I definitely have academic friends whose kids go to top research universities, too – but most of our kids are at LACs. Could be a difference in discipline – I don’t know your discipline, but as far as my circle goes, perhaps humanities parents raise humanities kids.
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I hadn’t seen someone mention the cost differential between private and public research universities on this thread yet. I don’t think the Vanderbilt/NBER study accounted for that. And frankly, I’m surprised LACs fared as well as they did in that study given significant cost premiums in many cases compared to publics.
The dynamic I can’t figure out is the appeal of “oversubscribed and understaffed” programs at public research universities for full-pay out-of-state families. For example, estimated costs for UCs for nonresident undergrads living on campus for 2023-24 are $73,626.
Academic families I know tend to favor LACs for their kids (and recommend for others) IF the costs are reasonable comparable to alternatives. They also recommend not taking on debt, and saving for possible grad/professional school options down the line.
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I think this is a major influence. My W and I are both hold BS/MS in engineering fields. S graduated with BS/MS in CS and D is currently pursuing BS in BME - so engineers all around. Many of our our friends are engineers and of their kids, typically one (ore more) are also in school for engineering. TBH, I don’t know that any of these kids attended (or are attending) a LAC.
Our S did see quite a bit of benefit in attending a large research oriented school. Off the top of my head, I recall him mentioning the ability to take graduate level classes as an undergrad, and the ability to participate in advanced research in the graduate level labs on campus (resulting in published research). Not all students need or want that, but for those that do it is beneficial to have the option.
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“The dynamic I can’t figure out is the appeal of “oversubscribed and understaffed” programs at public research universities for full-pay out-of-state families. For example, estimated costs for UCs for nonresident undergrads living on campus for 2023-24 are $73,626.”
I don’t understand that myself. I still think you can get a great education, but for the money you are paying, you should have access to more small classes, more admin support etc.
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I think it is called name and location. Prestige for short.
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I get that it’s for the prestige. I just don’t think it makes sense to spend that amount of money on a state university undergrad, unless it’s for a specialized, prominent program (e.g. Business at UMich, CS or Engineering at Berkeley etc.) that obviates the need for grad school. Otherwise, go in-state, get a great education while saving money, and go to the prestige public or private for grad.
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The Vanderbilt economist John J. Siegfried—who is the co-author of the National Bureau of Economics Research study I cited earlier on the displayed preferences for college type among children of college profs—has done a lot of work in general on educational outcomes within university economics programs.
Here’s one top-line conclusion from a 2007 study he co-authored published in The Journal of Economic Education that speaks to relative preparation for advanced study received at the undergrad level at different types of institutions:
“Graduates who completed undergraduate study at selective American liberal arts colleges, or whose undergraduate training was in Britain, Canada, Ireland, Australia, or New Zealand, earned a Ph.D. in economics sufficiently faster than the large group of undergraduates from American Ph.D. granting universities so as to save almost a full academic year. The savings from an academic year could be viewed as a full year’s opportunity cost to graduates, and/or a year of financial aid from the Ph.D. department. Applicants from Swarthmore, Williams, or Carleton, therefore, might be viewed appropriately as likely “less expensive” Ph.D. students than those with a bachelor’s degree from Harvard, Berkeley, or Stanford. Accordingly, Ph.D. program admissions committees might reasonably dip further into the credentials pool for those with an undergraduate degree from a selective liberal arts college.
The authors report that liberal arts admits to PhD Econ programs have higher verbal GRE’s than the average Econ PhD admit and take less time to finish their degrees than the average admit. Econ PhD students from foreign English-speaking countries (Canada, New Zealand etc) also have higher verbal GRE’s and finish faster. Are liberal arts graduates smarter on average than all other university graduates? Are Canadians, New Zealanders etc smarter than Americans? Or are these findings attributable to a selection factor in PhD programs, such that liberal arts graduates and foreign graduates have to be significantly more competitive to be admitted? The authors do not say.
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Another alternative: the LAC and English-speaking foreign institution grads have equivalent quantitative and econ training qualifications to the research institution grads, but their education prepared them better for the verbal portion of the GRE and for the overall demands of the doctoral program such that they were able to finish significantly faster?
I would like to point out two things:
A. LACs are a very small percent of all four year colleges, and that students who attend LACs are an even smaller percent. Of around 11,000,000 undergraduates at four year colleges, around 500,000 attend a LAC.
B. The vast majority of LACs, especially those to which faculty would send their kids, are simply too expensive for faculty at public universities.
Mean salaries for associate and full professors at research universities place them at the 70th to 90th percentiles for individuals. Especially for faculty at public universities, even large research universities, this puts them in the “donut hole” income range. This is also true for most faculty at public masters or undergrad-only universities.
Faculty at “elite” private colleges are often a different story. Almost every TT/tenured faculty member at “elite” private universities did their PhDs at an “elite” universities, and for most fields, it was at another “elite” private university. Almost all graduate students PhD programs at “elite” private universities also did their undergraduate degrees at an “elite” private college. Even more so than today, the students who attended “elite” private colleges were from upper SES.
As a result, many, or even most, faculty at private “elite” universities who have college-age children, or had college-age children in the past two decades, came from upper-SES families.
That means that, on top of salaries and benefits that are higher than those provided by public universities, even R1s, faculty at private “elite” colleges are also more likely to have generational wealth, which would make it easier for them to pay for private colleges.
Some anecdotal information, based on my personal experience. My wife and I have worked at some 6 research universities between us (5 very large publics, one private), and have strong interactions with multiple faculty from another half a dozen.
While our kid did attend a LAC, that is because she got a scholarship. Most of the faculty at our assorted universities sent their kids to research universities, mostly large public flagships, but also to smaller ones, as well as comprehensive publics. In fact, only a handful of our faculty friends sent their kids to LACs.
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Students from LAC’s who were admitted may have been better prepared, because students generally do more writing at LACs than at a public research university. However, the fact that LAC admits have higher GRE’s suggests to me that (apart from Swarthmore and Williams which have outsized economics reputations ) most LAC admits may have to overachieve relative to their competitors at research universities to attract admission attention. In the data reported, Pomona and Amherst each only produced ~1 PhD Econ admit per year, which seems low relative to the quality of student there… Meanwhile Wisconsin-Madison is sending 5/yr to PhD programs. Much bigger program but are the top 5 students at W-M better than the top 5 at Amherst? Or is the fact that the program is much bigger resulting in PhD programs taking more of their students (i.e. admitting the top 2% from each program regardless of scores)? I don’t know. The only sure thing I learned is that Swarthmore and Williams are good places to do undergrad econ.
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It looks like we’ve exhausted the original topic and posts are now running far afield. So it’s time to bring this thread to its conclusion.
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