at the current cost of the top ranked schools. For those for whom cost isnāt a factor, by all means spend extra for that experience and/or network, if those are important to the student. For those concerned with ROI and that extra $150k+ is a stretch, hardship, or requires significant debt, they are better off not stretching, enduring the hardship, or taking on the debt, choosing a more affordable school, and making the most of the opportunities there.
At the end of the day, the cream rises to the top, and major is a better predictor of lifetime earnings than prestige. Also, a handful of schools donāt have a monopoly on certain experiences. I know @socaldad2002 believes it based on anecdotes, but it simply isnāt true. Nor is it true that every student at an elite school will get any value or take advantage of any exclusive experience. Successful doctors, C-suite executives, management consultants, PhDs, engineers, bankers, etc etc come from a wide range of schools. Even once exclusive industries such as investment banking and management consulting are now more accessible to students at non-target schools.
And one final thought: I donāt understand the obsession on this board with outliers. The average Harvard grad isnāt going to be a CEO. Thatās not a meaningful metric. The average Harvard grad isnāt getting into Harvard med school or HBS, and isnāt going to get a job at Goldman Sachs or BCG.
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Regarding Berkeley housing is exactly my point. āEliteā colleges can handle the epidemic by still allowing freshman housing DURING a pandemic. UC Berkeley cannot make this same guarantee even if they open in the fall for some in-person classes. The CA CSUs (other than maybe CalPoly SLO?) has said no in-person classes, all online instruction. Apparently the 23 university system cannot afford $25 million a week in CV-19 testing.
My D20 will be at Duke in the fall and I can guarantee you she will be living on the east campus with all of her classmates, as has always been the case. They would never say they cannot guarantee housing to freshman (nor will any of the ivies or similar private college make that statement).
These are just some of the things that families are paying for when attending āeliteā universities. They will get this right as they have great leadership and sizable endowments to do whatever it takes to right the ship.
Secondly, Iām not anxious about paying for a top private education at all. I know what we are getting for our money and my D20 will get a fabulous education which will get even better after the 2020/2021 academic year.
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āIf giant U graduates 30,000 kids a year and Harvard graduates 1,400 then you have to look at %. Itās mindblowing.ā
Well lets use Wisconsin which has 14 Fortune 500 CEOs from itās undergrad, they graduate about 8,000, no school graduates 30,000 a year, I believe A&M or OSU may have the most, 15K a year. Harvard graduates about 2,000.
āitās a well known fact getting into the college is a better feat than getting into the MBA programā
Disagree with that, the caliber of students applying to HBS is significantly better than the ones apply to the undergrad program. The applicants to HBS have not only been working but theyāre typically managers whoāve risen up well, and can handle the academics, have the service, leadership etc, to get in. Think of the Harvard undergrad peaking at 18 and the Harvard MBA peaking at 26, huge difference.
Also are you saying that a Harvard undergrad followed by a non top-20 b-school is better than a state school undergrad and a Harvard MBA? The data would not support you on that one.
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@socaldad2002 , you are concerned how the other 99% are doing, because it tells you what? By sheer numbers, there are just as many graduates that are doing well from a good honors college than there are from a very selective school like Duke. There are 150+ NMFs at ASU Barrett Honors. Thatās more than all but a handful of colleges. There are smart kids everywhere.
My best friend from high school was a NMF and a graduate of Duke. Off the charts smart; aced the LSAT with a high GPA. He decided to go to a public flagship law school, University of Missouri, because he said āif Iām practicing law in the state, so why should I go into serious debt.?ā He made law review, clerked for a state Supreme Court justice, and was an attorney at the top law firm in the state. His ex wife, who went to a Top 30 law school, did even better and is now the partner at a large firm as a patent attorney running their practice, and is making at least $600K/year.
Would their lives have been different if they went to a top 10 law school? Maybe, but not likely if they want to live where they do. If anything, they would have been more in debt. Their success was dictated more by their specialty, and usefulness to law firms, rather than by where they studiedāwhich in this case proves that what you study and how useful you are is more important to your future success than where you study. (There were people in my friendās class that went to high powered Chicago and NY firms too.)
As a follow up, I asked my friend where his kids will go to college. Duke? He said no wayā¦not worth the investment.
Everyone has to reach a conclusion on their own. But for me, I canāt stomach this much money, even though I would probably afford to send my kids to an exclusive school. I havenāt seen evidence that the ROI is there.
BTW, how do you know that elite colleges can handle the pandemic any better? Will USC or Stanford cope much better than CalPoly or SDSU? Not if they have to abide by the same state laws prohibiting large gatherings.
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Thatās something you canāt possibly guarantee. Duke itself isnāt making that guarantee, they say āOur goal is to enable as many of our students who are able and who choose to participate in an on-campus experience for the fall semester to do so, but only if it can be done safelyā.
Just today weāve seen Stanford saying they donāt expect to allow half their students to come to campus in the fall and Harvard Kennedy school saying they will be completely remote in the fall. Contradicting your assertion above, Stanford are not guaranteeing to provide housing on campus (or at all) for freshmen for the whole year, since they now expect them to remain at home for half the year.
