6 ms·

College Prestige "Lies"

28 points by quizbiz 18y ago

What do you guys think?

Retric 18y ago
The real question is the value of an exclusive education vs the cost of such an education. An extra 100k by graduation requires a huge increase in lifetime earnings to balance it out. "those who attended the most selective colleges would earn an average of $2.9 million during their careers; those who attended the next most selective colleges would earn $2.8 million; and those who attended all other colleges would average $2.5 million." (Clearly, with those numbers paying for such an education is an net economic loss on average.) PS: Granted if your getting a free ride then it's not that big a deal. However, the only reason the question shows up is an increase in tuition to the student and or their family.
deleted 18y ago
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tempest67 18y ago
I find it interesting that the reports tend to consistently state that college prestige is indeed important for students from lower income families. I found that to be enormously true, myself. I am from a working-class background -- did my undergraduate degree at a state school, and found it boring and, really, a waste of time -- much like high school. But I also think now that a lot of this was my own fault -- I had no idea how to approach college, and how to really make it work for me. Later, I then did a graduate program at an Ivy League school -- and the scales fell away from my eyes. The most important thing I learned there, I think, was how successful people work in the world -- how to resourcefully make the most out of every opportunity, how to seize the initiative, how to make connections. I have the feeling that if I hadn't been brought up in the class I was, I would have inhaled these things at my parents' knee -- as it was, it took me much, much longer than it should have; but it was an enormous lesson, and almost worth the ridiculous student loans I now owe. ;-) (I am also by no means saying that an Ivy League school is the only place for lower-class kids to learn how to work the world -- far from it! I was just not talented enough to figure it out myself, and the experience made all the difference in the world for me.)
- jsomers 18y ago
  Cool. I'd be curious to know some of what you picked up in grad school. Care to elaborate?
  - tempest67 18y ago
    Good question! I have tried to answer this before, and always fallen flat -- I think that the reason is that if it could be transmitted by writing, I would have picked it up without the need to have spent all that money and time. But that sounds like such a cop-out! So I'll try: At the Ivy League school I went to (and I did not study a technical subject here -- it was an architecture school), I was surrounded by people who had an agenda for their lives -- in fact, they often already had their career plotted out, and many were already working on the side. School was for them a set of tools (people, information, opportunities) to be hacked resourcefully to get what they wanted. At Big State U, the kids seemed to think of themselves more as subject to the whims of an institution, and to think of the institution as something they needed to please to get "a degree." The degree was hardly worth mentioning at Ivy League School; the professors were seen as either equals or, in a sense, servants/tools. The Ivy League kids also seemed far more ready to create their own programs and experiences; they would see a niche, form a group, and suddenly the school was filled with minority kids learning architecture on the weekends; or suddenly a local youth group had a student-made meeting place. Of course this kind of volunteerism and spirit of service happened at Big State U as well! What I thought was really different at I.L.S. was the self-assurance and lack of self-consciousness involved; these kids saw ownership and power in the world as their natural right -- they seemed to act and take command as naturally as another young person might turn on the television. I hope this doesn't sound arrogant or somehow fanboyish; I am trying to explain how being thrown together with these people for years changed me deeply -- made me both able to see beyond where I came from and to be more proud of it, and of myself. It was really almost more a matter of physical knowledge -- of mimicry and group identification, perhaps -- than of something you could pick up in a book.
    - TJensen 18y ago
      That is really interesting. Just out of curiosity, how much could be attributed to maturity? Was this change in behavior just within the graduate program or throughout the entire school? FWIW, I went to Big State U (had a nationally ranked CS program, though), and I agree with much of what you said. However, I don't have anything to compare it to. Edit: learn grammar.
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- smanek 18y ago
  Did you read the article? First of all, it's just talking about undergrad - not graduate school. They are different. Second, the study cited shows that attending a prestigious school does increase earnings, contrary to some misinterpretations in the mainstream media. The article is about how/why the mainstream media misinterpreted/misrepresented the Dale and Kruger study.
lethain 18y ago
Also interesting, one of the links on the site leads to another discussion which claims that there is a correlation between higher intelligence and lower wages for those whose highest degree is a bachelors. The study partially attributes this to the bad advice that more intelligent students tend to get from their parents ("study what you love", as opposed to "study something practical"). (Referenced link is http://www.halfsigma.com/2006/07/higher_intellig.html http://www.halfsigma.com/2006/07/higher_intellig.html )
- azanar 18y ago
  I get the suspicion the causal progression here is deeper than just f(intelligence) - g(wages) = 0. As an alternate hypothesis, the reason why students who study what they love earn less than students who study something practical is because of the intrinsic value the student finds being employed to do what they love. As a result of this, they don't need or demand to be paid as much to perform the same work, and so salaries tend to be depressed. But maybe it doesn't bother them; maybe there is something to the advice more intelligent people are given. Perhaps the needs most people fulfill by earning and spending money have already been fulfilled by these people through other means. If you do what you love by trade, perhaps there is less need to spend money in exchange for spare time to work on it.
pg 18y ago
How much people earn is not the only test of the quality of their education.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- timothychung 18y ago
  The value that people deliver to the world should be a good determinant. :-)
  - quizbiz 18y ago
    How do you suppose one would measure "value"?
    - evgen 18y ago
      I believe the answer implied was "the market"...
    - newt0311 18y ago
      By how much they earn. A firm pays their employees in proportion to their contribution (at least on average -- as that is efficient behavior). A firm is paid by customers in proportion to their value contribution. And on and on. Econ 101 of supply, demand, and price signals (one of the few parts that actually works).
    - timothychung 18y ago
      Value is defined in many levels. The easiest definition for everyone should be the value they can think for themselves. For a country, most economists would consider GDP. For me, I would consider sustainability and happiness.
  - derefr 18y ago
    Prostitutes deliver huge amounts of value with no education required at all. I'm not sure if that's for or against your point--I've never studied economics--but it seems damning of something. ;)
GavinB 18y ago
Several of the comments lead me to believe that people aren't reading to the end of the article. Robin's final conclusion is that the more prestigious name does matter, and that the study has been misinterpreted. That's why he says "Ack! I was almost conned by elite journal editors and media reporters into believing a comforting lie!"
- tokenadult 18y ago
  Moreover, a response to the Krueger and Dale study's methodology by Avery and Hoxby in the article "Do and Should Financial Aid Packages Affect Students' College Choices?" National Bureau of Economic Research (Cambridge, MA), 2003 showed that Krueger and Dale aggregated their data in a way that tended to underrepresent the advantage of going to the better college for ALL students, not just low-income students. So if you carefully read the Krueger and Dale study, you can tease out an advantage to the better colleges that they admit is especially strong for low-income students. But they might have found an even stronger effect size if they had analyzed their data differently. Anyway, yes, for low-income students who manage to get admitted the lesson from all studies is clear: go to the best college that admitted you, and take advantage of your opportunity for an elite education.
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]

