8 ms·

Does it matter where you go to college?

34 points by docker_up 8y ago

basseq 8y ago
So it's a tautology. Prestigious schools attract top talent because top talent goes to prestigious schools. The best way to be successful is to be top talent—regardless of where you go to school for the majority—but top talent are likely to be those people who push and stress and play to win the "collegiate sweepstakes".
- matty_makes 8y ago
  I think you missed the point of the article. It only matters for certain demographics. The byline says it all: "they can have a big effect if you’re not rich, not white, or not a guy" I'm not sure what 'rich' means in the article, but if it means 'not poor' then for middle class white males it doesn't matter what school is on your resume.
  - lucozade 8y ago
    > for middle class white males it doesn't matter what school is on your resume That's not what the studies show. What the studies show is that, if you're a well-off white male who is in the top 1% academically then it doesn't matter, long-term financially, where you go to university. I mean, I found the article interesting but that's a pretty niche bunch of chaps right there.
- kaitai 8y ago
  Disagree, because the article/studies essentially indicate that if you're (for instance) a black female who got into MIT but chose to go to State U for cost reasons you'll see an incredible hit in terms of career progression and future earnings. It argues that if you're poor, a racial minority, or female you should go to the top school you can manage even if it causes temporary debt because the payoff will be large. If you're well off and white and a guy you might as well save on college costs, as the career and earning gains are marginal.
cosmosai 8y ago
I believe if you want knowledge, then the answer is no. College can teach you a lot and show a ton. That said, ultimately, you will have to become your own teacher anyway and you can do it in your own room at your own house. But if your goal is getting a job, you absolutely want the biggest names (the bigger, the better chance at getting a job) to vouch for you. According to the article, this may not be true for rich white men (presumably, American), but if you are from Kazakhstan or Nigeria, I believe you'll definitely get a bang for your buck waving that Harvard paper in front of a potential employer.
C1sc0cat 8y ago
Yes sadly
commandlinefan 8y ago
I think that we idealize that it doesn't matter, but at a certain level, it does matter - even decades later. I went to no-name university and graduated with a high GPA in CS in '95. My work experience since has been solid, and I have some respectable accomplishments, but places like Google and Facebook don't even notice me. The only "black mark" on my resume that I can imagine would be holding me back is "graduated from no-name university".
- fetus8 8y ago
  I don't think this is always the case. I graduated in 2014, from a small state university with a CS degree and a decent GPA. Last year after only have a couple years in the field with a big US based Tech company, and I landed interviews with Amazon and Google while searching for jobs after being laid off. I think it really just depends on location, and probably a million other things.
  - avgDev 8y ago
    I think it depends on companies you worked for prior. I can develop complete applications. However, I don't have much experience with large teams and I don't want to work for a tech company because I prefer a laid back environment and less hours. I doubt google would hire me due to lack of experience working on a large team with many departments,even though my GPA was 3.9 from a average Chicago Uni.
    - small_island 8y ago
      Ditto. I've been in IT since 1998 and attended a smallish college in VA. Done fine all these years. I don't need the feather in my cap from working for large companies like some feel the need to pursue. I worked for Microsoft for a short time and wondered why I even took the job. It was among the worst of my tech jobs. The people were stuck up, they were on the verge of losing out on the mobile race (while still pushing Windows Mobile). Never again. I work for a non-profit and am quite happy to, as you say, have more control, less hours, but far more sanity.
  - 8y ago
thrwthrw93223 8y ago
There is a lot of talk about elite universities offering full-tuition to those that make under a certain income, but what this ignores is usually you have to be in a certain income bracket to obtain certain SAT, AP scores along with the right ECs and upper division college prep courses. This usually means attending the best private, public, or STEM magnent school in your state, which sadly most families in those income brackets cannot afford. The people getting into these elite schools come from elite secondary schools and the poor people that can't attend these schools are usually excluded from admissions to elite colleges. So the "free tuition" advertisement is nice, but in practice their admissions standards do a good job of keeping such poor folks out.
- CompelTechnic 8y ago
  It is not mandatory to be in a certain income bracket to get a high score on your SAT or on your AP exams. If the universities want to help low income students, and are only able to help a certain number of them given the resources they have available, academic merit is the best way to do it.
  - thrwthrw93223 8y ago
    It isn't mandatory, but it certainly helps when you can pay for private tutors or professional consulatants that craft your application package. Students that tend to score high on SATs tend to come from higher income brackets. It also hurts when you attend a school that doesn't offer an expansive list of AP courses, or if you come from a family that never attended college and do not even know what the college process is like. Edit: To your "This is patently untrue" comment. Taking AP courses and scoring 5s on the exams is pretty standard for applicants getting into elite colleges. By not taking those courses you are huritng yourself when applying to such places.
