<p>I’ve been a little behind in my reading, and so I just came across this article from Education Life. If this has been discussed already, sorry :)</p>
<p>Really interesting paper. It is available for download for free.</p>
<p>For those who want to know what schools are in what Tier, that starts on page 33 of the paper, but I’ll extract it here. If your school isn’t listed, it’s Tier IV.</p>
<p>Tier I
Private Research I</p>
<p>Boston University
Brown University
California Institute of Technology
Carnegie Mellon University
Case Western Reserve University
Columbia University in the City of New York
Cornell University
Duke University
Emory University
Georgetown University
Harvard University
Howard University
Johns Hopkins University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
New York University
Northwestern University
Princeton University
Rockefeller University
Stanford University
Tufts University
University of Chicago
University of Miami
University of Pennsylvania
University of Rochester
University of Southern California
Vanderbilt University
Washington University
Yale University
Yeshiva University </p>
<p>Private Research II </p>
<p>Brandeis University
Brigham Young University
George Washington University
Lehigh University
Northeastern University
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Rice University
Saint Louis University
Syracuse University Main Campus
Tulane University
University of Notre Dame</p>
<p>Tier II
Agnes Scott College
Albion College
Albright College
Allegheny College
Alma College
Amherst College
Antioch University
Augustana College (IL)
Austin College
Bard College
Barnard College
Bates College
Beloit College
Bennington College
Berea College
Bethany College (WV)
Birmingham Southern College
Bowdoin College
Bryn Mawr College
Bucknell University
Carleton College
Central College (IA)
Centre College
Chatham College
Christendom College
Claremont McKenna College
Coe College
Colby College
Colgate University
College of Saint Benedict
College of Wooster
College of the Atlantic
College of the Holy Cross
Colorado College
Concordia College-Moorhead
Connecticut College
Cornell College
Davidson College
DePauw University
Denison University
Dickinson College
Drew University
Earlham College
Eckerd College
Erskine College
Franklin & Marshall College
Franklin College of Indiana
Furman University
Georgetown College
Gettysburg College
Gordon College (MA)
Goshen College
Goucher College
Grinnell College
Guilford College
Gustavus Adolphus College
Hamilton College
Hamline University
Hampden-Sydney College
Hampshire College
Hanover College
Hartwick College
Hastings College
Haverford College
Hendrix College
Hiram College
Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Hollins College
Hope College
Houghton College
Huntingdon College
Illinois College
Illinois Wesleyan University
Judson College (AL)
Juniata College
Kalamazoo College
Kenyon College
Knox College
Lafayette College
Lake Forest College
Lawrence University
Lewis and Clark College
Luther College
Macalester College
Manhattanville College
Marlboro College
Middlebury College
Mills College
Millsaps College
Monmouth College (IL)
Moravian College
Morehouse College
Mount Holyoke College
Muhlenberg College
Nebraska Wesleyan University
Oberlin College
Occidental College
Oglethorpe University
Ohio Wesleyan University
Pitzer College
Pomona College
Presbyterian College
Providence College
Radcliffe College
Randolph-Macon College
Randolph-Macon Woman’s College
Reed College
Rhodes College
Ripon College
Saint John’s University (MN)
Saint Olaf College
Salem College
Sarah Lawrence College
Scripps College
Siena College
Simon’s Rock College of Bard
Skidmore College
Smith College
Southwestern University
Spelman College
St. Andrews Presbyterian College
St. John’s College (MD)
St. John’s College (NM)
St. Lawrence University
Swarthmore College
Sweet Briar College
Thomas Aquinas College
Transylvania University
Trinity College (CT)
Union College (NY)
University of Dallas
University of Judaism
University of Puget Sound
University of the South
Ursinus College
Vassar College
Virginia Wesleyan College
Wabash College
Wartburg College
Washington College
Washington and Jefferson College
Washington and Lee University
Wellesley College
Wells College
Wesleyan College
Wesleyan University
Western Maryland College
Westminster College (MO)
Westminster College (PA)
Westmont College
Wheaton College (IL)
Wheaton College (MA)
Whitman College
Whittier College
Willamette University
William Jewell College
Williams College
Wittenberg University
Wofford College</p>
<p>Tier III
Arizona State University
Colorado State University
Florida State University
Georgia Institute of Technology
Indiana University at Bloomington
Iowa State University
Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College
Michigan State University
New Mexico State University Main Campus
North Carolina State University
Ohio State University, Main Campus, The
Oregon State University
Pennsylvania State University Main Campus
Purdue University Main Campus
Rutgers the State University of New Jersey New Brunswick Campus
State University of New York at Buffalo
State University of New York at Stony Brook
Temple University
Texas A & M University
University of Alabama at Birmingham
University of Arizona
University of California-Berkeley
University of California-Davis
University of California-Irvine
University of California-Los Angeles
University of California-San Diego
University of California-San Francisco
University of California-Santa Barbara
University of Cincinnati Main Campus