28 points by quizbiz 18y ago

What do you guys think?

The real question is the value of an exclusive education vs the cost of such an education. An extra 100k by graduation requires a huge increase in lifetime earnings to balance it out. "those who attended the most selective colleges would earn an average of $2.9 million during their careers; those who attended the next most selective colleges would earn $2.8 million; and those who attended all other colleges would average $2.5 million." (Clearly, with those numbers paying for such an education is an net economic loss on average.) PS: Granted if your getting a free ride then it's not that big a deal. However, the only reason the question shows up is an increase in tuition to the student and or their family.

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

tempest67 18y ago

I find it interesting that the reports tend to consistently state that college prestige is indeed important for students from lower income families. I found that to be enormously true, myself. I am from a working-class background -- did my undergraduate degree at a state school, and found it boring and, really, a waste of time -- much like high school. But I also think now that a lot of this was my own fault -- I had no idea how to approach college, and how to really make it work for me. Later, I then did a graduate program at an Ivy League school -- and the scales fell away from my eyes. The most important thing I learned there, I think, was how successful people work in the world -- how to resourcefully make the most out of every opportunity, how to seize the initiative, how to make connections. I have the feeling that if I hadn't been brought up in the class I was, I would have inhaled these things at my parents' knee -- as it was, it took me much, much longer than it should have; but it was an enormous lesson, and almost worth the ridiculous student loans I now owe. ;-) (I am also by no means saying that an Ivy League school is the only place for lower-class kids to learn how to work the world -- far from it! I was just not talented enough to figure it out myself, and the experience made all the difference in the world for me.)

