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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]These articles focus on career “success” and not money “success”.

The insurance policy is that the graduates have rich friends and/or marry someone rich. How many parents on this board earned their 1% vs married their 1%? I am semi-successful professsionally from a meh-private college; my money comes from my husband’s family, not my career.[/quote]

Both former low-income, heavily aided students who met at an ivy, went to med school at a different but top school, and earn top2%. Most of our adult friends are in medicine or law. About half came from no money and did not marry into significant (top-5%)money. We are younger than the ave college parents, just turned 50, college '97. Our friends are all similar. In fact the smartest two from '97 are a top lawyer and a research MD-phD.about 40% of my ivy was on need-based aid when I attended now it is 55%. parents on dcum who went to college in the 80s have a very different understanding of college compared to people from the late 90s. The legacy friends in my adult involved alum group are predominantly new to the top incomes, and were not legacies ourselves. My ivy absolutely changed my trajectory and it continues to do the same for a larger and larger portion of the undergraduate population. [/quote]

People gravitate towards people like themselves.
I am going to take a guess that you didn't know anyone of generational wealth in college or grad school - because you don't know how to recognize it. While your ivy opened doors for your generation, the next generation will have a very hard time getting into an ivy because there is no pity party for children of ivy grads. 
Many 1st gens that graduate into high salary figures think they have reached an UMC level of wealth but if it's not generational, the children will be wage slaves too trying to maintain the same lifestyle and similarly without any cushion. 
Wealth has cushion, those kids can choose careers like art curator or non-profit work because they just need to get by. They don't need to save.  [/quote]

Nailed it.

We are not super wealthy but we have generational wealth (say $20-$25M NW and 1% salary). Kids are high achieving and will do well but there is a safety net for them that most just don’t have because they will never need to save for college expenses or housing down payments. Trusts will cover those things.[/quote]

Nailed what? Yes you are rich. No it is not necessary to have $20 mil to lead a good life. No, your money does not guarantee your children will be happy and productive, much less your grandchildren. Nor does it prove that a kid going to UVA will never get to the same level you are at. [/quote]

I only said that we aren’t desperate for Ivy+ schools as many seem to be because there is a safety net for my kids that most don’t have. I personally went to a Public school, not an elite private.[/quote]

If you had the experience of an elite private/ivy you might feel differently. Plenty of families with safety nets choose elites when their kids get in, Hollywood rich at Brown, Amherst; Bidens at Penn. The ones who do not get kids in are the ones who like to shout about elite not being needed. Of course they are not needed but they do provide a small boost when your kid has goals of top law or similar where certain schools help. Generational-wealth families have kids at my kid's ivy and at sibling's kid's WASP school. The kids are almost all driven and chasing big goals that their elite school will help them get, whether uber rich, regular full pay, or the more than half on aid. My kid has a very good friend with true generational wealth and another on lots of aid. They are real friends and have been since freshman year. There is more mixing than people on DCUM think.
The WSJ Essay does not argue elite doesn't help it just provides a counter that it is not the end all be all. And it isn't. But it is nice to have that elite degree and the uber rich smart families agree[/quote]

PP: I did have that experience for grad school, just not for undergraduate and that is likely what forms most of my opinion. I went to a solid Public because it was where my seventeen year old self wanted to go. I worked hard and did well. After working for a few years I go into a top grad school, worked hard and did well. I do not doubt the possible benefits of going to top schools. My oldest child is at a elite SLAC because that is where she wanted to go and she is thriving. She had the profile to be competitive anywhere but she had zero interest in the Ivies and also had the freedom to choose without anyone worrying about future economic benefits. I would have been fine (maybe slightly disappointed) if she had wanted to go to a large Public as well.

My brothers kids were able to do the same. One went to a very good Catholic school, one is in a Public, and one turned down both Cornell and Yale to attend Northeastern. She finished with a 4.0 and is at a top medical school so she chose what was right for her which goes to the point that I was trying to make so long ago. Nobody in our family is choosing where to go because it is part of an Athletic Conference which somehow imbues it's schools with a level of prestige out of proportion to their actual quality but rather they are able to freely choose based on what they want for their college education.[/quote]

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