In fact āIvies and similar private collegesā are more likely to be cautious in their decisionmaking about 2020-21, since they can both more readily afford to do so, and wouldnāt expect many students to go elsewhere even if they are online.
@GKUnion You have to take the relative numbers to make a factual comparison. The comparison isnāt sheer numbers it is what % of what total number hold that title. Naturally a huge school is going to have more of something. But is it relative?
Itās math not moving the goalpost. If a tiny school of 100 has 10 Rhodes scholars that is more prestigious than a school with 15k having 12 scholars. Same thing goes for Harvard and other elites. The sheer numbers might not be highest in each category but the relative numbers will blow it off the charts. Same goes for Nobel/ major prizes and all the academic accolades. They arenāt shared equally across all schools.
@theloniusmonk Iād take the Harvard college and non top tier B school over the other choice any day. You canāt compare data sets at all because most/many at Harvard college have zero interest in a B school education ( which we know is a high income field along with law and medicine). Youād have to compare B school grads not someone with an undergrad to someone with a graduate degree.
The way things are moving many would find LSE or INSEAD, of U Chicago, Wharton, or MIT Sloan or Northwestern to be better choice in B schools. This is especially true as many use B school to specialize. Frankly the idea of case studies as the foundation for learning (HBS) is very 20th century and has been for some time. Itās an opinion shared by most in technology and many others. The only ones holding onto that kind of learning as those who want/need the name and folks in finance. Was impressive 30 years ago but is a bit outdated.
A couple of points. Hereās what UC Berkeley said about freshman housing: āā¦(to incoming students) we cannot guarantee housing priority at this time, but we are dedicated to supporting students who want to live on or near campus.ā
Duke on the other hand has said the opposite, that ALL freshman will have online orientation and will then move into campus dorms the week of August 10th. No where in any correspondence have they said they will not guarantee housing. If they allow any freshman back on campus, they not only guarantee housing but they REQUIRE all freshman to live on campus.
My second point re: Stanford. They did not say anything about not guaranteeing housing, what they stated was they are staggering the quarters so as to limit the amount of students on campus. Hereās the policy:
āUndergraduates on campus by quarter, in a four-quarter year: In order to provide for the physical distancing needed in our classrooms and residences, and to be able to set aside sufficient housing for quarantine or self-isolation in case of a wave of infections, our default plan is to have half of our undergraduates (that is, the equivalent of two class years) back on campus for the fall quarter and each subsequent quarter, changing each quarter. It may need to be a smaller number in a given quarter if health conditions require it, which we hope will not be the case; in fact, we hope that health conditions will allow us instead to be able to expand access later in the year.ā
So to paraphrase, they are rotating the undergraduates in housing based on the quarter. Much different than saying āwe cannot guarantee freshman housing at allā. Certainly a very cautious approach but one that allows all undergrads an opportunity to live on campus.
Lastly, the example of how residential college living experiences might be preferable at certain universities than others was just one small example of many differences in their approach during times of crisis. I think this unprecedented academic year will show which universities are up to the challenge and which ones are notā¦
"The way things are moving many would find LSE or INSEAD, of U Chicago, Wharton, or MIT Sloan or Northwestern to be better choice in B schools. "
Harvard actually was on the forefront of online education with HBX, which did a good job of maintaining peer-to-peer learning, which is typically lost in online learning. They probably have the best online mba program.
Recently (not 50 years ago), a Wharton mba grad said he was shut out of some venture capital firms in silicon valley because he didnāt have a Harvard or Stanford MBA. I may take Northwestern in marketing or Chicago for finance over Harvard, but thatās it. Note - I didnāt attend Harvard b-school, but I did attend another, and being forced to defend Harvard is not easy! Itās anecdotal I know but itās not uncommon.
āIf a tiny school of 100 has 10 Rhodes scholars that is more prestigious than a school with 15k having 12 scholars.ā
You keep exaggerating scales that donāt exist, your example says the more prestigious school has a 125x advantage in Rhodes scholars, the actual data on CEOs shows that Harvard has 12 from an undergrad of 8K, and Wisconsin has 14, with undergrad of 32K, meaning that Harvard has a 3.5x advantage.
āBut here is just one small example of where a top colleges like Harvard will differ with a state college like UC Berkeley.ā
Sure, but they have drastically different models on housing, residence halls for four years vs. 1-year on campus and the rest in off-campus apartments. Who would expect them to have the same response? Each school as to make call based on whatās best for them and their community. The Stanford experience is going to be a lot different, the first quarter will be online, half the undergrads will be attending in the summer, which is usually an off quarter, kids canāt leave campus. Who knows whatās going to happen with athletics, social events etc,.
While I like almost all of the above post, Penn-Wharton grads are not closed out of Silicon Valley venture capital firms.
Harvard Business School is readjustingāas are many othersāto incorporate more tech into their MBA courses & curriculum.
The largest employer of MBAs from US schools recently announced that it is moving away from hiring only from the top 10 or so MBA programs as it seeks more technically saavy MBAs.