5 ms·

I have a tough time with this article. I understand what it is trying to say. The costs are ridiculous. But what I see among my friends is that those who wen

I have a tough time with this article. I understand what it is trying to say. The costs are ridiculous. But what I see among my friends is that those who went to large public flagship schools got lost, and had a much tougher time. However, those who went to smaller private schools on scholarships built better connections with professors, and tended to do better long run.

bottled_poe 12y ago
It is no surprise that the students on scholarships are typically more successful in the long run. But the reason for the success is not only the college.
- jordanb 12y ago
  > It is no surprise that the students on scholarships are typically more successful in the long run. But the reason for the success is not only the college. Private colleges give out scholarships like candy. It's a form of price discrimination.
  - crpatino 12y ago
    A hundred times yes! You know you have a true scholarship when it pays (not lends) at least 90% of total costs.
benesch 12y ago
Interesting. That's directly opposite what I've seen. My close high school friends nearly all went to Ivy League-quality schools: Yale, Penn, MIT, Caltech, etc. Some of us are happy. Most of us are succeeding. A few of us are excelling. (Personally, I'm struggling. I have this irrepressible notion that liberal arts are a waste of my time, no matter how hard I try to subscribe to the learning-for-learning's-sake theory, which is not great for grades.) We're all stressed out of our minds. Three of my equally, if not more, intelligent friends ended up at public institutions or "second-" or "third-tier" schools. Unequivocally, they're happier. They're thriving, as the article puts it. Student council presidents, top of their class, balanced social life, good job or graduate school prospects. Of course, this is all anecdata. Me as much as you. The article at least has some semblance of data. In the end, it's an optimization problem. What is higher education optimizing for? Salary? That seems myopic. Happiness? That seems overly hedonistic. Maturity? Impact upon the world? Good luck measuring that. College is only not worth it if you don't get out of it what you want. Most of us go to college because society tells us it leads to a "better life"--which is an inherently unquantifiable notion.
- Chronic29 12y ago
  Interesting, in my experience, I've witnessed the opposite of what you've said. Most of my friends at private schools seem to be happier and tend to be more successful than those at mid tier state universities.
- pfisch 12y ago
  You can't assess anything until college is over and you are actually in the real world. Good Grades does not mean you will succeed in real life. It mostly means you are good at following orders.
  - aetherson 12y ago
    I think good grades probably mostly means that you picked courses you're well suited for.
    - benesch 12y ago
      That's why you have to evaluate the grade in the context of the course! GPA is meaningless; individual grades are much more informative. See Harry Lewis, recently appointed dean of Harvard's engineering school, on the subject. [0] The savvy employers do this—though probably not enough. There's a finance firm that hires exclusively Math 55 [1] alumni—I forget the name; a number of tech firms screen for CS161 [2]. Both among the hardest classes you can find. An A in those takes a hell of a lot more than just following directions. [0]: http://harry-lewis.blogspot.com/2014/11/can-we-find-better-way-to-rank-students.html http://harry-lewis.blogspot.com/2014/11/can-we-find-better-w... [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_55 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_55 [2]: http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~margo/cs161/ http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~margo/cs161/
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - hueving 12y ago
    >It mostly means you are good at following orders. Maybe if you went to a terrible school. In any decent school it means you were able to come up with a solution to a problem presented to you. This is especially true for upper-level classes where the majority of the grade is based on a personal project.
klochner 12y ago
My experience is that top students can get an equivalent if not better education at large public universities. (I went to Duke and Michigan) Public universities are much less forgiving, which means mediocre or unmotivated students get crushed in cases they would get hand-holding (and A- grades) at a private university. As for connections, they're important and you get better ones at top schools, unequivocally, but you don't need them for many careers.
- rdtsc 12y ago
  > Public universities are much less forgiving I went to a public school for CS. Noticed same. First and second years are full of "filter" courses. Calculus, Physics, and CS 101 weeded out whole swathes of students. Many large classes where you are mostly a faceless StudentID #. Many students switched majors, some schools, some droped out. It was brutal and this wasn't even a top tier school. After that it was a lot better.
- rayiner 12y ago
  This is absolutely true. I went to Georgia Tech for undergrad, Northwestern for law school. After being given the run-around any time I wanted to do any little thing, I was floored by how much attention I got in the private institution. When my wife got pregnant her third year of school at Northwestern, with a delivery date during finals, our dean of students took care of everything to accommodate her. At Tech, she would've been shuffled from disinterested administrator to disinterested administrator for weeks.
- Bahamut 12y ago
  This observation is mostly accurate - the less forgiving part is true, but grades can still be a bit of a crapshoot. My own grades are highly erratic - I dominated in some of the hardest math classes where I went to undergrad (a public school), often being one of the top performers and easily the most knowledgeable, but did awful in other classes. I never cared that much about easy classes, and only applied myself on hard classes because they were mentally stimulating/challenged me. I also did not care about grades - I viewed my purpose at college to learn & develop, not be a 4.0 student. When I went to grad school (a prestigious public school), I applied myself in all of my classes and did solid overall - all of my classes challenged me pretty hard, and so it motivated me to work hard.
thedufer 12y ago
I think you're conflating the public/private divide with the college/university differences. I went to a public college, which avoids the issues inherent in enormous universities without the skyrocketing costs.

