Might I remind members of the forum rules: “Our forum is expected to be a friendly and welcoming place, and one in which members can post without their motives, intelligence, or other personal characteristics being questioned by others."
and
“College Confidential forums exist to discuss college admission and other topics of interest. It is not a place for contentious debate. If you find yourself repeating talking points, it might be time to step away and do something else… If a thread starts to get heated, it might be closed or heavily moderated.”
LOL at me. I tried three times to craft a response that didn’t repeat what I’ve already said and/or not go to far afield. I failed every time.
Ultimately, I guess whether or not anyone puts any credence into the basketball analogy depends on whether that person puts any credence into the academic analogy.
I think it’s unfortunate that this entire thread has focused on the monetary payback of a college. The tuition is paying for an education, so the quality of that education is what the buyer is getting in return for that investment, not a guarantee to future job prospects. I can only say that the academic experience that my granddaughter has had at Harvard has included opportunities that. I expect few students at most colleges have elsewhere.
I understand that there are many people who expect that they can improve their child’s financial prospects through a degree from a name college, so the discussion is worth having for that perspective. I’m just saying that there’s more to it than that.
That is true for some people and not for all. It really comes down to value. I highly value education. But that doesn’t mean I see $320k in value in attending Harvard, eg, for undergrad. For me, the value just wasn’t there. I see many schools that are less expensive on account of merit or low cost flagships as offering an excellent education and no value in paying a premium for certain other schools due to perceived prestige. If you can afford it comfortably and see value in the educational experience, by all means spend the money. But if we’re talking strictly ROI, and at these price tags, that’s an important consideration for many families including many who are full pay, the payoff is less than some want others to believe when you control for caliber of student. In my neck of the woods, many full pay families don’t see value in spending $320k on any private when UT and Texas A&M are right there and $100k, and I’m talking many who earn high six figures to seven figures a year and that’s after paying for private K-12.
These two comments, I think, get at part of the great divide in opinion.
For most families, the most important aspect of college is to become employable (or prepared to start your own business) and earn a (hopefully not poor) living. Period. That is the utmost goal.
When we hear about the History graduate who can’t get a job and is living at home with Mom&Pop, we never hear the quote, “It’s okay she’s broke, working part time as a barista, living off us and has $200K in student loan debt, we’re just glad she got a chance to attend a T20.” For most families, earning money with the degree is THE goal - there really isn’t “more to it than that.” Not in a meaningful decision-making sense.
Now, if I could pay $300K with my petty cash or even with my serious cash, and not miss it much, my attitude would be different. I might care more about the experience than the outcome. I might care more about the perfect environment than the cost. I think it’s great for those families that can ignore the small things like becoming employable (and I say that with no shade thrown) but most of us are hoping for both a good experience and a good paycheck - and the paycheck is by far, by far far FAR, the more important of the two.
So, the families for whom the cost is a small concern, sure, adding a little prestige on top of the degree might very well be worth it. For families who would go into debt for the honor of that prestige, it’s probably not worth it. Some families think it is perfectly legitimate to pay $30 for a hamburger weekly because of the atmosphere of the restaurant. Other families wouldn’t dream of that when ________ costs $8
Econ, while I don’t disagree with your point- you need to recognize that some kids graduate from Hofstra or Southern CT State College and go back to folding sweaters at the Gap like they did in HS. Some of them have debt; some don’t, but “failure to launch” makes great copy when the kid went to Harvard; the media is not as interested in those kids when they followed the money and STILL can’t find a job which pays a living wage.
I counsel kids who have not launched (as a favor, not as a profession) and getting on that first career rung is easy to talk about, harder to execute.
This is CC. We’re never talking about Hofstra or Southern CT State v. Harvard. That’s really not an interesting conversation, because with some exceptions, the outcomes will differ substantially for most majors at least initially (excellent students will through hard work/skill, luck, and/or grad school still have comparable outcomes). Yes some/many won’t launch from those schools. There’s no real debate there. Where the debate lies is in great flagship at $100k or great LAC/National U that offers merit aid but isn’t T20 v. Harvard.
Whether I can afford College X or not is a different question from whether College X provides a qualitatively different learning and maturation experience. And whether or not College X’s “prestige” will open up better job opportunities and/or a better career path is a different question still.
You may not think it’s an interesting conversation, but we regularly have parents posting here who are ready to take on a second mortgage to send the kid to XYZ college. A few years ago, it was a parent from Texas and the dream school was Pace. Those of us from the Northeast were BEGGING someone in the family to get a little perspective. More recently I think the school was Quinnipiac and was it “worth it” to raid the 401K.
If it weren’t an actual question- parents wouldn’t post.
We also get "we are not from California- are the UC’s “all that” and the California parents have to tactfully explain that Merced is not Berkeley, and that going into debt for Merced (vs. a state school close to home, no travel costs, in-state tuition) isn’t “a payoff” proposition. In other words- the title of this thread.
is it only interesting when we get to bash Harvard?
