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> Those future students will pay about $28,000 a year, including room and board, a $30,000 savings over the sticker price of many of the schools—the Ivies, plus

by mbesto 12y ago

> Those future students will pay about $28,000 a year, including room and board, a $30,000 savings over the sticker price of many of the schools—the Ivies, plus other hyperselective colleges like Pomona and Williams—with which Minerva hopes to compete. Sorry, but nope. To date, there isn't a single entity that carries more prestige and influence than getting an "Ivy league" type high education. > The Minerva boast is that it will strip the university experience down to the aspects that are shown to contribute directly to student learning. This is sound in principle, but education only won't have the returns that the Ivies do. Ivies are successful because they are filtering mechanisms, not because their teachers are substantially better than the rest of the competition. If anything, the greatest threat today to established higher education is the likes of YC.

gojomo 12y ago
What if Minerva filters just as hard, on admission and retention, as the Ivies... but then also improves the 'delta' on graduates' abilities? There's even some evidence that the filtering/signalling value of prestigious universities isn't even dependent on them actually offering you admission or you attending. Huh, you might ask? The mere fact that a student applied to get into a top university (but then went elsewhere) has almost as much predictive value as actually being admitted and attending. See: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/revisiting-the-value-of-elite-colleges/ http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/revisiting-the-... To wit (and quoting from the article): "A student with a 1,400 SAT score who went to Penn State but applied to Penn earned as much, on average, as a student with a 1,400 who went to Penn." Now, the income effects measured there aren't quite the same as the "prestige and influence" to which you refer. But it's a hint that the signalling-powers of the Ivies might be open to unbundling, by infotech innovators like Minerva.
- mbesto 12y ago
  > What if Minerva filters just as hard, on admission and retention, as the Ivies... but then also improves the 'delta' on graduates' abilities? Fair enough, but that's a big IF. Higher education worth is predicated by a series of inputs, outputs and filters. Filtering is only good if the quality of character coming in is already high. In other words, how are you going to convince Billy and Sally who live in Greenwich, CT that telling their friends that little Jimmy applied and got into Minerva sounds any better than going to Harvard? You can't have high quality output if you don't have high quality input, and you can't attract high input without have high output. Simply filtering is largely a non-issue. (EDIT: Should clarify - simply filtering within the pool of applications you have is a non-issue, filtering in a wider macro context is the secret sauce of Ivies) > But it's a hint that the signalling-powers of the Ivies might be open to unbundling, by infotech innovators like Minerva. For nearly 100 years, Ivies have been susceptible to unbundling, yet haven't budged. What's different this time?
  - gojomo 12y ago
    What's different this time? The same things that knocked newspapers off their comfortable centuries-long perch: * costless digital networked replication and communication; * replacement of traditional processes with software; and… * much faster improvement-iterations, driven by data and math. The formula is a little harder to apply to education, which is why education, from the Ivies on down, has had a decade or two reprieve.
jghn 12y ago
Another value of Ivy and other uber-elite schools that can't be overlooked is the networking effect. They meet people who themselves are extremely well connected and that can pay dividends down the road. But as the saying goes, "the hard part about Harvard is getting in".
7Figures2Commas 12y ago
> If anything, the greatest threat today to established higher education is the likes of YC. You're joking, right? Y Combinator and accelerators like it are great programs for certain types of individuals, but they're hardly a threat to the higher education industrial complex. Y Combinator has produced some great successes, but despite all the resources and access Y Combinator provides participants, Y Combinator has not discovered a recipe for startup success. The numbers make this very clear[1][2]. More importantly, there is only so much room to scale accelerator programs. Few companies emerge from these programs with cash flow sufficient to fund their operations, so they depend on the availability of angel and venture capital to support their portfolio companies. If you significantly expand the Y Combinators of the world, demand for capital would soon exceed supply, so you'd see a dramatic increase in the percentage of portfolio companies that die, and the speed with which they die. [1] http://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-portfolio-stats http://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-portfolio-stats [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8043856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8043856
- mbesto 12y ago
  > You're joking, right? Not in the slightest. > Y Combinator has not discovered a recipe for startup success. Nor has Harvard university. I think you're looking at the wrong output. YC (and other successful incubators) are about the alumni network, not the success of the startup. Just as universities are about the alumni network.
  - 7Figures2Commas 12y ago
    There is a good deal of research that has concluded attending an elite private university has a significant impact on career earnings[1][2]. If you are suggesting that the Y Combinator alumni network is of immense tangible value, what research do you have to back it up? To be fair to you, there obviously isn't a whole lot of longitudinal data, but as I pointed out, Y Combinator's portfolio stats look pretty much in line with what you'd expect in Silicon Valley. The value of an alumni network is tied to what it can reasonably do for you. Ivy League alumni networks have been tapped for decades for lucrative opportunities not easily accessed by outsiders. [1] http://www.nyu.edu/classes/jepsen/hoxby-selective.pdf http://www.nyu.edu/classes/jepsen/hoxby-selective.pdf [2] http://www.nber.org/papers/w5613 http://www.nber.org/papers/w5613