bottled_poe 12y ago

It is no surprise that the students on scholarships are typically more successful in the long run. But the reason for the success is not only the college.

jordanb 12y ago
> It is no surprise that the students on scholarships are typically more successful in the long run. But the reason for the success is not only the college. Private colleges give out scholarships like candy. It's a form of price discrimination.
- crpatino 12y ago
  A hundred times yes! You know you have a true scholarship when it pays (not lends) at least 90% of total costs.

benesch 12y ago

Interesting. That's directly opposite what I've seen. My close high school friends nearly all went to Ivy League-quality schools: Yale, Penn, MIT, Caltech, etc. Some of us are happy. Most of us are succeeding. A few of us are excelling. (Personally, I'm struggling. I have this irrepressible notion that liberal arts are a waste of my time, no matter how hard I try to subscribe to the learning-for-learning's-sake theory, which is not great for grades.) We're all stressed out of our minds. Three of my equally, if not more, intelligent friends ended up at public institutions or "second-" or "third-tier" schools. Unequivocally, they're happier. They're thriving, as the article puts it. Student council presidents, top of their class, balanced social life, good job or graduate school prospects. Of course, this is all anecdata. Me as much as you. The article at least has some semblance of data. In the end, it's an optimization problem. What is higher education optimizing for? Salary? That seems myopic. Happiness? That seems overly hedonistic. Maturity? Impact upon the world? Good luck measuring that. College is only not worth it if you don't get out of it what you want. Most of us go to college because society tells us it leads to a "better life"--which is an inherently unquantifiable notion.

Chronic29 12y ago
Interesting, in my experience, I've witnessed the opposite of what you've said. Most of my friends at private schools seem to be happier and tend to be more successful than those at mid tier state universities.
pfisch 12y ago
You can't assess anything until college is over and you are actually in the real world. Good Grades does not mean you will succeed in real life. It mostly means you are good at following orders.
- aetherson 12y ago
  I think good grades probably mostly means that you picked courses you're well suited for.
  - benesch 12y ago
    That's why you have to evaluate the grade in the context of the course! GPA is meaningless; individual grades are much more informative. See Harry Lewis, recently appointed dean of Harvard's engineering school, on the subject. [0] The savvy employers do this—though probably not enough. There's a finance firm that hires exclusively Math 55 [1] alumni—I forget the name; a number of tech firms screen for CS161 [2]. Both among the hardest classes you can find. An A in those takes a hell of a lot more than just following directions. [0]: http://harry-lewis.blogspot.com/2014/11/can-we-find-better-way-to-rank-students.html http://harry-lewis.blogspot.com/2014/11/can-we-find-better-w... [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_55 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_55 [2]: http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~margo/cs161/ http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~margo/cs161/
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- hueving 12y ago
  >It mostly means you are good at following orders. Maybe if you went to a terrible school. In any decent school it means you were able to come up with a solution to a problem presented to you. This is especially true for upper-level classes where the majority of the grade is based on a personal project.

klochner 12y ago

My experience is that top students can get an equivalent if not better education at large public universities. (I went to Duke and Michigan) Public universities are much less forgiving, which means mediocre or unmotivated students get crushed in cases they would get hand-holding (and A- grades) at a private university. As for connections, they're important and you get better ones at top schools, unequivocally, but you don't need them for many careers.

rdtsc 12y ago
> Public universities are much less forgiving I went to a public school for CS. Noticed same. First and second years are full of "filter" courses. Calculus, Physics, and CS 101 weeded out whole swathes of students. Many large classes where you are mostly a faceless StudentID #. Many students switched majors, some schools, some droped out. It was brutal and this wasn't even a top tier school. After that it was a lot better.
rayiner 12y ago
This is absolutely true. I went to Georgia Tech for undergrad, Northwestern for law school. After being given the run-around any time I wanted to do any little thing, I was floored by how much attention I got in the private institution. When my wife got pregnant her third year of school at Northwestern, with a delivery date during finals, our dean of students took care of everything to accommodate her. At Tech, she would've been shuffled from disinterested administrator to disinterested administrator for weeks.
Bahamut 12y ago
This observation is mostly accurate - the less forgiving part is true, but grades can still be a bit of a crapshoot. My own grades are highly erratic - I dominated in some of the hardest math classes where I went to undergrad (a public school), often being one of the top performers and easily the most knowledgeable, but did awful in other classes. I never cared that much about easy classes, and only applied myself on hard classes because they were mentally stimulating/challenged me. I also did not care about grades - I viewed my purpose at college to learn & develop, not be a 4.0 student. When I went to grad school (a prestigious public school), I applied myself in all of my classes and did solid overall - all of my classes challenged me pretty hard, and so it motivated me to work hard.

thedufer 12y ago

I think you're conflating the public/private divide with the college/university differences. I went to a public college, which avoids the issues inherent in enormous universities without the skyrocketing costs.