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I don’t think the top schools need to expand and perhaps shouldn’t. At all. Instead what we need are employers to stop concentrating their recruiting efforts at

I don’t think the top schools need to expand and perhaps shouldn’t. At all. Instead what we need are employers to stop concentrating their recruiting efforts at these name brand schools (I.e. ladder pulling), at least at the undergraduate level. I’m not sure that there is a different in CS major between Purdue (for example) and MIT. Maybe there is, but expanding MIT just takes engineering students away from Purdue and then employers just recruit at MIT main campus in Cambridge instead of the satellite office. All you’ve really done is changed the logo. Not the dynamics. I’d rather see these “elite” universities not expand. The world seems more interesting with universities like Baylor, Ohio State, Florida, Oregon, and Nebraska than it does with Harvard, MIT, and Stanford copy/pasted everywhere. There isn’t anything wrong with those schools, but given they don’t have expertise in growing maybe a stronger case can be made for the University of California system to take over Stanford, and Penn State should turn Penn into a branch of Penn State University, etc. Else it’s really hard for me to see how you’re (not you specifically) not just trying to advocate for expanding “elite” universities just for the brand name.

LeanderK 4y ago
I really don't think there's enough difference during your studies for it to be justified. Of course it's nice to have a meeting personally with your professor every week, of course it's nice to have brand new classrooms and free snacks when you get to listen to nobel prize winners giving a lecture about their work. But you can also sit down, anywhere in the world, and just study hard to succeed in your exam. It's not that they have different math at harvard and if you go to a challenging university you get challenging lectures. This "elite university" brand, is imho, totally overrated. Of course you build great social connections, but if you hire a software engineer you don't hire his connections. But I feel like employers try to derive their prestige from the prestige of the universities. This is different for positions with a social dimension, like entrepreneurs, where your social connections matter. This, of course, does not say anything about whether the prestige of Harvard itself is justified. I actually think so, because in experience people always overrate the education part of a university. It's a small amount of the total operation, way more money goes into research. Harvard does a lot of world class research, it's very good at it, consistently. Also MIT, Stanford, Oxford etc. This needs recognition and care, it's something special. But just deriving your own prestige because you did your undergrad there is stupid I think.

LeanderK 4y ago

I really don't think there's enough difference during your studies for it to be justified. Of course it's nice to have a meeting personally with your professor every week, of course it's nice to have brand new classrooms and free snacks when you get to listen to nobel prize winners giving a lecture about their work. But you can also sit down, anywhere in the world, and just study hard to succeed in your exam. It's not that they have different math at harvard and if you go to a challenging university you get challenging lectures. This "elite university" brand, is imho, totally overrated. Of course you build great social connections, but if you hire a software engineer you don't hire his connections. But I feel like employers try to derive their prestige from the prestige of the universities. This is different for positions with a social dimension, like entrepreneurs, where your social connections matter. This, of course, does not say anything about whether the prestige of Harvard itself is justified. I actually think so, because in experience people always overrate the education part of a university. It's a small amount of the total operation, way more money goes into research. Harvard does a lot of world class research, it's very good at it, consistently. Also MIT, Stanford, Oxford etc. This needs recognition and care, it's something special. But just deriving your own prestige because you did your undergrad there is stupid I think.