I only used Brown as an example because it was mentioned upthread. Apologize if you think it’s inappropriate.
BTW, I wouldn’t give much weight to the numbers you quoted above.
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I don’t. I base my conclusions on the first hand experiences of my son and his peers taking note of the tremendous opportunities they have been afforded via the Brown network.
I try to avoid the CC habit of extrapolating anecdotes but in this case it is better then what seems to be speculation.
While the numbers above may not be precise they certainly suggest some relativity worth acknowledgement. I try not to dismiss out of hand several independent studies just because they may contradict my prior views or narratives.
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We’re all limited by our own experiences and most of us understandably have natural affinity for the colleges we or our kids attend or attended. I take your words for it that Brown is a great place for your son (and surely many other kids). Again, I used Brown to illustrate. If I had used another “elite” college instead (for comparison with Stanford), I’d probably upset some other parents. 
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Not upset just offering independent statistical rebuttal, first hand experience and while Parchment is hardly authoritative one more perspective that suggests the broader public perception (who are making actual value judgements) contradicts your view.
I expect results vary depending upon whether the family is in-state or not, or full-pay or not.
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I’m not sure the Parchment data mean anything. Students in this case likely choose Brown over UCB for a number of reasons:
- Their families are much better off financially (Brown student body is much wealthier than UCB’s).
- These students prefer the flexibility that Brown offers in comparison to UCB’s relative rigidity.
- Most of these students aren’t CS majors (many CS majors may prefer UCB over Brown).
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Ignoring, discounting or being skeptical of some data is understandable but ignoring all data that contradicts a narrative seems deliberate.
I have provided independent reviews of starting salary, career ROI, WSJ outcomes and comparative student selection data which all suggests Brown holds its own comparatively.
Up thread you suggested Brown students couldn’t access “prestige” firms because their alumni isn’t represented in the front office of such firms. I highlighted GS head of I banking and BOA CEOs are Brown alum. Seemingly no facts provided can impact your view and you are entitled to that.
I understand your opinion differs but I will continue to defer to sources like the WSJ.
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Brown is a great school. One of my kids would prefer Brown over UCB for CS. The other would pick UCB over Brown.
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Some students will prefer one school over another. For at least some CS students interested in AI, the most highly compensated field within CS, UCB may be much more preferable because of the depth of courses and research opportunities it offers in the area. UCB, for example, has some of the best faculty in CS. Prof. Michael Jordan (yes, the other Michael Jordan) is one of the foremost authorities in the field. BTW, he’s a graduate of LSU (BS), ASU (MS) and UCSD (PhD).
It is really a tradeoff between breadth / depth and access.
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I think there are many whose kids are all still in college. They are voicing what they currently observe at their kids schools, their kids experiences, what they learn about recent grads from those schools, and what they read and learn through their own research. This can be very useful information.
Those of us whose kids have recently graduated, whose kids have launched, worked, taken gap years, experienced life as a young 20 something outside of college (good and not so good), applied to grad schools, med schools, etc…add a different perspective with additional information….hence, the anecdotes…about top colleges, careers, career changes after a year of thinking they know what they want at the age of 20…etc.
It might be helpful to start a thread about recent grads, the schools they attended (or at least the type), major, undergrad experience, what they did following graduation, where they are heading a year or two after graduation, if they moved out, if they are financially independent right out of school, etc.
In other words…real life. It’s a big world out there.
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Note that my earlier post with the table provided an explanation about why Brown CS salary was abnormally high and GeorgiaTech CS was seemingly abnormally low, in spite of GeorgiaTech CS having a high quality CS program that is sometimes ranked as high as tied for #1 .
The primary reason is not that CS employers are wowed by the prestige of the Brown name over the GeorgiaTech name. Instead some of the major contributing factors are:
1. Location – According to the Brown alumni survey, nearly all Brown CS graduates choose to work in one of 4 very high cost of living areas – Silicon Valley, Seattle, NYC, or Boston. Hardly any Brown CS grads choose to stay in the local Rhode Island area. In contrast a much larger portion of GeorgiaTech grads choose to stay in the local Georgia/Atlanta area, I suspect at many of the companies where they did their co-op. According to cost of living calculators, a salary of $100k in Atlanta corresponds to a salary of $192k in San Francisco. It really makes a difference whether you are working in Atlanta or SF Bay Area when comparing salary.
2. Small College Scorecard Sample – ROI tables by majors almost always use one of 2 samples – CollegeScorecard or Payscle. My post used the former. This group includes only federal FA recipients over a 2 year period, which is a small sample size for Brown. When using a small sample size, some colleges will be notably higher than the actual long term average, and some colleges will be notably lower than the actual long term average. I expect Brown is one of the higher than actual average colleges based on larger differences from other sources. I’m sure Brown CS grads average a high salary – just not the highest salary of all colleges in the United States, as occurred in the CS small sample group.