    - csa 8y ago
      > It also hurts when you attend a school that doesn't offer an expansive list of AP coursess This is patently untrue. The rest of youe post is accurate, although the words help and hurt are the keys to keeping it accurate. None of these things are required.
groth 8y ago
tldr; "The simplest answer to the question “Do elite colleges matter?” is: It depends on who you are. In the big picture, elite colleges don’t seem to do much extra for rich white guys. But if you’re not rich, not white, or not a guy, the elite-college effect is huge. It increases earnings for minorities and low-income students, and it encourages women to delay marriage and work more, even though it doesn’t raise their per-hour wages."
- pl1234 8y ago
  "encourages women to delay marriage and work more" Horrible for society.
- war1025 8y ago
  To be honest, that sounds like going to an elite school gives women the short end of the stick. You get paid the same, but put off vital life events.
cozzyd 8y ago
This is not what these studies measure, but people in Academia are much more likely to have gone to elite grad schools (in their respective fields, which is not the same as undergrad rankings of course). And, in my experience (Stanford undergrad, MIT PhD, currently UChicago postdoc), elite grad schools predominantly select people from elite undergrad institutions. It's possible to get into a great grad program from a non-elite school, but it's much harder, while someone like me in the middle of my class at Stanford was able to get into good grad schools without too much trouble. This is probably not just due to snobbery; it's much more likely for the admissions committee to have heard of your recommenders and such. If you do research with a famous professor at a non-elite school you'd probably have similar results, but the barrier is a bit higher.
- bartcobain 8y ago
  Networking is one of the main reasons when going to college. While education, the courses and knowledge is really really, really important. Networking is just as important as that. Your social skills really matter in your life after college and it might help you paying your student debt.
- geebee 8y ago
  That's almost certainly true, but interestingly, the list of elite schools does get shuffled up a bit at the grad level. Few undergrads would consider UCSD more of a prize than any Ivy, but as a graduate research program, it would be considered very elite. Berkeley arguably has more top 5 PhD programs than any other university, but again, when two high school students bump into each other in the hallway, whip out a ruler, and measure admissions packages, Harvard is definitely a longer and thicker acceptance letter than Berkeley. I do remember an interesting flurry or articles from a study a couple of years ago suggesting it doesn't matter much where you go to college provided you major in STEM. From my limited observations and experience, I'd say that's true - I doubt a strong CS major from UCSD experiences any real disadvantage vis-a-vis more selective ivies, but an international relations major from Yale definitely has a leg up on securing those prestigious early career internships and positions.
- kaitai 8y ago
  Interestingly there are significant differences across fields, and the data do indicate that this effect in mathematics, for instance, is much smaller than in the humanities.
randyrand 8y ago
So many correlation and causation errors all over the place.
- dang 8y ago
  Maybe so, but please don't post shallow dismissals to HN. A good critical comment teaches us something.
sumnole 8y ago
It not only matters where you go to college but which professors you study under. Got one that doesn't care? Sorry, their research is more important than effectively teaching you. Got one that carries out favoritism and/or discrimination? Sorry, your grade and chance of getting a good first job out of college just got lower if they don't like you, and you still get to pay thousands for that. I see MOOCs as a step in the right direction to solving many problems within education.
40acres 8y ago
My anectodal experience tells me no. I went to a CUNY (NYC system college) school with a 99% acceptance rate and sub 20% graduation rate. It was more important that I lived in New York than that I went to this specific school. I was able to find internships which got me into the industry, network with folks from different industries, and generally have a lot of opportunities available to me. Also, I graduated in 4 years with no student debt and low overall expenses, I was able to pay my way with a part time job and government subsidies. I've given way more in taxes than what it cost the city and federal government to send me to school. It may not be an elite Yale or Stanford education, but most folks don't have that anyway.
- projectramo 8y ago
  But is your experience typical or exceptional?
  - 40acres 8y ago
    It's atypical but I think it provides a completely different model about how to think about college. A lot of parents are stressing out about how to pay for college and for good reason, but I think you can derive 80% of the value of going to college for 20% of the cost. For one: I don't think most families can pay the extra fees associated w/ going to an out of state school. Second: most states have at least one solid state school that has a relatively high acceptance rate for residents, third: students and parents really need to have frank discussions about the economic potential of a degree. Fourth: Students and parents should strongly consider a "half and half" between community college and a state school to complete their degree. At the end of the day, a lot of parents are paying for prestige, but if you can get the right degree and internship experience I don't think where you went to school is weighted as heavily. I'm fortunate to be in software (although I did do market research before declaring), I doubt anyone who's read my resume has heard of the school I went to, but a critical internship really opened up the doors for me and I've had opportunities to interview at some of the biggest companies in the world. You gotta think outside the box.
