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I respectfully disagree. It is true—prestige grants price flexibility for the college. They can charge more equivalent to their relative standing. But what lea
by etempleton 4y ago
I respectfully disagree.
It is true—prestige grants price flexibility for the college. They can charge more equivalent to their relative standing. But what leads to that reputation? How do you measure quality of education?What makes Harvard better than any other college at educating students? How much better? What percentage? Okay now prove it. At least in a succinct explainable way.
No, prestige is based on awareness and reputation. That can be gained a lot of ways. Recently a lot of schools have gained reputation through athletics. If you are good at one thing people think you are good at everything and so that reputation becomes overall reputation.
Three repeatable anecdotes regarding college enrollments:
1. When a college builds a new fancy building they see an enrollment spike. Almost every time. Especially if it is student quality of life focused.
2. Colleges that have lowered tuition to increase price transparency have consistently seen enrollment drops.
3. When a college or University makes it to March Madness they see an enrollment bump.
Reputation is tied to many things. Academic quality is hard to quantify or measure and so any reputation based on academics is apocryphal and based in word of mouth.
- bumby 4y agoI looked up US World News ranking methodology and, to your point, at least 40% is squishy measures like “peer assessment surveys” and “reputation”. Others, like selectivity, are known to be gamed by encouraging students to apply even when they have no chance of getting in (which carries the additional income of the application fee).
- etempleton 4y agoBonus point: What are the highest regarded colleges in the US? The Ivies(with some notable outliers). What is it that ties them together? An athletic conference.
- kragen 4y agoYeah, when you hear of someone who's been accepted to Duke deciding to pursue their studies in the NFL instead, give me a call.
- etempleton 4y agoDuke? One of the biggest basketball and lacrosse powerhouses in the country. That Duke?
- kragen 4y agoyup, that duke. how do you suppose they manage to lure their students away from the nba and amateur basketball leagues
- beezle 4y agoBasically you are saying capital investments improve enrollment (though not necessarily the education given). You can have capital investments/improvements (buildings, labs, gyms) without ever increasing administrative non-capital costs.
- rahimnathwani 4y ago"When a college builds a new fancy building they see an enrollment spike" Aren't most colleges turning away qualified students? If so, an enrollment spike is a decision by the college, not the result of increased demand.
- etempleton 4y agoThey have to predict their yield rate. If yield increases beyond what is typical they may over enroll.
- B1FF_PSUVM 4y ago> What makes Harvard better Even dropouts make more money after being there, not to put too fine a point on it.
- Aerroon 4y agoThat might just be selection bias though. If you only accept the top 1% then even if they don't graduate they're still far above the average person. Ie they're more likely to succeed whether they went to Harvard or not.
- etempleton 4y agoHarvard accepts only the smartest, hardest working, most talented and richest 1% of society. The number of students who have a perfect SAT or are the child of a billionaire are staggering. Good input leads to good output.