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It’s now April, the time of year when many high school seniors are getting acceptance and rejection letters to college. Adele Scheele says not to worry about it, writing in the Huffington Post that where one goes to college doesn’t really matter. As she says in “Does Where You Go to College Really Matter?”:
Most of us go to college to have a better life, meaning a professional career and life-long friends. But just how important is the institution where you choose to get that degree? Sure, Ivy League schools, the Yale’s and Harvard’s of the world, carry a status that employers find impressive and assuring, especially if they themselves went there. But I will argue that a case a can be made for a state university or local college —if you’re willing to be an active participant.
The trouble is that this piece has the a feel of oh-it’s-April-and-you-just-found-out-you-didn’t-get-into/can’t-afford-your-top-school. The actual evidence here is kind of weak. Most of us go to college to have a better life. Really?
Scheele (who incidentally earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania) is a motivational speaker and “career strategist” who specializes in encouraging “people to claim themselves and empower their lives.”
Though ultimately people are pretty much in control of their own destinies (once you get to a certain age it ceases to matter where or even if you went to college at all; you’ve achieved something or you haven’t and no one much cares if you went to Amherst or whatever), Scheele seems a little dishonest when claiming that one’s college choices are irrelevant.
In fact, at least for entry-level careers, it matters a great deal where one goes to college.
Though the academic major might ultimately be more important in terms of salary, in fact the median starting salary for graduates of Ivy League colleges is 32 percent higher than that of other liberal-arts college graduates. That might be kind of unfair and it might have more to do with social class and opportunities than actual education, but it’s still a reality. Let’s acknowledge that.[Image via]
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dcrolg on April 15, 2010 8:59 PM:
Entry level jobs aside, where you went to undergrad does make a difference as far as acceptance to graduate school programs. The Wall Street Journal did an article analyzing "feeder schools" -- Ivy League schools, as well as other top schools -- are predominantly likely to be accepted to top graduate school programs; a Yalie has a significantly better odds getting into a Harvard graduate program than does an applicant from BFE State.
Joel on April 15, 2010 9:12 PM:
The vast majority of US citizens don't go to grad school. In fact, the majority of US citizens haven't even graduated from a 4 year college of any description.
There is not an atom of evidence that the increased earning potential for a graduate of a private university over that of a public university grad is commensurate with the tuition differential.
Walker on April 16, 2010 7:45 AM:
The issue is alumni networks. Companies with employees from a particular university (and who are happy with said employees) are likely to actively recruit from that university. If you are at a lesser-known university, the company is not likely to recruit from there at all; those students may submit unsolicited applications, but in that case they have to really stand out to be noticed.
This is particularly true in companies with labyrinthine HR departments. Alumni will get students from their Alma mater past HR, but other students will be trapped in HR he'll.
howie on April 16, 2010 9:01 AM:
I didn't read the entire Scheele article, but I certainly hope there is a paragraph in it that actually claims that it doesn't matter. The one Daniel used does no such thing.
I read that paragraph as saying that, in fact, Ivy Leaguer do have an advantage which can be overcome through hard work at a lesser known school.
What so wrong about that?
toowearyforoutrage on April 16, 2010 9:07 AM:
Sure, Ivy League schools, the Yale’s and Harvard’s of the world, carry a status that employers find impressive and assuring,
She acknowledged the point in the quote yet he points out Ivy League schools have a substantial pay boost.
What might have been interesting are two things:
When you eliminate Ivy Leaguers that work at companies owned by relatives, what is the pay differential? How much extra pay is produced by nepotism? Isolate the cache of the school and networking opportunities from the hand-holding. After all, who believes anyone put George W Bush in charge of more than a burnt matchstick without family connections?
The other question is, how do private schools that are NOT Ivy League stack up against state schools?
Suggestions for a follow-up by the original author if she'd like to back up her premise. This was addressed to some degree by another WaMo story.
alix on April 16, 2010 12:01 PM:
Yes, of course it matters. It matters who you studied with, what professor will send a letter of recommendation, what internship opportunities there are, etc. It really matters, if you're going into certain industries, who was in the classroom with you.
But it's really not so easy to say, "Go to Harvard!" For one thing, there is kind of a limitation there-- not everyone can go to any one elite school. (That's why it's elite. :) And in fact, you're not really talking about other considerations. For example, if a student means to live and work in Iowa, it's probable that he/she will have more effective networking opportunities at Iowa State or the U of Iowa.
Also, certain industries value particular colleges a lot more. If you're going into Information Technology, I doubt the IT guy at Bank One is going to go looking for you at Harvard. If you want to be a pharmacist, well, most of the Ivies and other elite colleges don't have a pharmacy school. As for getting into grad school, well, it certainly helps to have gone to an Ivy League school, but it also helps, if you're applying to, say, Michigan, to have gone to a good regional college where your professors know the Michigan professors.
It's just much more complicated than just "Harvard is where you want to be." If you're not going into investment banking (where I suspect a lot of that 32% differential comes from-- doesn't take a lot of $20 million bonuses to compensate for all those $50K assistant professors Harvard also turns out), you really ought to find the college that has the program and professors you want, and where you feel you can learn well. You will have a much better opportunity graduating from Indiana than dropping out of Stanford (and if you can get into Stanford, you can certainly get a free ride and much faculty attention at Indiana:).
We are blessed in this country with a great higher education system-- students can learn very well at any level and almost any expense. I've recently met a neurologist who started out at community college, and how great it was that he didn't think that he was doomed to failure because of where he started college.
The student's sense that this is where he/she can learn is far, far more conducive to life success than the reputation of the school. Most students aren't faced with the choice: Harvard or Generic State U, and if they actually have that choice, they usually choose Harvard, so your point is sort of irrelevant.
Reid McLean on April 18, 2010 12:31 AM:
It's been awhile since I read it, but the only useful research study I know on this subject takes a group of students who were accepted to Ivies, and compares the lifetime income of those students who matriculated at Ivies to the lifetime income of those students who opted to go to less selective schools. The income difference was marginal.
Personally, I don't think you should judge one's life by the amount of money you earn, but if you do the logical extension of this research is that all the Ivies do is select smart people to come; they don't add any value.