<p>
[quote]
"Let's see. the average Dartmouth student comes from a family with a median income over $150,000. The average Berkeley student comes from a family with a median income over $50,000.</p>
<p>From payscale's numbers....The average Berkeley student's income is $112,000. The average Dartmouth's student's income is $134,000.</p>
<p>The average Berkeley student's income, after graduating from Cal, is 124% higher than his parent's family.</p>
<p>The average Dartmouth student's income, after graduating from Dartmouth, is $134,000. 10.666666% less."
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Aren't you mixing family income data with individual salary info in trying to make this comparison?</p>
<p>I think something that no one seems to be pointed out in 10 pages of these threads is who are the people included in this data. I think it's simple-minded to say that it's people dissatisfied with their jobs or that one school is likely to have more entered on the site than others or that people are manipulating their entries for fun. A school like Dartmouth and probably the top 50 in the survey are likely to have 75% of their alums go on to get some type of advanced degree. So, we are only looking at the other 25%, who are likely to be in two disparate groups: Those doing so well in their careers that they never needed/desired to get a graduate degree and those who performed at the bottom of their class that are unable to get a graduate degree. I think it is interesting to see a survey that is basically producing the intersection of those two in unknown and probably differing greatly by school proportions</p>
<p>^ I think this is a really interesting point dstark is making. There is a strong correlation between parents' income and kids' income, especially at higher income levels where there's generally less upward or downward mobility than at lower levels of parental income. So other things equal, we'd expect a school whose kids come mainly from higher income strata to outperform a school whose kids come from middle- and lower-income strata in lifetime earnings.</p>
<p>But economists have suggested one of the principal ways this intergenerational income advantage is handed down is by parental investments in the kids' "human capital"---principally education. So it makes sense that Dartmouth parents, who generally have the income to invest in their kids' education, would invest in a school that's going to produce the highest income for their kids. Even if there's some slippage, with the average Dartmouth grad's income falling a little below his/her parent's (as dstark's data suggest), a Dartmouth education may still be a good investment if it keeps the kids from slipping even further. The economists would say it's a sound investment if the incremental increase in lifetime income resulting from the Dartmouth degree exceeds the lifetime earnings the kid could get simply by investing the $200K or so it now costs to get the Dartmouth degree in alternative investment vehicles (stocks, bonds, etc).</p>
<p>On the other hand, the Berkeley parents may be getting a better return on investment, assuming it's costing them less to put their kids through Berkeley (as it appears on paper, anyway). Some economic studies have suggested that one of the biggest barriers to upward income mobility among middle- and lower-income families is the limited capacity of the parents to invest in their kids' human capital. Schools like Berkeley make those investments considerably more affordable ($26,586/yr at Berkeley v. $47,845/yr at Dartmouth), and if dstark's data are correct, Berkeley in particular appears to produce a remarkable ROI, upping the kids' income by a whopping margin over the parents'. (Any economists out there care to do the math & see if I'm right?)</p>
<p>Of course, not every kid at Dartmouth comes from the economic elite, and not every kid at Berkeley comes from the third or fourth income quartiles. What would be interesting to see is a real study that compared lifetime earnings for kids from third-and fourth-quartile families at both schools. Do those who get into and through Dartmouth with the assistance of federal and institutional financial aid out-earn kids from comparable family backgrounds going through a place like Berkeley? Do kids from top-quartile families do equally well with degrees from both schools? (If so, Berkeley's clearly a better bargain even for the economic elite, because it's producing a bigger ROI). We really can't tell from the figures available on payscale.com.</p>
<p>There isn't slippage at Dartmouth; you are mixing stats. One is for household income (presumably more than one salary) and the other for individual salary. Two, the average Dartmouth parent is more advanced than a median of 15 1/2 years out of UG; so you are comparing mid career salaries to close to end of career salaries.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Let's see. the average Dartmouth student comes from a family with a median income over $150,000. The average Berkeley student comes from a family with a median income over $50,000.</p>
<p>From payscale's numbers....The average Berkeley student's income is $112,000. The average Dartmouth's student's income is $134,000.</p>
<p>The average Berkeley student's income, after graduating from Cal, is 124% higher than his parent's family.</p>
