

College Prestige "Lies" - quizbiz
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/03/college-prestige-matters.html
What do you guys think?
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tempest67
I find it interesting that the reports tend to consistently state that college
prestige is indeed important for students from lower income families. I found
that to be enormously true, myself. I am from a working-class background --
did my undergraduate degree at a state school, and found it boring and,
really, a waste of time -- much like high school. But I also think now that a
lot of this was my own fault -- I had no idea how to approach college, and how
to really make it work for me.

Later, I then did a graduate program at an Ivy League school -- and the scales
fell away from my eyes. The most important thing I learned there, I think, was
how successful people work in the world -- how to resourcefully make the most
out of every opportunity, how to seize the initiative, how to make
connections. I have the feeling that if I hadn't been brought up in the class
I was, I would have inhaled these things at my parents' knee -- as it was, it
took me much, much longer than it should have; but it was an enormous lesson,
and _almost_ worth the ridiculous student loans I now owe. ;-)

(I am also by no means saying that an Ivy League school is the only place for
lower-class kids to learn how to work the world -- far from it! I was just not
talented enough to figure it out myself, and the experience made all the
difference in the world for me.)

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jsomers
Cool. I'd be curious to know some of what you picked up in grad school. Care
to elaborate?

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tempest67
Good question! I have tried to answer this before, and always fallen flat -- I
think that the reason is that if it could be transmitted by writing, I would
have picked it up without the need to have spent all that money and time. But
that sounds like such a cop-out! So I'll try:

At the Ivy League school I went to (and I did not study a technical subject
here -- it was an architecture school), I was surrounded by people who had an
agenda for their lives -- in fact, they often already had their career plotted
out, and many were already working on the side. School was for them a set of
tools (people, information, opportunities) to be hacked resourcefully to get
what they wanted. At Big State U, the kids seemed to think of themselves more
as subject to the whims of an institution, and to think of the institution as
something they needed to please to get "a degree." The degree was hardly worth
mentioning at Ivy League School; the professors were seen as either equals or,
in a sense, servants/tools. The Ivy League kids also seemed far more ready to
create their own programs and experiences; they would see a niche, form a
group, and suddenly the school was filled with minority kids learning
architecture on the weekends; or suddenly a local youth group had a student-
made meeting place.

Of course this kind of volunteerism and spirit of service happened at Big
State U as well! What I thought was really different at I.L.S. was the self-
assurance and lack of self-consciousness involved; these kids saw ownership
and power in the world as their natural right -- they seemed to act and take
command as naturally as another young person might turn on the television.

I hope this doesn't sound arrogant or somehow fanboyish; I am trying to
explain how being thrown together with these people for years changed me
deeply -- made me both able to see beyond where I came from and to be more
proud of it, and of myself. It was really almost more a matter of physical
knowledge -- of mimicry and group identification, perhaps -- than of something
you could pick up in a book.

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TJensen
That is really interesting. Just out of curiosity, how much could be
attributed to maturity? Was this change in behavior just within the graduate
program or throughout the entire school?

FWIW, I went to Big State U (had a nationally ranked CS program, though), and
I agree with much of what you said. However, I don't have anything to compare
it to.

Edit: learn grammar.

~~~
tempest67
Another good question -- some of it definitely might be, but I also did find
the behavior at Ivy League School was characteristic of the entire school.

Then again, I did some grad-level coursework at the B.S.U. before I switched
to the I.L.S., and found the same sort of differences that I described in my
note above. In fact, after I.L.S., I wanted to go back to my former classmates
at the State University and bring the message "you have power! You can change
things! You are in charge!" But, of course, this is what every commencement
speaker in the world tells every graduate, and you can't really understand
what it means until you've felt it in your own bones, one way or another...

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GavinB
Several of the comments lead me to believe that people aren't reading to the
end of the article.

Robin's final conclusion is that the more prestigious name _does_ matter, and
that the study has been misinterpreted. That's why he says "Ack! I was almost
conned by elite journal editors and media reporters into believing a
comforting lie!"

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tokenadult
Moreover, a response to the Krueger and Dale study's methodology by Avery and
Hoxby in the article "Do and Should Financial Aid Packages Affect Students'
College Choices?" National Bureau of Economic Research (Cambridge, MA), 2003
showed that Krueger and Dale aggregated their data in a way that tended to
underrepresent the advantage of going to the better college for ALL students,
not just low-income students. So if you carefully read the Krueger and Dale
study, you can tease out an advantage to the better colleges that they admit
is especially strong for low-income students. But they might have found an
even stronger effect size if they had analyzed their data differently.

Anyway, yes, for low-income students who manage to get admitted the lesson
from all studies is clear: go to the best college that admitted you, and take
advantage of your opportunity for an elite education.

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lethain
Also interesting, one of the links on the site leads to another discussion
which claims that there is a correlation between higher intelligence and lower
wages for those whose highest degree is a bachelors. The study partially
attributes this to the bad advice that more intelligent students tend to get
from their parents ("study what you love", as opposed to "study something
practical").

(Referenced link is <http://www.halfsigma.com/2006/07/higher_intellig.html> )

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azanar
I get the suspicion the causal progression here is deeper than just
f(intelligence) - g(wages) = 0.

As an alternate hypothesis, the reason why students who study what they love
earn less than students who study something practical is because of the
intrinsic value the student finds being employed to do what they love. As a
result of this, they don't need or demand to be paid as much to perform the
same work, and so salaries tend to be depressed.

But maybe it doesn't bother them; maybe there is something to the advice more
intelligent people are given. Perhaps the needs most people fulfill by earning
and spending money have already been fulfilled by these people through other
means. If you do what you love by trade, perhaps there is less need to spend
money in exchange for spare time to work on it.

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pg
How much people earn is not the only test of the quality of their education.

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timothychung
The value that people deliver to the world should be a good determinant. :-)

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quizbiz
How do you suppose one would measure "value"?

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evgen
I believe the answer implied was "the market"...

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Retric
The real question is the value of an exclusive education vs the cost of such
an education. An extra 100k by graduation requires a huge increase in lifetime
earnings to balance it out.

"those who attended the most selective colleges would earn an average of $2.9
million during their careers; those who attended the next most selective
colleges would earn $2.8 million; and those who attended all other colleges
would average $2.5 million." (Clearly, with those numbers paying for such an
education is an net economic loss on average.)

PS: Granted if your getting a free ride then it's not that big a deal.
However, the only reason the question shows up is an increase in tuition to
the student and or their family.