University of Colorado at Boulder
University of Connecticut
University of Florida
University of Georgia
University of Hawaii at Manoa
University of Illinois at Chicago
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Iowa
University of Kansas Main Campus
University of Kentucky
University of Maryland College Park
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
University of Missouri-Columbia
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
University of New Mexico Main Campus
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Campus
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
University of Texas at Austin
University of Utah
University of Virginia
University of Washington
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Utah State University
Virginia Commonwealth University
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Wayne State University
West Virginia University</p>
<p>Looking at the list, I also think that Tier II is a little broad. Pomona and Williams are probably only the same in passing as Hartwick and Bethany. I suspect if you were to divide Tier II into A and B groups, IIa would look similar to I, IIb would look more like III. </p>
<p>Tier III seem to have more in common with each other, but subdividing might also have the same result. Then again, the Tier III schools have such a broad student body, the bottom probably really does hold down the average even for elite schools like Berkeley and Michigan. Individuals attending may get variable results, of course.</p>
<p>They’re basically breaking things out like USNWR, except instead of saying national universities and national liberal arts colleges, they’re calling them Tier I and Tier II.</p>
<p>Indeed. The divisions are essentially “better private research universities”, “better LACs”, “better public research universities”, and “everyone else”. Except that there’s huge variation within those categories. @MrMom62 has already pointed out that there’s a great disparity in outcomes of grads by LAC. Similarly, Cal grads have alum outcomes as impressive as Ivy-equivalents while Oregon St. does not. Yet they are all lumped together in Tier III in this study. Likewise, Harvard grads and UMiami grads have vastly different alumni outcomes, yet they are lumped together in Tier I. I don’t think it would surprise anyone to know that Cal beats UMiami by all alum metrics I looked at (percentage in elite professional schools, PhDs produced, prestigious student awards, and “American leaders”). Even within Tier IV, there is wide variation. New College of Florida has alumni results as impressive as many top private LACs, yet are lumped in with no-name directionals.</p>
<p>Seems like a poorly designed study. In fact, given the easily-discovered holes in the design, I would say that the author had an ulterior motive and was aiming to fool the ignorant. It does not surprise me that the prof is from Vandy (which, BTW, in the alumni criteria I looked at, does surprising badly, performing far worse than any Ivy or true Ivy-equivalent in all 4 of those alumni results rankings).</p>
<p>I wouldn’t assume the study is poorly designed, nor would I apply an anti-Vanderbilt bias toward it - rather I think the tiers were designed based on some criteria and they let the chips fall where they may. Obviously some schools will outperform their category, as will individuals, it’s just interesting that with so many different schools lumped together, you get the results that you do - something many people insist isn’t true.</p>
<p>The four Tiers can actually be named:</p>
<p>Tier I - Top 40 Private Research Universities
Tier II - Top 160 LACs
Tier III - Top 59 Public Research Universities
Tier IV - Everyone Else</p>
<p>Obvious this mishmash of schools exists nowhere, just like the average student doesn’t exist anywhere - yet, it shows that, on average, once you start down one Tier, you are more likely to stay there. Of course individuals can and do leap between the Tiers, but they do so in defiance of the averages. It doesn’t say that you can’t go from Directional State to Harvard Business or Medical School, but if your ultimate goal is HBS, you’ve got better odds starting from a random Tier I school.</p>
<p>Causation vs. Correlation. Plus, alums of Cal and UMich and UVa (and New College of Florida and. . . .Dartmouth) all are more likely (on a percentage basis) to get in to and attend elite professional schools (med, law, and business) than alums of UMiami, Yeshiva, BU, Howard, or NYU so . . . . what does this study prove again? The observation that fewer grads of Non-directional U go to HBS than Ivy grads seems so banal that it doesn’t seem worth a point to waste words on.</p>
<p>Hersch doesn’t seem to separate out causation from correlation in her paper, so it’s still pretty useless for a kid trying to decide between in-state tuition at UVa/UMich/Cal and full-pay at WashU/Vandy/CMU.</p>
<p>BTW, the first group of publics actually send a higher percentage of their grads to elite professional schools than the second group of privates.</p>
<p>To me, the interesting point that the study claims is that where you go to undergraduate matters more (income-wise) than where you end up going to graduate school. So that even though a tier IV student may make a tier I graduate school, it is unlikely they will ever make up the income gap. The student from the tier I undergraduate school will remain significantly ahead.</p>
