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This is Simpson's paradox at work. And the article even acknowledges it. Most of the universities on the list have disproportionate numbers of students in STEM
by sgeisenh 11y ago
This is Simpson's paradox at work. And the article even acknowledges it. Most of the universities on the list have disproportionate numbers of students in STEM fields.
That's why Ivy League schools aren't well represented. And also why places like CMU or University of California don't appear. Additionally, salaries aren't adjusted for cost of living. Most of the universities here are located in areas with a high cost of living, so salaries will typically be higher.
- balls187 11y agoRose-Hulman (my alma mater) is in Terre Haute Indiana is rated high, with fairly low cost of living. The General Tso's Index is currently $4.90
- Slippery_John 11y agoYup, Indiana is cheap as hell
- tghw 11y agoBut would you want to stay in Terre Haute?
- balls187 11y agoObtain a quality education.
- calcsam 11y agoNot really. People are highly influenced in their choice of major by their peer group. Sending yourself (or your kid) someone where your (their) friends are going to be a bunch of mechanical engineers and CS majors is actually a fairly good career move.
- jrbancel 11y agoAbsolutely, at Harvard (and other Ivy league schools) there are so many brilliant students that are going to end up with miserable salaries because they are studying art, literature, etc... and not the majors that are currently leading to the most profitable jobs/industries. Anyone reading this article would be a fool not to go to an Ivy League school if they want to study math, physics or computer science.
- walshemj 11y agoOr they are trust fund kids who don't realy need to work - you goto the ivys/oxbridge for the social contacts
- lordnacho 11y agoCost of living where the college is? Don't people move after college?
- evanpw 11y agoThere's also some cost-of-living bias in the opposite direction. The study measures the difference between incoming and outgoing characteristics of students, so schools in low-cost areas that produce students that tend to move to high-cost areas will see a large apparent value-add. I'm pretty sure this is part of what's happening with my undergraduate school, which is pretty high on this list: it's in rural Missouri, which has a ridiculously low cost-of-living (and it takes a lot of local students), but it trains engineers that tend to move to the coasts.
- Blackthorn 11y agoMeh, this list changes every year and based on subtle ranking parameters. It was only a year or two ago that my own alma mater (Dartmouth College) ranked top on "highest mid-career salary". The whole thing has gotten rather silly.