I use Harvard simply as a proxy for those schools that some parents think are worth the full price tag and grant unparalleled educational opportunities and outcomes.
From our own experience the payoff for prestige of a school like Harvard was more than we thought. Our income was not the 1%er by any measure but fell squarely in the full pay range. We had offers from almost free ride at T25 to state flagships at $25k/yr but didn’t give much consideration due to what my kid wanted to do-- founding a startup. A few years later my DC raised $5M+ and is running a $25M company at the age of 20. Of course at that age this is just a learning experience, but that is some real world education at $5m we could never afford and that may pay off big time down the road. This is an example of some opportunities Harvard (or other prestigious schools) kids get that are few and far in between at state flagships or outside of T10. So, in this parent, I “think are worth the full price tag and grant unparalleled educational opportunities and outcomes.”
On this site, it seems to me that users spend an inordinate amount of time defending UChicago, not bashing it. The bashers must be a reincarnation of Don Quixote’s imaginary giants.
I too am impressed with what my granddaughter is getting at Harvard, but on the other side of the coin, a friend’s grandson created a tech start up when he was a sophomore in high school, and it brought in $275,000 last year. He just finished his first year at Vanderbilt on a full tide.
One benefit that I have seen is the level of first summer internships. My DS and his friends that went to other elite schools have meaningful internships, the ones that went to state flagships have a normal summer jobs. The elite schools were very helpful in securing the internships.
But the appropriate comparison is really between typical students at an elite school and superstar students at a state flagships (because that’s what a student who had the talent to be admitted to the elite school would typically be if they chose the state flagship instead). As @itsgettingreal21 pointed out, the superstars like her D do get those internships and jobs, where they work alongside the kids from elite schools.
My S had the same experience with his internship at a very well known think tank, where the vast majority of the other interns were from elite T20 schools. Now I do agree that many of those students from elite schools had an inside track (intros from professors or having met scholars from the think tank when they gave a talk), and weren’t just applying cold in response to a job board posting as my S did. But my experience has been that a really talented kid who is self-motivated will do just as well whether they go to an elite school or not. In some ways that might mean the elite school is actually better for the kid who isn’t all that motivated (assuming they can get admitted in the first place - but perhaps that’s where legacy admissions come in).
That was the actual comparison that was made in a well-known paper by Dale and the late Alan Krueger from 2002. They compared students who had been accepted by very selective schools but choose to enroll at someone less selective U’s instead and compared their adult earnings to those from students who had actually attended the selective schools. Found that selectivity did not have an impact except for minority students.
I don’t see the question as whether it helps to get a prestigious degree–obviously it does–but whether it helps enough to make up for the cost (which depends on financial aid) and more significantly whether it makes up for the level of focus needed for a teen to win this peculiar lottery. If it’s coming from within, great. If I have to push them as a parent, forget it.
A degree from a top public university will open up most of the same opportunities if you perform well. You can go on to grad school with the right recommendations. You may not get your first job as easily, but in a few years, that will be overshadowed by past job performance. Graduating without a debt the size of a home mortgage is also a great advantage.
I also suspect it depends a lot on the field you’re in. I can make direct comparisons between the many people in tech I’ve worked with, and their academic background is only moderately correlated with their performance and their career marketability.
As the original article states
elite colleges are selling more than early-career earnings. They’re selling bragging rights, networks, and more. And such benefits may only show up later on (or in ways that earnings don’t capture).
There’s no doubt about this. There is a difference between “elite” members of society and those who are merely well-paid. For a family that is already wealthy enough to pay for an Ivy League education, the main advantage is to maintain influence rather than merely set up their kids to be compensated well. Honestly, I have mixed feelings, because I’m impressed at the achievement of those who are accepted into elite schools, and I don’t doubt that they get an an excellent education. However, as institutions, they seem primarily to reinforce existing privilege, even if they open up opportunities for social mobility to a few.
No, the jury is still out on this. The work cited in the OP says yes but other potentially even methodologically stronger work says no. Keep in mind the comparison is for a very smart person rather than the average person. That very smart person would have excelled at a less prestigious school as well.
Perhaps that is why most of them do not seem to be interested in what many posters here seemingly advocate, which is more widely accessible higher ceiling academic measures that would more clearly distinguish between the “typical excellent” students and the true academic superstars. They do not want to make it too obvious that someone admitted due to “hooks” or other reasons (but meeting the “typical excellent” standard) may not be one of the true academic superstars which they build their elite academic reputation on. They all had near 4.0 HS GPA and high end SAT / ACT scores, which obscures the difference between the “typical excellent” students and true academic superstars. And grade inflation in college makes college GPA a less distinguishing indicator if one does not look closely at the record (e.g. to see whether the A grades in math at Harvard were in Ma and Mb or 55a and 55b).