<p>The average Dartmouth student's income, after graduating from Dartmouth, is $134,000. 10.666666% less.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Assuming these numbers are true, though (a big assumption - but let's go with it), that's neither good nor bad. It may reflect that people from wealthier families are less likely to "need" to get high-paying jobs to pay off student loans or to feel secure. After all, who can best afford to go into, say, social work knowing that it will pay less? The kid from the wealthy family or the kid from the less wealthy family?</p>
<p>OT, but that's precisely the issue with lots of unpaid internships -- only wealthy families can afford to have their kids do unpaid internships.</p>
<p>My numbers are close. ;) Definitely close enough for my point. :)</p>
<p>Let me post this again...</p>
<p>From payscale's numbers....The average Berkeley student's income is $112,000. The average Dartmouth's student's income is $134,000.</p>
<p>The average Berkeley student's income, after graduating from Cal, is 124% higher than his parent's family.</p>
<p>The average Dartmouth student's income, after graduating from Dartmouth, is $134,000. 10.666666% less. </p>
<p>My numbers are objective. So you can only come to one conclusion. Mine. Like I said, they are freakin' objective for @@@'@ sake. I even use averages and percentages too. ;)</p>
<p>^^ Fair enough on household v. individual income and mid-career v. later. But if dstark's data are correct, the biggest intergenerational income gains are coming from Berkeley.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Do those who get into and through Dartmouth with the assistance of federal and institutional financial aid out-earn kids from comparable family backgrounds going through a place like Berkeley? Do kids from top-quartile families do equally well with degrees from both schools?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Speculation only, but I would assume that the biggest incremental lift goes to those who started the lowest on the economic scale.</p>
<p>
[quote]
My numbers are objective. So you can only come to one conclusion. Mine. Like I said, they are freakin' objective for @@@'@ sake. I even use averages and percentages too.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>When you completely botch the two key underlying assumptions, you can come up with any conclusion. If your info is correct, it does look like Cal/Berkeley on average has more of an increase in salary. However, to say that Dartmouth grads are experiencing a decline in salary compared to their parents is entirely disingenuous since you are using the wrong figures for the wrong time period.</p>
<p>Using the averages in general is terribly misleading because income isn't distributed in a normal distribution (e.g., everyone clustering around the middle, the traditional bell-shaped curve). Just one super-rich kid from a rich background filling in Dartmouth data could pull the average family background up, for example.</p>
<p>^ a higher % of science/engineering majors, perhaps? Especially since Duke and Cal/Berkeley are tied at the 25%ile and Duke does better at the 10%ile.</p>
<p>^^ According to payscale.com's own cost-of-living calculator, it costs 72% more to live in San Francisco than in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina. That includes 36% more for groceries, 188% more for housing, 1% less for utilities, 25% more for transportation, and 17% more for health care. (Actually, the difference varies depending on where you are in the Research Triangle. These figures are for Raleigh; Chapel Hill is slightly costlier, Durham a bit cheaper, but Raleigh represents a rough midpoint for the region). </p>
<p>Consequently, the Duke grad making $106,000 and staying in North Carolina is , by a wide margin,financially better off than the Berkeley grad making $112,000 and staying in the Bay Area. Notice that most of the schools ranking highest in salary are in expensive markets in the Northeast and California, where salaries for the same job are typically higher because the cost of living is significantly higher than elsewhere in the country.</p>
<p>Do your own market-by-market comparisons, courtesy of payscale.com:</p>
I find that very hard to believe. The Bay Area is temperate year round...no need for heating and air conditioning... North Carolina on the other hand suffers from hot, humid summers and cold, wet winters.</p>
<p>^ I can't vouch for payscale.com's figures, but I do know that in general terms electricity tends to be pretty cheap in the southeast where they burn a lot of cheap coal, and pretty expensive in California where in addition to higher generation costs they also tend to have pretty steeply progressive rates to encourage conservation. so I wouldn't be surprised if this figure is in the ballpark---I'd expect that Californians use a lot less energy but pay significantly more for what they do use, so it's pretty much a wash.</p>
<p>^Probably less than that. Teach for America is one of Duke's top employers, so one possible explanation is that a higher percentage of Duke grads are opting for non-profit or service careers which would pay a lot less. Berkeley seems a lot more pre-professional at the undergrad level with its engineering and business programs. Payscale doesn't track alumni that go on to grad schools(law, med, masters program, etc.) and keep tabs on their eventual salary does it? If not, then it would certainly explain Berkeley's $112,000 mid-career earnings because if you have an engineering degree or a BBA, you can enter the workforce immediately with pretty solid pay.</p>