The interesting thing about a school at the top of the pile is that even the dropouts will have their educational background described as "MIT dropout" for the

The interesting thing about a school at the top of the pile is that even the dropouts will have their educational background described as "MIT dropout" for the rest of their lives, and it will mostly be used as an oddly positive descriptor. In the bigger picture, even those MIT student who don't graduate MIT enhance the school's prestige. And it enhances the student's prestige. Only now the school will be less likely to appeal to this set of students in the first place.