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Does It Matter Where You Go to College?
- Thread starter kirylm
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I would agree that too much stress is put on going to the so-called elite schools. Look at that study that came out just a few days ago about over 80 percent of MBA graduates from the elite schools aren't repaying their loans. Successful? I don't think so.
alain
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I don't know what your definition of success is but I don't think paying MBA school loans could be considered a good measure of success. It might matter for certain careers. For instance, the Supreme Court only has lawyers from Harvard and Yale
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From a learning perspective, I would say that the elite schools are probably not the best in all cases. But there certain careers or companies that hire almost exclusively from elites. For example, when asked how to get into a top consulting firm, a current employee responded go to an Ivy league.
A truly exceptional person will succeed no matter what university they go to, but the average person still gains opportunities by having that elite branding.
A truly exceptional person will succeed no matter what university they go to, but the average person still gains opportunities by having that elite branding.
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In the world of salaried employment and desk jockeying, it does matter where you went to college: the credentials of an elite college open doors, put one on the fast track, and later in life an old boys network may come in handy (not sure about this last).
The consulting firms partly derive their prestige from the credentials their consultants have. For this reason companies like Bain and McKinsey are unlikey to hire someone from, say, the University of Missouri (ceteris paribus). I remember in the late '80s, Anderson Consulting (now Accenture) use to hire about 200 graduates every year in Britain. Half of them came from Oxbridge, and the other half from the other 30 universities put together. An Oxbridge graduate got an automatic first interview.
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I would say if you are defaulting on loans, you most likely aren't being very successful in your career, wouldn't you agree?
I think all of us would agree that the prestigious name on the diploma gives you a hand-up in most circumstances, but I feel that you are going to receive the same level of education no matter where you go. Obviously, there are some exceptions. I'm not going to the extreme and saying Your Local Community College is preparing students as well as Harvard, but I think the point has to be made that just because a person graduated from an elite school does not mean they are more intelligent or better prepared for work.
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I agree with you but in a sense what you're saying is precisely not the point. Elite colleges are part of the institutionalised set-up that allows a ruling class to reproduce itself and to induct those promising members of lower classes who can be socialised into ruling class mores. The quality of education is almost incidental. The world unfortunately does not operate as a meritocracy.
DominiConnor
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As someone who habitually tries to deflate the common obsession of 'branded schools' I find that this article just goes the other way far too much.
I would disagree with this.. i feel that many elite universities are filled more with hard working average or slightly above average people looking to get the elite branding than truly exceptional people.
which is not a bad thing. as in the case of the turtle and the rabbit.. slow and steady wins the race
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agree with you on this....
you'd find many great students coming from working class families in Ivy schools. this is why they have need-based financial aid programs + need blind admission policy.
I dont know how you define "average people". I mean, if your intellectual side is average, then you won't be admitted, but if you are smart but family income is average, then you still can go to an Ivy school if you qualify for financial aid.
DominiConnor
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coolharvard is right, "average" is not a useful way of making education decisions.
In particular, a given individual is a mix of talent levels, and education after 18 is largely specialising on the areas that students seems to be good at.
The correlation between 'raw' intelligence between generations is suprisingly small, enough that left wing people try to pretend it does not exist at all.
But correlations between educational outcome between generations is huge.
An interesting fact is the way that the educational level of the mother seems to be the best single predictor of the children's level, and that remains true across pretty much every country.
I suspect that does not surprise many people, although the way that it outweighs parental income as a factor upsets some people.
My own wife is an Oxford educated partner in a huge law firm, and we thus have very smart kids.
But note that I pedantically used the word "predictor", rather than "cause". since an educated mother also correlates with income, and more highly educated mothers are less likely to have issues like being a single parent. My kids see going to a top university as inevitable, because we have set that expectation, and their school environment supports that.
But many kids not only have less scholastically inclined environments, a mix of peer pressure, crap schools, and lack of parental interest mean that the talents of many smart kids are wasted.
In the worst cases some kids are 'homeschooled' where uneducated morons 'teach' the subset of their ignorance they are "comfortable" with.
I can't really form a strong opinion on positive discrimination, but if you wish to do it effectively, then income is not the factor you need to compensate for, but instead you need to discount for mothers, and to a lesser extent fathers.
Although the stats upon which I base this analysis aren't seriously questioned, it is possible that I am literally the only person advocating that position.
That's because positive discrimination is driven by lobbies, and so it is utterly impossible for a skew that works against the interests of educated women could get enough support that the lobbies would even bother to attack it.
I often see these things in terms of 'tests', that allow one to be objective.
A rational scheme of positive discrimination would discriminate against my family, with two white grads from decent schools, private education for the kids, and living in a nice area.
If you look at most of the lobbies in that area, you quickly see that they want stuff for people like themselves.
In particular, a given individual is a mix of talent levels, and education after 18 is largely specialising on the areas that students seems to be good at.
The correlation between 'raw' intelligence between generations is suprisingly small, enough that left wing people try to pretend it does not exist at all.
But correlations between educational outcome between generations is huge.
An interesting fact is the way that the educational level of the mother seems to be the best single predictor of the children's level, and that remains true across pretty much every country.
I suspect that does not surprise many people, although the way that it outweighs parental income as a factor upsets some people.
My own wife is an Oxford educated partner in a huge law firm, and we thus have very smart kids.
But note that I pedantically used the word "predictor", rather than "cause". since an educated mother also correlates with income, and more highly educated mothers are less likely to have issues like being a single parent. My kids see going to a top university as inevitable, because we have set that expectation, and their school environment supports that.
But many kids not only have less scholastically inclined environments, a mix of peer pressure, crap schools, and lack of parental interest mean that the talents of many smart kids are wasted.
In the worst cases some kids are 'homeschooled' where uneducated morons 'teach' the subset of their ignorance they are "comfortable" with.
I can't really form a strong opinion on positive discrimination, but if you wish to do it effectively, then income is not the factor you need to compensate for, but instead you need to discount for mothers, and to a lesser extent fathers.
Although the stats upon which I base this analysis aren't seriously questioned, it is possible that I am literally the only person advocating that position.
That's because positive discrimination is driven by lobbies, and so it is utterly impossible for a skew that works against the interests of educated women could get enough support that the lobbies would even bother to attack it.
I often see these things in terms of 'tests', that allow one to be objective.
A rational scheme of positive discrimination would discriminate against my family, with two white grads from decent schools, private education for the kids, and living in a nice area.
If you look at most of the lobbies in that area, you quickly see that they want stuff for people like themselves.