    - mcguire 8y ago
projectramo 8y ago
They should run a location effect study to accompany this. Is it better to have a high SAT score and go to San Jose State vs low SAT score and go to (say) UVa (University of Virginia which is a good school far away from Silicon Valley) to get a job in Silicon Valley.
devilmoon 8y ago
It matters especially if you're not from the US. You could've gone to the best university in your country, but if it's not a top institution in the US or a handful of others (ETH and a few more in top positions according to Qs Rankings) I feel like most big names in tech won't even look at your resume. Anedoctal example, but I graduated with a decent mark from the top CS department in my country (106/110) as an UG, I couldn't even apply for a masters in top universities in the UK (let alone US) since their requirements are skewed towards not accepting people from my country (if you came from the UK you needed a 2:1, which if I remember correctly is around 70%, if you came from my country you needed 109/110, which is over 99%. Scores for other EU countries like Spain and France were converted to their 70%). This led me to going into a masters in my country, which will most likely hinder me from getting a PhD in any top institution in the EU just because of the country I was born in, even though some of the professors in my current masters degree course are top researchers in their fields. So yes, I feel like where you go to school earlier in life greatly influences where you will end up in the future; and even more so, where you were born influences your chances of making it anywhere in life. This is not to say that I am some unrecognised genius, I feel like I am a "median" CS student with a poor math background to booth; but at the same time I absolutely feel like a lot of talent will go unrecognised and won't have the same chances in life others have just because they happened to be born in a country rather than another (even more so after having studied in the UK for a year and having met people who went on to work for top companies when they clearly were subpar compared to people studying in my own country)
- aantix 8y ago
  You could have a Github portfolio that has one or two personal projects that demonstrates a proficiency in the language/framework needed at the company you're applying? I've interviewed plenty of people in SF - candidates from top tier universities like MIT. And have passed on them. They simply lacked a proficiency in doing the basics (Rails in this case). There's so many opportunity to be had by just showing very specific proficiencies with a personal project. Skip all of the hoops you've outlined above, because they never matter anyway. A majority of candidates never have a portfolio, it's the biggest opportunity that is missed by most.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y ago
>Third, to admissions officers of elite colleges: Do better. America’s most selective colleges can, it seems, change the lives of minorities and low-income students. But they’re still bastions of privilege. They enroll more students from the top 1 percent of the income scale than the entire bottom 60 percent. In this way, elite institutions are like factories of social mobility being used as storage facilities for privilege; they have the potential to use their space to manufacture opportunity at scale, but mostly they clear out real estate for the already rich, who are going to be fine, anyway. I wonder if this this advice would actually be harmful. The real cachet of the elite colleges is not so much their elite teaching, but that the elite go to them. Going to these colleges as a non-elite kind of "adopts" you into the elite and has great benefits for these non-elites. However, if these elite colleges basically become a reflection of the United States where the vast majority of people are non-elite, these elite colleges will lose their aura over time. The elite won't really be affected by this as they have other social networks to connect with fellow elite. However, the non-elite will lose this important way of networking with the elite.
peterburkimsher 8y ago
I think "where" you study matters, but for a different reason. It's not the prestige of the school, it's the geographic proximity to potential jobs. I'm (still) trying to find a job in New Zealand, Australia, or Canada. Despite an MEng and 4 years work experience to satisfy immigration, companies aren't interested in interviewing people who aren't already physically there and have the right to work. The only solution seems to be to get a student visa by joining a course in underwater basket weaving, and continue looking for a job locally when physically present. It's a terrible misuse of the visa system, but there seems to be no other way.
evilturnip 8y ago
>In other words, if Mike and Drew have the same SAT scores and apply to the same colleges, but Mike gets into Harvard and Drew doesn’t, they can still expect to earn the same income throughout their careers. I've read that SATs are heavily g-loaded. In such a case, your success being correlated with the SAT is obvious, as IQ being positively correlated with income is well-accepted in psychometrics. So yes, you can be successful without going to a good school, but mostly because you're relatively intelligent.