<p>Also interesting is that if you go to a tier I university for undergrad, you can get away with going to a lower tier grad program and still be ahead of the undergrad student from tier IV with better graduate credentials.</p>
<p>Seems like grades aren’t that important either. The degree from the Tier 1 is what counts income wise.</p>
<p>Except that the unrigorous way that the author separates the schools makes such a claim suspect. For example, do Harvard and BU grads perform equally well? Do Cal and Oregon St. grads perform equally well? Do Dartmouth and Northern Iowa grads perform equally well? They’re in the same tier. So what does it mean for average TierI undergrads outperform average TierIII undergrads when Cal undergrads outperform BU undergrads?</p>
<p>The problem is that there is significant overlap between the tiers when it comes to student body quality or any other metric that you care to use due to the (intentionally, IMO) shoddy way the author separated the schools (and as I pointed out, by alumni results, Vandy is actually fairly low in TierI and below a bunch of LACs, so this study makes Vandy look better than it otherwise would if you just compared school by school rather than tiering by some fairly idiosyncratic method).</p>
<p>Dartmouth, Wake Forest, Boston College, William & Mary, Case Western, Fordham, Pepperdine, Worcester Poly, American, United States Naval Academy, United States Military Academy, United States Air Force Academy, Harvey Mudd, University of Richmond, Cooper Union, etc. plus all the great international universities and colleges. I’ll take the field.</p>
<p>I certainly cannot vouch for the study at all, but besides the somewhat random grouping of schools and omission of others, I wonder if the basic hypothesis holds. Like if it was agreed upon to only analyze earning power of just a few example Tier 1 and Tier 4 schools (that are solidly in the top of each range), would there be such dramatic differences based on Tier 1 and Tier IV undergrad programs combined with a Tier 1 grad program?</p>
<p>I’d say that we’d need a better study to determine that. One done by regression analysis like by Dale & Krueger to tease out various factors, for instance.</p>
<p>The publics also tend to have higher percentages of students in pre-professional majors than the elite privates (yes, Cornell is an exception) or (especially) LACs, so going on to graduate school may be less common, or necessary for the student’s desired job and career.</p>
<p>A better designed study would look at student cohorts based on entry characteristics (HS GPA, standardized tests, and such) and see if similar students in the same majors attending different colleges had different outcomes.</p>
<p>But that’s exactly what many here on CC argue - where you go to undergrad doesn’t matter. It’s argued here every day - just go to your cheap local college, do really well, and then get into a great top grad school. That may happen on an individual basis, but what the study is arguing is that when you look at the averages, it doesn’t happen - on average, top school grads have the advantage and even if you do manage to go from Tier IV to Tier I post-undergrad, you still lose to those who went to the top undergrad schools in terms of what you earn. </p>
<p>What’s interesting is this holds even with the flawed school grouping you are noting. If you eliminated the public/private segregation of the study and instead just used the USNWR, Forbes, or whatever rankings you propose, I’m guessing the results would be even more striking. Maybe you think it’s obvious, but there are people who argue against it here every day and there are surely millions of HS students who are advised every year, sure, you could go to one of those fancy schools, but you’ll do the same sticking close to home. Turns out it’s bad advice after all.</p>
<p>Now, is it causation? That is an entirely different question. Many here like to quote the study that says a bright kid who goes to Penn or Penn State will have the same outcome, but this study calls that into question on a broad average basis. It doesn’t tell us why Penn may be better, just that it appears to be. The why is for further study.</p>
<p>On a broad average basis, Penn starts out with more academically qualified frosh than Penn State does, so of course you would expect a greater level of success in school (including graduate or professional school after graduation) from the students at Penn. So how much of the difference between outcomes at Penn versus Penn State is based on the schools, versus the students attending the schools?</p>
<p>That’s the really difficult part to figure out, because you can’t rerun the experiment again with the same students, just switching schools.</p>
<p>I suppose the best way to do it would be to find a group of students who were admitted to both, but some chose Penn and some chose Penn State, but how many of those are there? You’d need enough for statistical significance, and then there are all sorts of factors like family connections, high schools, etc. to consider. Social sciences are just so messy.</p>
<p>BTW, this study would have been better if the grouping had been off of recognized professional school groupings like top 15-20 b-schools or T14 law schools instead of the artificial private/public distinction. UMiami law school and BU b-school aren’t exactly prestigious.</p>
<p>Exactly. I find the assertion that BU grads on average outperform Williams grads simply because BU is a research U. And Williams is a LAC or that Eckerd grads outperform UC Berkeley grads for similar reasons a bit laughable.</p>