This statement truly saddens me. California wisely provides some desperately needed MH support services for students and training for educators. Not only is there a massive shortage of MH providers, but many that are available are unaffordable for many families. All the wonderful education in the world is useless if a student is emotionally unable to engage, engages in substance abuse or self harm. The number of students reporting anxiety and/or depression is at epidemic proportions. Be thankful that your state acknowledges and does something to address it. Mental Health Support - Transforming Schools: Superintendent’s Initiatives (CA Dept of Education)
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They should have gone to Ringling college!!
Eta ringling closed its clown college but FSU still has a program!!
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Wading into dangerous territory here, but I think it was @Alqbamine32 who mentioned something about people in the non-specialist degrees getting benefits from the “elite” names. And I agree. A sibling attended a SHYMP college, and one of my sibling’s friends was an English major. I don’t recall any particularly noteworthy journalism experiences by the friend, but the first job after graduation was at the Christian Science Monitor. It is unlikely that an English major from Little Known U. (or Well Known U but not for academics) would have been able to get a similar position with a similar level of experience (i.e. minimal). Now, if person at Little Known U. was a go-getter and had tons of experience at the college paper and local media outlets and was freelancing for the AP or Reuters and doing longer pieces, too? Sure, Little Known U.'s grad could have had a decent chance. But, the “elite” school can allow a student with a lower caliber of experience to get their foot in the door in comparison with someone from a school that is not as well known academically.
Thus, for fields that aren’t CS, business, engineering (with its ABET-accreditation), etc, I think that an “elite” education can be even more “worth it.”
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This thinking applies to everything in life:
- do you like a Lexus or a Kia?
- do you fly first class or coach?
- do you live in a large house or small?
- do you wear expensive dress or cheap?
If you can afford, and it has a high priority/value in your mind, then go for it.
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This brings to mind a high school classmate of mine who always said he wanted to be an engineer for NASA. Very smart kid, although not tippy-top of the class. He ended up at a solid, but not elite, university where he majored in mechanical engineering.
He is now a lead engineer at NASA. Our whole class went absolutely nuts during one of the Mars rover launches, following the updates, because that was his baby.
Maybe if he had been good enough for MIT he would be filthy rich now, working as a consultant for VC, analyzing other peoples’ inventions.
Maybe he dodged a bullet.
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If you can afford it without loans, yes it worth it. My DD graduated from MIT debt free and so far it works like a charm when she looked for jobs even when companies were firing people left and right. It works landing nice side jobs with elite startups that only hire people from top five universities. She was able to recover the entire amount we paid for her four years at MIT in wages for first year and a half.
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The exact same statement is true for students’ physical health, but we do not expect the public schools to cure their cancer, or even diagnose it or treat it. The public schools’ core mission is actually education, and in many states, that appears to be failing. That is likely one reason fewer of their students attend elite schools.
Our LPS is supposed to be one of the state’s best. Their students have multiple choice exams for assessments. Those students will not be as well prepared for elite schools where there are not multiple choice exams, but a lot of writing is expected. Private high schools often can provide the dedicated intense instruction in good writing that large schools lack.
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Completely disagree. You can learn with a broken bone or a sprained ankle. Those injuries heal. Many MH challenges do not.
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If you invested the $200k for 45 years in the stock market their retirement would be taken care of when they hit 65. That’s quite a gift to give your child.
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Not all physical injuries/conditions/diseases heal. Many impair learning.
Many mental health challenges heal as well. Some not all impair learning.
I would rather worry about my kids’ options from ages 20-65 than their retirement. That is on them
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Kids enter k-12 school with a variety of mental health challenges, and imo it is a group effort (home and school) to help.
Our school just added more hours for our therapist- she had a waitlist this past spring. The parents (in this very wealthy district) are grateful.
Teachers cannot teach when kids come in stressed, anxious etc. it’s not like strep throat. It’s upsetting, but it’s reality and I do believe schools should play a role.
Sorry off topic, but important.
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These are off topic. Better that kids survive the MH crisis. Moving on.
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Or he could be a regular engineer like nearly all MIT grads are 
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I don’t know why some posters think that learning in STEM is more generic and it’s the same everywhere. It couldn’t be further from the truth.
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I’m going to posit that zero MIT grads who majored in econ, urban planning, physics, math, poli sci, linguistics etc are working as "regular engineers " as you claim.
“Nearly all”? Now you are just making up your own statistics.
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I would suggest that the sense of similarity is due to the outcomes more than the course of study.
STEM majors have struggled less to find post-graduation jobs that financially enable them to pay the bills. That provides reinforcement to the parents that they did everything right, so you read about their amazing jobs and incredible opportunities ad nauseam.
For this topic… As I mentioned above, students interested in humanities who are fighting for fewer jobs benefit significantly from “brand” recognition and collateral biases.
I know an MIT poli sci grad who is a regular, garden variety software engineer. Does that count?
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That is mainly the case for the E and maybe M in STEM. The S part of STEM does not have as good BA/BS level job prospects, especially for the most popular type of S major (biology). The T part of STEM (technology, presumably engineering technology) is a less common type of major, and is often somewhat more limited in job options compared to the E part of STEM.
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I assume that the T is mostly CS. So they’ve been generally fine.
As for biology… bring on the med school debate.
For the non-med school bio majors and the Math folks, I would also suggest they benefit greatly from elite bias.
Most do not get into medical school.
College Scorecard suggests that elite bias does not seem to be much (if anything) for BA/BS biology graduates. But it seems to be fairly large for BA/BS math, probably because some of the highest paid jobs are in elite-biased finance. (Comparing, for example, Harvard versus UMass Boston.)
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