34 points by docker_up 8y ago

So it's a tautology. Prestigious schools attract top talent because top talent goes to prestigious schools. The best way to be successful is to be top talent—regardless of where you go to school for the majority—but top talent are likely to be those people who push and stress and play to win the "collegiate sweepstakes".

matty_makes 8y ago
I think you missed the point of the article. It only matters for certain demographics. The byline says it all: "they can have a big effect if you’re not rich, not white, or not a guy" I'm not sure what 'rich' means in the article, but if it means 'not poor' then for middle class white males it doesn't matter what school is on your resume.
- lucozade 8y ago
  > for middle class white males it doesn't matter what school is on your resume That's not what the studies show. What the studies show is that, if you're a well-off white male who is in the top 1% academically then it doesn't matter, long-term financially, where you go to university. I mean, I found the article interesting but that's a pretty niche bunch of chaps right there.
kaitai 8y ago
Disagree, because the article/studies essentially indicate that if you're (for instance) a black female who got into MIT but chose to go to State U for cost reasons you'll see an incredible hit in terms of career progression and future earnings. It argues that if you're poor, a racial minority, or female you should go to the top school you can manage even if it causes temporary debt because the payoff will be large. If you're well off and white and a guy you might as well save on college costs, as the career and earning gains are marginal.

cosmosai 8y ago

I believe if you want knowledge, then the answer is no. College can teach you a lot and show a ton. That said, ultimately, you will have to become your own teacher anyway and you can do it in your own room at your own house. But if your goal is getting a job, you absolutely want the biggest names (the bigger, the better chance at getting a job) to vouch for you. According to the article, this may not be true for rich white men (presumably, American), but if you are from Kazakhstan or Nigeria, I believe you'll definitely get a bang for your buck waving that Harvard paper in front of a potential employer.

C1sc0cat 8y ago

Yes sadly

commandlinefan 8y ago

I think that we idealize that it doesn't matter, but at a certain level, it does matter - even decades later. I went to no-name university and graduated with a high GPA in CS in '95. My work experience since has been solid, and I have some respectable accomplishments, but places like Google and Facebook don't even notice me. The only "black mark" on my resume that I can imagine would be holding me back is "graduated from no-name university".

fetus8 8y ago
I don't think this is always the case. I graduated in 2014, from a small state university with a CS degree and a decent GPA. Last year after only have a couple years in the field with a big US based Tech company, and I landed interviews with Amazon and Google while searching for jobs after being laid off. I think it really just depends on location, and probably a million other things.
- avgDev 8y ago
  I think it depends on companies you worked for prior. I can develop complete applications. However, I don't have much experience with large teams and I don't want to work for a tech company because I prefer a laid back environment and less hours. I doubt google would hire me due to lack of experience working on a large team with many departments,even though my GPA was 3.9 from a average Chicago Uni.
  - small_island 8y ago
    Ditto. I've been in IT since 1998 and attended a smallish college in VA. Done fine all these years. I don't need the feather in my cap from working for large companies like some feel the need to pursue. I worked for Microsoft for a short time and wondered why I even took the job. It was among the worst of my tech jobs. The people were stuck up, they were on the verge of losing out on the mobile race (while still pushing Windows Mobile). Never again. I work for a non-profit and am quite happy to, as you say, have more control, less hours, but far more sanity.
- 8y ago

thrwthrw93223 8y ago

There is a lot of talk about elite universities offering full-tuition to those that make under a certain income, but what this ignores is usually you have to be in a certain income bracket to obtain certain SAT, AP scores along with the right ECs and upper division college prep courses. This usually means attending the best private, public, or STEM magnent school in your state, which sadly most families in those income brackets cannot afford. The people getting into these elite schools come from elite secondary schools and the poor people that can't attend these schools are usually excluded from admissions to elite colleges. So the "free tuition" advertisement is nice, but in practice their admissions standards do a good job of keeping such poor folks out.