jsomers 18y ago
Cool. I'd be curious to know some of what you picked up in grad school. Care to elaborate?
- tempest67 18y ago
  Good question! I have tried to answer this before, and always fallen flat -- I think that the reason is that if it could be transmitted by writing, I would have picked it up without the need to have spent all that money and time. But that sounds like such a cop-out! So I'll try: At the Ivy League school I went to (and I did not study a technical subject here -- it was an architecture school), I was surrounded by people who had an agenda for their lives -- in fact, they often already had their career plotted out, and many were already working on the side. School was for them a set of tools (people, information, opportunities) to be hacked resourcefully to get what they wanted. At Big State U, the kids seemed to think of themselves more as subject to the whims of an institution, and to think of the institution as something they needed to please to get "a degree." The degree was hardly worth mentioning at Ivy League School; the professors were seen as either equals or, in a sense, servants/tools. The Ivy League kids also seemed far more ready to create their own programs and experiences; they would see a niche, form a group, and suddenly the school was filled with minority kids learning architecture on the weekends; or suddenly a local youth group had a student-made meeting place. Of course this kind of volunteerism and spirit of service happened at Big State U as well! What I thought was really different at I.L.S. was the self-assurance and lack of self-consciousness involved; these kids saw ownership and power in the world as their natural right -- they seemed to act and take command as naturally as another young person might turn on the television. I hope this doesn't sound arrogant or somehow fanboyish; I am trying to explain how being thrown together with these people for years changed me deeply -- made me both able to see beyond where I came from and to be more proud of it, and of myself. It was really almost more a matter of physical knowledge -- of mimicry and group identification, perhaps -- than of something you could pick up in a book.
  - TJensen 18y ago
    That is really interesting. Just out of curiosity, how much could be attributed to maturity? Was this change in behavior just within the graduate program or throughout the entire school? FWIW, I went to Big State U (had a nationally ranked CS program, though), and I agree with much of what you said. However, I don't have anything to compare it to. Edit: learn grammar.

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

smanek 18y ago
Did you read the article? First of all, it's just talking about undergrad - not graduate school. They are different. Second, the study cited shows that attending a prestigious school does increase earnings, contrary to some misinterpretations in the mainstream media. The article is about how/why the mainstream media misinterpreted/misrepresented the Dale and Kruger study.

lethain 18y ago

Also interesting, one of the links on the site leads to another discussion which claims that there is a correlation between higher intelligence and lower wages for those whose highest degree is a bachelors. The study partially attributes this to the bad advice that more intelligent students tend to get from their parents ("study what you love", as opposed to "study something practical"). (Referenced link is http://www.halfsigma.com/2006/07/higher_intellig.html http://www.halfsigma.com/2006/07/higher_intellig.html )

azanar 18y ago
I get the suspicion the causal progression here is deeper than just f(intelligence) - g(wages) = 0. As an alternate hypothesis, the reason why students who study what they love earn less than students who study something practical is because of the intrinsic value the student finds being employed to do what they love. As a result of this, they don't need or demand to be paid as much to perform the same work, and so salaries tend to be depressed. But maybe it doesn't bother them; maybe there is something to the advice more intelligent people are given. Perhaps the needs most people fulfill by earning and spending money have already been fulfilled by these people through other means. If you do what you love by trade, perhaps there is less need to spend money in exchange for spare time to work on it.

pg 18y ago

How much people earn is not the only test of the quality of their education.

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
timothychung 18y ago
The value that people deliver to the world should be a good determinant. :-)
- quizbiz 18y ago
  How do you suppose one would measure "value"?
  - evgen 18y ago
    I believe the answer implied was "the market"...
  - newt0311 18y ago
    By how much they earn. A firm pays their employees in proportion to their contribution (at least on average -- as that is efficient behavior). A firm is paid by customers in proportion to their value contribution. And on and on. Econ 101 of supply, demand, and price signals (one of the few parts that actually works).
  - timothychung 18y ago
    Value is defined in many levels. The easiest definition for everyone should be the value they can think for themselves. For a country, most economists would consider GDP. For me, I would consider sustainability and happiness.
- derefr 18y ago
  Prostitutes deliver huge amounts of value with no education required at all. I'm not sure if that's for or against your point--I've never studied economics--but it seems damning of something. ;)

GavinB 18y ago

Several of the comments lead me to believe that people aren't reading to the end of the article. Robin's final conclusion is that the more prestigious name does matter, and that the study has been misinterpreted. That's why he says "Ack! I was almost conned by elite journal editors and media reporters into believing a comforting lie!"

tokenadult 18y ago
Moreover, a response to the Krueger and Dale study's methodology by Avery and Hoxby in the article "Do and Should Financial Aid Packages Affect Students' College Choices?" National Bureau of Economic Research (Cambridge, MA), 2003 showed that Krueger and Dale aggregated their data in a way that tended to underrepresent the advantage of going to the better college for ALL students, not just low-income students. So if you carefully read the Krueger and Dale study, you can tease out an advantage to the better colleges that they admit is especially strong for low-income students. But they might have found an even stronger effect size if they had analyzed their data differently. Anyway, yes, for low-income students who manage to get admitted the lesson from all studies is clear: go to the best college that admitted you, and take advantage of your opportunity for an elite education.

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]