Everyone here will argue about where the cliff is (top 5, top 10, top 50) but there is a cliff.
https://auren.substack.com/p/if-you-cant-get-a-job-today-its-your
the brand of your school stopped working (mostly)
until very recently, american companies hired new grads basically off the US News rankings. top 20 school? you got invited to interview at Google, JP Morgan, and McKinsey. number 50 school? there was a job for you. number 400 school? there was a job for you too -- just less prestigious than the one at the top 50 school.
the brand of a top 20 degree is still high. those graduates still get looks. the network is dense and the admissions filter is real. a Stanford degree opens more doors. a less prestigious state-school degree does not.
below 20, the system does not work anymore. there is now almost no difference between a #35 school and a #350 school in the eyes of a recruiter. the brand completely collapsed and most parents and students have not been told yet.
the high schooler who worked their tail off to get into Tufts University (currently #36 in US News) has basically no real job-market advantage over the student at DePaul University (currently #169) -- even though the difference in median SAT scores between the two schools is roughly 300 points.
300 SAT points used to be the difference between two completely different career arcs. today it is the difference between two students sending the same number of cold applications into the same void.
this is not a knock on Tufts. it is not a slight to DePaul. both schools teach their students well. the brands of the schools just converged in the eyes of the people doing the hiring.
paying $80K a year for a brand that no longer carries any hiring premium is one of the worst trades in the consumer economy. and that trade is being made by hundreds of thousands of families per year who never got the memo.
