Mythbuster: "It doesn't matter where you do undergrad, only MA-JD-MBA-MD matter"
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Anonymous
I am not sure where this "school of thought" comes from. I think the credentialization of our economy is increasing, but what is certainly striking is how many CEOs are from state schools or lower tier schools. According to Fortune magazine, the Fortune 500 CEOs went to 220 different colleges. Of those, these are the most represented (in order): - Miami University (Ohio) - Stanford - Princeton - Wisconsin - Notre Dame - West Point - Texas A&M - Penn State - Cornell - Harvard |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
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The study's key claims seem to be based on evidence comparing Tier 1/Tier 2 with Tier 4. Tier 4 is fairly low (e.g., open admission regional universities, for-profit institutions) and Tier 1-2 is pretty widely conceptualized. When counselors say "it doesn't matter where you go to school for undergrad, you can make it up with a higher ranked grad degree" in strong public/private high schools I think they are often informally telling students that the nuances between various levels of SLAC and solid public institutions in Tier 1/2 won't matter as much as your individual drive/intelligence/work ethic etc. (And I believe there has been other research demonstrating that, though I don't have the individual drive/work ethic to locate it right now...).
The discussions I see on this site seem to be on fine distinctions among the top quintile of Tier 1. This author's study has nothing to say about that. I would say the vast majority of colleges mentioned on this site are Tier 1 or Tier 2 according to this author's definition. |
Anonymous
But tier 1 and tier 2 grads clean up in tier 1 law school admissions. |
Anonymous
So do the so-called tier 3 schools: the big state universities and such. What they call tier 4 is where the problem is. And my guess is the people that go to tier 4 schools their for cost (close to home) and can not afford law school or academics (bad students), and could not get into a tier 1-3 school. T |
Anonymous
| I think the upper class supporting the upper class is alive and well in the top tier schools. Once in awhile talent breaks through. And it seriously depends on the field. Comparing engineering to investment banking is apples to rabbits. |
Anonymous
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The problem I have with the paper is he is saying 1) there significant difference in tier 4 and tier 1 schools in terms of income. Ergo, it matters where you go. With the focus on the tier 1 schools.
As a side note, he mentions tier 2 and tier three do just as good as tier 1. And then there is the classification of schools: the SLAC's are tier 2. What about the smaller private non-SLAC schools that are not tier 1, for example the private engineer schools that are a step down from MIT, such as RIT, RPI, Carnegie-Mellon, Hopkins, etc. Tier three? UCAL Berkeley is third tier? UVA? Georgia Tech? by authors definition, any state school is lower than Vasser. Vasser is a good school. So is William and Mary. In the US News tier-ing, their Tier 1 would include the authors tier 1-3. Tier 4 are the schools with issues. But, it is rare that someone would cross shop a tier 1-3 school with a tier 4 school. |
Anonymous
+1 I read this as it matters if you went to a Tier 4 school, but as long as you are in Tier 1-3, the specific school doesn't matter as much as what you do there. Tier 1-3 is a HUGE range of schools. A student aiming for Tier 1 is very unlikely to end up at Tier 4 but this definition. |
Anonymous
Not only do I find you offensive, but I believe you are ignorant. I am amazed that you are allowed to teach at what you call an elite school. You are part of the problem. |
Anonymous
Usually they're provincial and dull and scared of aggressive competition. |
Anonymous
Well, it's dealing with aggregates, isn't it. I am Tier 1/Tier 1 but am DCUM poor. My old roommate is a partner at Bain. A state school grad could easily get my job. My roommate's job? Less likely. The point is, motivation etc. is a separate issue that you want to control for in a study like this, although it's useful in thinking about to plan your own life. The paper's argument is that "ability should be largely equalized among those who graduate from similarly selective graduate program" - i.e. comparing Slippery Rock/Yale Law students to Yale/Yale Law students is apples to apples, as far as motivation goes.
Agree that would be interesting. |
Anonymous
PP, you haven't read the part where she said studied at 'best chinese universities?' Having lived in Asia, with the exception of maybe Japan, you can buy a degree certificate in many places outright. Ever wonder why they rather come here to get educated? |
Anonymous
Seriously, and engineers make squat compared to investment bankers. I know SV 'engineers' make money, but really it's only founders who make real money, and those all come from wealthy connected families (look at SNAP founder). You rarely get a bright kid from middling high school with middle class parents able to swing getting capital to start a company and tolerating that risk of it failing (usually with enormous student debt). |
Anonymous
This study has been done: https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/revisiting-the-value-of-elite-colleges/?_r=0 |
Anonymous
From the article" But Ms. Dale — an economist at Mathematica, a research firm — and Mr. Krueger — a Princeton economist and former contributor to this blog — added a new variable in their research. They also controlled for the colleges that students applied to and were accepted by. Doing so allowed them to capture much more information about the students than SAT scores and grades do. Someone who applies to Duke, Williams or Yale may be signaling that he or she is more confident and ambitious than someone with similar scores and grades who does not apply. Someone who is accepted by a highly selective school may have other skills that their scores didn’t pick up, but that the admissions officers noticed. Once the two economists added these new variables, the earnings difference disappeared. In fact, it went away merely by including the colleges that students had applied to — and not taking into account whether they were accepted. 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. “Even applying to a school, even if you get rejected, says a lot about you,” Mr. Krueger told me. He points out that the average SAT score at the most selective college students apply to turns out to be a better predictor of their earnings than the average SAT score at the college they attended. (The study measured a college’s selectivity by the average SAT score of admitted students as well as by a selectivity score that the publisher Barron’s gives to colleges.) It’s important to note, though, that a few major groups did not fit the pattern: black students, Latino students, low-income students and students whose parents did not graduate from college. “For them, attending a more selective school increased earnings significantly,” Mr. Krueger has written. Why? Perhaps they benefit from professional connections they would not otherwise have. Perhaps they acquire habits or skills that middle-class and affluent students have already acquired in high school or at home. |