by mbesto 12y ago

gojomo 12y ago

What if Minerva filters just as hard, on admission and retention, as the Ivies... but then also improves the 'delta' on graduates' abilities? There's even some evidence that the filtering/signalling value of prestigious universities isn't even dependent on them actually offering you admission or you attending. Huh, you might ask? The mere fact that a student applied to get into a top university (but then went elsewhere) has almost as much predictive value as actually being admitted and attending. See: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/revisiting-the-value-of-elite-colleges/ http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/revisiting-the-... To wit (and quoting from the article): "A student with a 1,400 SAT score who went to Penn State but applied to Penn earned as much, on average, as a student with a 1,400 who went to Penn." Now, the income effects measured there aren't quite the same as the "prestige and influence" to which you refer. But it's a hint that the signalling-powers of the Ivies might be open to unbundling, by infotech innovators like Minerva.

mbesto 12y ago
> What if Minerva filters just as hard, on admission and retention, as the Ivies... but then also improves the 'delta' on graduates' abilities? Fair enough, but that's a big IF. Higher education worth is predicated by a series of inputs, outputs and filters. Filtering is only good if the quality of character coming in is already high. In other words, how are you going to convince Billy and Sally who live in Greenwich, CT that telling their friends that little Jimmy applied and got into Minerva sounds any better than going to Harvard? You can't have high quality output if you don't have high quality input, and you can't attract high input without have high output. Simply filtering is largely a non-issue. (EDIT: Should clarify - simply filtering within the pool of applications you have is a non-issue, filtering in a wider macro context is the secret sauce of Ivies) > But it's a hint that the signalling-powers of the Ivies might be open to unbundling, by infotech innovators like Minerva. For nearly 100 years, Ivies have been susceptible to unbundling, yet haven't budged. What's different this time?
- gojomo 12y ago
  What's different this time? The same things that knocked newspapers off their comfortable centuries-long perch: * costless digital networked replication and communication; * replacement of traditional processes with software; and… * much faster improvement-iterations, driven by data and math. The formula is a little harder to apply to education, which is why education, from the Ivies on down, has had a decade or two reprieve.

jghn 12y ago

Another value of Ivy and other uber-elite schools that can't be overlooked is the networking effect. They meet people who themselves are extremely well connected and that can pay dividends down the road. But as the saying goes, "the hard part about Harvard is getting in".

7Figures2Commas 12y ago

> If anything, the greatest threat today to established higher education is the likes of YC. You're joking, right? Y Combinator and accelerators like it are great programs for certain types of individuals, but they're hardly a threat to the higher education industrial complex. Y Combinator has produced some great successes, but despite all the resources and access Y Combinator provides participants, Y Combinator has not discovered a recipe for startup success. The numbers make this very clear[1][2]. More importantly, there is only so much room to scale accelerator programs. Few companies emerge from these programs with cash flow sufficient to fund their operations, so they depend on the availability of angel and venture capital to support their portfolio companies. If you significantly expand the Y Combinators of the world, demand for capital would soon exceed supply, so you'd see a dramatic increase in the percentage of portfolio companies that die, and the speed with which they die. [1] http://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-portfolio-stats http://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-portfolio-stats [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8043856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8043856

mbesto 12y ago
> You're joking, right? Not in the slightest. > Y Combinator has not discovered a recipe for startup success. Nor has Harvard university. I think you're looking at the wrong output. YC (and other successful incubators) are about the alumni network, not the success of the startup. Just as universities are about the alumni network.
- 7Figures2Commas 12y ago
  There is a good deal of research that has concluded attending an elite private university has a significant impact on career earnings[1][2]. If you are suggesting that the Y Combinator alumni network is of immense tangible value, what research do you have to back it up? To be fair to you, there obviously isn't a whole lot of longitudinal data, but as I pointed out, Y Combinator's portfolio stats look pretty much in line with what you'd expect in Silicon Valley. The value of an alumni network is tied to what it can reasonably do for you. Ivy League alumni networks have been tapped for decades for lucrative opportunities not easily accessed by outsiders. [1] http://www.nyu.edu/classes/jepsen/hoxby-selective.pdf http://www.nyu.edu/classes/jepsen/hoxby-selective.pdf [2] http://www.nber.org/papers/w5613 http://www.nber.org/papers/w5613