CompelTechnic 8y ago
It is not mandatory to be in a certain income bracket to get a high score on your SAT or on your AP exams. If the universities want to help low income students, and are only able to help a certain number of them given the resources they have available, academic merit is the best way to do it.
- thrwthrw93223 8y ago
  It isn't mandatory, but it certainly helps when you can pay for private tutors or professional consulatants that craft your application package. Students that tend to score high on SATs tend to come from higher income brackets. It also hurts when you attend a school that doesn't offer an expansive list of AP courses, or if you come from a family that never attended college and do not even know what the college process is like. Edit: To your "This is patently untrue" comment. Taking AP courses and scoring 5s on the exams is pretty standard for applicants getting into elite colleges. By not taking those courses you are huritng yourself when applying to such places.
  - csa 8y ago
    > It also hurts when you attend a school that doesn't offer an expansive list of AP coursess This is patently untrue. The rest of youe post is accurate, although the words help and hurt are the keys to keeping it accurate. None of these things are required.

groth 8y ago

tldr; "The simplest answer to the question “Do elite colleges matter?” is: It depends on who you are. In the big picture, elite colleges don’t seem to do much extra for rich white guys. But if you’re not rich, not white, or not a guy, the elite-college effect is huge. It increases earnings for minorities and low-income students, and it encourages women to delay marriage and work more, even though it doesn’t raise their per-hour wages."

pl1234 8y ago
"encourages women to delay marriage and work more" Horrible for society.
war1025 8y ago
To be honest, that sounds like going to an elite school gives women the short end of the stick. You get paid the same, but put off vital life events.

cozzyd 8y ago

This is not what these studies measure, but people in Academia are much more likely to have gone to elite grad schools (in their respective fields, which is not the same as undergrad rankings of course). And, in my experience (Stanford undergrad, MIT PhD, currently UChicago postdoc), elite grad schools predominantly select people from elite undergrad institutions. It's possible to get into a great grad program from a non-elite school, but it's much harder, while someone like me in the middle of my class at Stanford was able to get into good grad schools without too much trouble. This is probably not just due to snobbery; it's much more likely for the admissions committee to have heard of your recommenders and such. If you do research with a famous professor at a non-elite school you'd probably have similar results, but the barrier is a bit higher.

bartcobain 8y ago
Networking is one of the main reasons when going to college. While education, the courses and knowledge is really really, really important. Networking is just as important as that. Your social skills really matter in your life after college and it might help you paying your student debt.
geebee 8y ago
That's almost certainly true, but interestingly, the list of elite schools does get shuffled up a bit at the grad level. Few undergrads would consider UCSD more of a prize than any Ivy, but as a graduate research program, it would be considered very elite. Berkeley arguably has more top 5 PhD programs than any other university, but again, when two high school students bump into each other in the hallway, whip out a ruler, and measure admissions packages, Harvard is definitely a longer and thicker acceptance letter than Berkeley. I do remember an interesting flurry or articles from a study a couple of years ago suggesting it doesn't matter much where you go to college provided you major in STEM. From my limited observations and experience, I'd say that's true - I doubt a strong CS major from UCSD experiences any real disadvantage vis-a-vis more selective ivies, but an international relations major from Yale definitely has a leg up on securing those prestigious early career internships and positions.
kaitai 8y ago
Interestingly there are significant differences across fields, and the data do indicate that this effect in mathematics, for instance, is much smaller than in the humanities.

randyrand 8y ago

So many correlation and causation errors all over the place.

dang 8y ago
Maybe so, but please don't post shallow dismissals to HN. A good critical comment teaches us something.

sumnole 8y ago

It not only matters where you go to college but which professors you study under. Got one that doesn't care? Sorry, their research is more important than effectively teaching you. Got one that carries out favoritism and/or discrimination? Sorry, your grade and chance of getting a good first job out of college just got lower if they don't like you, and you still get to pay thousands for that. I see MOOCs as a step in the right direction to solving many problems within education.

40acres 8y ago

My anectodal experience tells me no. I went to a CUNY (NYC system college) school with a 99% acceptance rate and sub 20% graduation rate. It was more important that I lived in New York than that I went to this specific school. I was able to find internships which got me into the industry, network with folks from different industries, and generally have a lot of opportunities available to me. Also, I graduated in 4 years with no student debt and low overall expenses, I was able to pay my way with a part time job and government subsidies. I've given way more in taxes than what it cost the city and federal government to send me to school. It may not be an elite Yale or Stanford education, but most folks don't have that anyway.

