If we randomly selected all entering freshman for the class of 2020 to USnews’ top ranked University, Princeton and 199th ranked University, the University of Colorado at Denver and assigned them to one of these two colleges and controlled for intended major and parental qualification and income, do you think the outcomes would be similar for graduates from both schools lets say 10 years after graduation?
Or do you think the random sample assigned to Princeton would do much better?
What if we did this year after year for 20 years, would the outcome be different?
Just wanted to get some fun speculation and conversation going.
Right off the bat, the grad rates between the two schools differ dramatically. The fall off at CU Denver will cut into its 10/20 performance right there. The fin aid resources at PTon will also assure its graduates with tons of less debt than the CUDenver grads. This doesn’t take much speculation. Is it a stratospheric difference? Who’s to say. But the day they enter as freshmen up until they graduate in 4-5 years will be starkly different in terms of resources, ECs, life experiences and networking. Hardly surprising.
However, the graduation rates are mostly related the academic qualifications of the students on entry. Perhaps Princeton may do better than CU Denver due to better financial aid (particularly for non-Colorado residents), but just looking at the raw graduation rates can be misleading if one assumes that they are purely based on the treatment effects of attending the school, versus the selection effect of which students are selected to attend the school.
I don’t recall where I saw it (or I’d pin it here), but someone in fact DID do a study of the outcomes for students who were admitted to “elite” schools and chose not to go vs. those that did, and the results, controlled for a pile of demographic factors, were the same. In other words, the high-achieving-ness that got you admitted was the same high achieving-ness that made you successful wherever you were.
I’d be comfortable betting that Princeton has a better alumni network and that in a number of fields, it would assure a degree-holder a job interview. But whether that person gets the job and performs well in it is something different altogether. know first-gen kids who have gone to elites and have said that they felt they gained polish and confidence by exposure to and assimilation with the kind of folks they’d otherwise have found intimidating (so benefited less from the institution than from their peers), so that might have influenced their choices post-grad, but that’s certainly not going to be the case for everyone.
The top schools are “top” because they get to pick students who will succeed regardless of what the school does with/for them. (And I think they know this because one of the things that a lot of the up-and-comer schools do is “buy” talent – they offer very generous merit scholarships to top students to lure them to their school. Where they improve the stats both for incoming students and for grads. Thereby making the school more selective. Thereby improving the applicant pool. And so it goes…)
As a real data point for this question, my spouse recently reconnected with a good high school friend. Both had similar grades, rankings and test scores in HS. My spouse attended a large flagship university with a rowdy reptile as a mascot, while the HS friend attended Harvard for undergrad. 30 years later, both had similar career trajectories, both live in similar types of houses in similar types of suburbs of large metropolitan areas, both have similar family and socio-economic situations and, most importantly, both seem equally happy.
Those who got into Princeton and were assigned Princeton
Those who got into Princeton and were assigned University of Colorado at Denver
Those who got into Princeton and were assigned University of Colorado at Denver
Those who got into University of Colorado at Denver and were assigned Princeton
The difference between them is what we’re most likely to debate about. I think getting into Princeton is much more important for success than going there - there is a study that supports this. The people who got into UofC might not be as well off at Princeton as a more suitable school. They might flunk out, even, which would be much worse than graduating from UofC for thsose kids. However, I do think attending Princeton affords a kind of ‘boost’.
You’re asking about selection effect vs. treatment effect, btw, and outcomes are always a combination of the two. More importantly, comparing outcomes is difficult to impossible, as is even determining what outcomes are favorable. An interesting read about the Grant longitudinal study that might give you some insight: [What Makes Us Happy](What Makes Us Happy? - The Atlantic), by Joshua Wolf Shenk. Long-form, very good stuff.