3. Individual Student Characteristics – ROI tables typically assume that the college name determines salary, and the individual student characteristics have no influence. That is, if you had a student who is gifted, high achieving, and comes from a wealthy-connected family who is accepted to Brown and chooses a full ride to UAlabama then he/she suddenly becomes the average student at UAlabama who has a 30% chance of not graduating, has a <1200 SAT, tends to work in the Alabama area, etc. This is obviously not accurate. Instead individual student characteristics tend to drive salary, far more so than college name. For example, Dale & Krueger type studies that control for student characteristics by comparing students who are accepted to the same schools and choose to attend the more selective or less selective school usually find no significant difference in salary depending on school attended. However, when that control for individual student characteristics is removed, there are large differences in salary. The college with the higher quality, wealthier/more connected, more likely to target company names that they perceive as prestigious, more likely to choose high cost of living area, … students often average much higher salaries.
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Or stated differently these Brown students background and or alumni networks are such that they are highly desired and recruited to 4 high cost and highly competitive locations which results in them receiving extremely high salaries out of college.
We can attribute it to whatever ingredient you want but for a thread asking about “payoffs” one indicator is salaries out of school. The ability to access those opportunities is the very question being asked.
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Is it still a higher payoff, if the salary is lower after controlling for cost of living? The portion of the paragraph you did not quote mentions cost of living calculators suggest a $100k salary in Atlanta corresponds to a $192k salary is SF. Cost of living in the Bay Area and other locations nearly all Brown CS grads work after graduation is quite high, which needs to be considered when comparing salaries. I’m sure many GeorgiaTech grads are also capable of getting jobs in very high cost of living areas, but many of this group instead choose to stay in Georgia.
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That of course depends. However in terms of “payoff” the ability to choose amongst options, locations, etc and compare is an element of the value proposition.
You seem to be suggesting that those that work in the 4 major hubs are there because they didn’t have alternative choices and are suffering financially in spite of having higher salaries once netted to cost of living. I would be more sympathetic to your caveat if the kids didn’t move away and had some local advantage in terms of access and higher salary based on COL. In this case the Brown students are being recruited to these locations at high salaries.
In reality these professionals have proven their capacity to choose where they move to and work. Their very presence in these locations suggests they have voted with their feet. Had they wished or sought jobs in Atlanta or other regional hubs they clearly could compete for them.
If the question is does a school provide a platform that a student can monetize their education and alumni network it seems a bit disingenuous to then completely disregard salary and career ROI. It is a bit of a CC phenomenon that when you finally show a ranking that is a simple number (with no subjective inputs), being first can somehow be represented as poor.
No. I believe my posts were quite clear with phrases using phrase like “choose to live in” multiple times, and stating that one needs to consider whether the location has a high or low cost of living when comparing salary rather than look at salary in isolation. This does not mean that everyone who lives in a high cost of living area is struggling financially.
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Old article, but GT grads though do make it out here to the Bay Area.
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Access is also relative. A top student at UCB is likely to have better “access” than an average student there. Access to some popular courses in CS are likely to be more constrained at nearly all “elite” colleges (I only know a few exceptions). For example (sorry @Catcherinthetoast, for using Brown again), I just looked it up that Brown’s CSCI 1420 (machine learning) has a waitlist.
No need to say sorry and happy to correct your mischaracterization based on first hand experience. Apparently you are not familiar with shopping period at Brown. This an extended period of time during which students audit and review classes. Most kids sign up for 6-8 classes initially and wind up committing to 4-5. Please note classes and shopping period starts next week.
Over the first two weeks spots quickly open up as the students finalize class schedules. The waitlists tend to start being drawn upon by the end of week one and those on the lists are encouraged to attend classes in advance.
I am unaware of students not being able to participate in a desired class such as the one you describe. In several instances I am however aware of them adding sessions to make accommodations based upon demand. My kid was tapped to TA for one last semester when a session was added.
Here is Brown nomenclature.
This flexibility and opportunity to “test drive” classes and subjects is one of the core principals and benefits of an open curriculum.
I appreciate that you say you aren’t picking on Brown but perhaps an example of a school you are more familiar with might be helpful for you to highlight.
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My point is that there’s no guarantee that a student, who’s otherwise qualified, can take that that course. Are you saying Brown students are guaranteed a spot for any CS course they may want to take and are qualified for?
Forget about Brown and let me us use Cornell instead (hopefully no Cornell parent will be upset ). When I visited Cornell with my S a few years ago in two separate trips, we looked more thoroughly into the issue of CS course registration. There were a number of courses with significant waitlists. The school had to prioritize based on a few different factors. The issue is surely not unique to Cornell (and many other schools we visited).
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