projectramo 8y ago
But is your experience typical or exceptional?
- 40acres 8y ago
  It's atypical but I think it provides a completely different model about how to think about college. A lot of parents are stressing out about how to pay for college and for good reason, but I think you can derive 80% of the value of going to college for 20% of the cost. For one: I don't think most families can pay the extra fees associated w/ going to an out of state school. Second: most states have at least one solid state school that has a relatively high acceptance rate for residents, third: students and parents really need to have frank discussions about the economic potential of a degree. Fourth: Students and parents should strongly consider a "half and half" between community college and a state school to complete their degree. At the end of the day, a lot of parents are paying for prestige, but if you can get the right degree and internship experience I don't think where you went to school is weighted as heavily. I'm fortunate to be in software (although I did do market research before declaring), I doubt anyone who's read my resume has heard of the school I went to, but a critical internship really opened up the doors for me and I've had opportunities to interview at some of the biggest companies in the world. You gotta think outside the box.
  - mcguire 8y ago

projectramo 8y ago

They should run a location effect study to accompany this. Is it better to have a high SAT score and go to San Jose State vs low SAT score and go to (say) UVa (University of Virginia which is a good school far away from Silicon Valley) to get a job in Silicon Valley.

devilmoon 8y ago

It matters especially if you're not from the US. You could've gone to the best university in your country, but if it's not a top institution in the US or a handful of others (ETH and a few more in top positions according to Qs Rankings) I feel like most big names in tech won't even look at your resume. Anedoctal example, but I graduated with a decent mark from the top CS department in my country (106/110) as an UG, I couldn't even apply for a masters in top universities in the UK (let alone US) since their requirements are skewed towards not accepting people from my country (if you came from the UK you needed a 2:1, which if I remember correctly is around 70%, if you came from my country you needed 109/110, which is over 99%. Scores for other EU countries like Spain and France were converted to their 70%). This led me to going into a masters in my country, which will most likely hinder me from getting a PhD in any top institution in the EU just because of the country I was born in, even though some of the professors in my current masters degree course are top researchers in their fields. So yes, I feel like where you go to school earlier in life greatly influences where you will end up in the future; and even more so, where you were born influences your chances of making it anywhere in life. This is not to say that I am some unrecognised genius, I feel like I am a "median" CS student with a poor math background to booth; but at the same time I absolutely feel like a lot of talent will go unrecognised and won't have the same chances in life others have just because they happened to be born in a country rather than another (even more so after having studied in the UK for a year and having met people who went on to work for top companies when they clearly were subpar compared to people studying in my own country)

aantix 8y ago
You could have a Github portfolio that has one or two personal projects that demonstrates a proficiency in the language/framework needed at the company you're applying? I've interviewed plenty of people in SF - candidates from top tier universities like MIT. And have passed on them. They simply lacked a proficiency in doing the basics (Rails in this case). There's so many opportunity to be had by just showing very specific proficiencies with a personal project. Skip all of the hoops you've outlined above, because they never matter anyway. A majority of candidates never have a portfolio, it's the biggest opportunity that is missed by most.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y ago

>Third, to admissions officers of elite colleges: Do better. America’s most selective colleges can, it seems, change the lives of minorities and low-income students. But they’re still bastions of privilege. They enroll more students from the top 1 percent of the income scale than the entire bottom 60 percent. In this way, elite institutions are like factories of social mobility being used as storage facilities for privilege; they have the potential to use their space to manufacture opportunity at scale, but mostly they clear out real estate for the already rich, who are going to be fine, anyway. I wonder if this this advice would actually be harmful. The real cachet of the elite colleges is not so much their elite teaching, but that the elite go to them. Going to these colleges as a non-elite kind of "adopts" you into the elite and has great benefits for these non-elites. However, if these elite colleges basically become a reflection of the United States where the vast majority of people are non-elite, these elite colleges will lose their aura over time. The elite won't really be affected by this as they have other social networks to connect with fellow elite. However, the non-elite will lose this important way of networking with the elite.

peterburkimsher 8y ago

I think "where" you study matters, but for a different reason. It's not the prestige of the school, it's the geographic proximity to potential jobs. I'm (still) trying to find a job in New Zealand, Australia, or Canada. Despite an MEng and 4 years work experience to satisfy immigration, companies aren't interested in interviewing people who aren't already physically there and have the right to work. The only solution seems to be to get a student visa by joining a course in underwater basket weaving, and continue looking for a job locally when physically present. It's a terrible misuse of the visa system, but there seems to be no other way.

evilturnip 8y ago

>In other words, if Mike and Drew have the same SAT scores and apply to the same colleges, but Mike gets into Harvard and Drew doesn’t, they can still expect to earn the same income throughout their careers. I've read that SATs are heavily g-loaded. In such a case, your success being correlated with the SAT is obvious, as IQ being positively correlated with income is well-accepted in psychometrics. So yes, you can be successful without going to a good school, but mostly because you're relatively intelligent.