The best professor I had in graduate school was an adjunct. And not a “working subject matter expert” who taught a class for prestige and fun; an academic troubadour with multiple part-time jobs. Just a phenomenal teacher.
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What makes a great teacher isn’t always the same as what makes a great academic.
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I taught a humanities Core Curriculum course, among others, at Columbia when I was a Ph D. student there and have been a professor at a R1 state flagship for twenty years. I haven’t had to dumb anything down at the state school, have consistently had some truly brilliant students there. Granted, I’m in a small niche field where a lot of our students are self-selected even if they aren’t majors. The only noticeable difference was the quality of writing, which is more uneven at the state school. My colleague, a history professor, who had taught at Harvard and Yale before the state school said that the best students at the state school are just as strong as at the Ivies. The average student is probably weaker. That has been my experience as well.
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Including high schools.
I would not underestimate the impact of this. My family member teaches intro/+ psych courses and they find the difference in students dramatic.
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The difference in quality of research between faculty members at elite and non-elite institutions may have been relatively small when those faculty members first started their tenure-track. However, over time the difference increases mostly because professors at elite places (other than being at least slightly better) get elite resources and elite graduate students who collectively generates more competitive research proposals, which lead to significantly more fundings, which lead to more/better results and publications, which provides stronger track record for next round of proposals. This positive cycle continues until there is a noticeable difference in accomplishments when it comes tenure and promotion time. A senior colleague once told me in academia, your initial condition matters a lot. As someone at a T100 engineering who years ago had classmates starting their careers at T20, T50, and at teaching schools, I wholeheartedly agree with him.
As for teaching quality at non-elite institutions, what @ColdWombat said is so true. I’d add that when the topic of teaching comes up in conversations, I sometimes remind new assistant professor colleagues that they are no longer at where they got their PhDs. They might want to consider dumbing down the material, homework, and exams until they find a sweet spot between too easy and too hard. It might take a few iterations to get right. The top students will have no problem with whatever they assign, but the bottom one third will suffer immensely, and the difference between these two groups is not small. I’d tell these colleagues it is better to cover 10 topics and students get 8, than to cover 15 and students get only 5. I’d also suggest that they don’t “throw a curve ball” at students on exams by keeping exam questions somewhat similar to homework and past exams. I have not been on the faculty of elite institutions, but I suspect professors there need not hold back as much as we do at Xyz State University.
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Yes. My kids have had several Ivy grads as teachers in HS (a couple in middle school as well).
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Pretty sure I recall you from the Boarding School area here on CC. If so, or regardless I guess, it was somewhat of an eye opener to learn from our kids that they were being taught by Dr so and so. Not all disciplines. But what a world where the supply-demand imbalance in PhDs gets to the point where they’re teaching in HS. Not that I’m complaining.
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This is not a new phenomenon, and is certainly not limited to boarding schools.
My HS in the 1970’s (an urban, public school) had several PhD’s. And back then it had little to do with supply/demand imbalance, and everything to do with lack of support for families with kids and a lack of childcare options. A highly regarded history teacher at my HS had left a tenure track position at a local college to teach HS. The college could not guarantee a teaching schedule which matched her kids schedules… but in the public school system, that was possible. Another was teaching HS because her husband was doing a medical fellowship and so they had moved several times already (med school in one location, residency in another, now a fellowship) and it was impossible for her to maintain her own academic career and stay on a tenure track with frequent moves. Her plan was to go back once her husband had a “fixed” location. It’s never been easy to combine academia with kids- teaching HS has a lot more flexibility (and in some places, the compensation is better. Takes many fewer years to get to full retirement benefits in a generous public school system…)
I teach at a private Christian high school near Los Angeles. More of us have graduate degrees than don’t. Having a masters or phd enables up to teach dual credit classes which are very sought after by our students and parents.
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A number of my D’s hs teachers also had PhDs.
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Didn’t mean to imply it was a new phenomenon. However, according to a high-level admin at our BS, the available PhD pool has grown steadily over time since the 90s when mandatory retirement for college profs went away.
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Ahh…the classic CC “Prestige” vs “Not Prestige” again. I’m a big believer that smart talented people do great things because they’re smart and talented. There’s not enough ivy league graduates in the country for employers to even care, since almost all are recruited locally and regionally, including ivy leagues. I promise no one is wining and dining entry level college graduates with zero experience because of a college brand name. It’s easier and much cheaper to recruit talented graduates from Texas A&M.
Well, a few places are. Very few. But there are 5 star hotels and Michelin-starred restaurants offered to those very few lucky enough to be selected.
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I know for an absolute fact you are incorrect.
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Exactly. There are places that do exactly this – exclusively recruit from Ivy+ and literally wine and dine and load-them-with-swag and overpay them as interns, etc. But they are the exceptions on a national scale. Still, if you aspire to one of those jobs (which pay extremely well), the school definitely matters.
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For the rest of society, we can simply act as if they don’t exist and have a prosperous well-paid career on our own merit because we’re just as smart and talented. 
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Yep. To be clear, I’m not defending or justifying it. I actually disagree with it. But its the absolute reality where I work and at similar places. And since some students posting here seem to aspire to that sector, it’s worth acknowledging its truth. There are plenty of other jobs where prestige schools don’t matter (as much).
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This is as ridiculous as saying we can all ignore the Boston or Cleveland Symphonies because they only employ the tippy top musicians…
I don’t pretend that the BSO doesn’t exist when I attend a neighbor’s 5th grade music school concert. I recognize that 5th graders don’t perform at that level, and that virtually NONE of the kids onstage are ever going to be in the pipeline for the BSO. That doesn’t erode my enthusiasm for what the kids ARE achieving.
The folks who continue to post that most companies hire locally are just pretending that the “other” part of the labor market- companies that hire globally-- doesn’t exist. Why they persist in this fantasy I don’t know. But as someone who just relocated a graduating senior from CA to Boston- I can assure you that MANY companies hire far from home in order to get the skillset and potential they need.
A kid who attends college in Iowa and wants to stay in Iowa? Fantastic. No judgement from me.
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Not sure if you mean Georgia Tech or Georgetown, but we know a very bright CS student at Georgia Tech who has found it an easy 4.0 so-far. Kid was around the top10% border and 1500ish with top rigor and mix of 4/5 occasional 3 on APs, but not a val/sal superstar with closer to 1600 and all 5s.
This is all anecdotal but there does seem to be a positive correlation of selectivity of college and rigor of courses.
We are very familiar with state schools in Virginia. There are two large schools that are not the main flagship and the coursework even in Engineering is commonly found to be very easy for kids who are in top public magnets or top private HS who have gotten WL or rejected from UVa and other top30s. This group is typically low 1400s range kids who were above average in their HS but not superstars, and yet they have found it easy . There are other kids who have similar “stats” yet are not from highly ranked public or privates and they struggle at the same colleges in the same majors. I have seen colleagues debate how the same class could be so differently handled by kids from different HS, and their conclusion has mostly been the HS rigor and preparation is what has mattered. Of course some could be the student motivation or other issues with how that student perceives their academic fit among peers(ie self esteem, confidence, etc).
On the other hand, William&Mary is described as very challenging and rigorous by almost every student I have encountered, even the superstars, and especially for Stem. It is harder to get into/more selective than the two large state schools I was describing previously, though not ridiculously selective as ivy-plus schools.
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