Yes, your post describes the kinds of external factors not related to the schools, that I was referring to!
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Absolutely, Ivy grads go on to great things. I don’t dispute that at all. And, yes, they are overrepresented in the corridors of power, among the founders of successful starts ups, etc, etc. It’s not surprising given the concentration of talent. And, again, I’m not against paying for an Ivy - there are a lot of benefits to attending one if you can afford it. What I am saying is that the majority of folks that attend an Ivy aren’t going to be the next Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos. They’ll have good careers, but in many cases those careers won’t be all that different from their non-Ivy neighbors.
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Absolutely. It was the reason I attended the SLAC I did back in the day - they were far more generous than other schools and 1/4 of the cost of our state flagship. That being said, that only works if your kid can be admitted which is no easy task these days.
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I would agree that it can get lost sometimes in these discussions, and popular media coverage, that the observed effect was in fact a tail effect.
In fact a fair summary of the research is that for the vast majority of graduates, there is no statistically significant evidence that choosing to attend an Ivy Plus will make a difference in things like future income versus choosing another very selective private or flagship-level public.
One exception to this conclusion is relatively disadvantaged students, who are necessarily a type of tail effect because the large bulk of the students at these colleges are not relatively disadvantaged. I note at least a very large part of the apparent causal explanation for this effect is that sometimes these students if they don’t attend an Ivy Plus will not then attend another very selective college, sometimes not a residential college at all. This is an important observation, that if they don’t win a lottery ticket acceptance/very large aid offer from one of the most famous colleges, they may not always be aware there are other excellent private colleges that potentially could be interested in giving them a lot of aid as well. And sometimes even their state flagships are not practically affordable for them.
And then it does appears that even among the more typical upper-middle-to-upper-class attendees of these schools, there is a tail effect among certain outcomes, like being top 1% in income, working in certain handful of “white shoe” firms, becoming a Supreme Court Justice, and so on. Importantly, it is not that no one who is otherwise similar but goes to a non-Ivy-plus gets those outcomes, but it happens at a higher rate.
But again, because this is a tail effect, it doesn’t actually pertain to most graduates. And while it is indeed possible there is some sort of valued-added causal effect that this particular professor was hypothesizing, I also personally think it is hard to control for things like simple choice based on reinforced values.
Like I attended an Ivy+, and my college friends have mostly fallen into the sorts of career paths that wouldn’t count as tail outcomes. Plenty of successful doctors, lawyers, professors, politicos, journalists, non-profit leaders, technologists, and so on, but we have not really encouraged each other to strive for ever more fame, ever more fortune, ever higher positions, and so on. We keep talking about things like work/family balance, doing what we really enjoy and find meaningful, early retirements in some cases, and so on. Values that are not necessarily conducive to ending up in the tail outcomes this study was interested in investigating.
Why does all this matter? Well, less-than-careful commentary that doesn’t take due note of this being a tail effect can make it seem like everyone who chooses an Ivy-Plus will benefit economically in a big way, and therefore that even if they have much better aid offers and such from other excellent colleges, they are destined to get a higher “return on investment” from choosing an Ivy-Plus that costs them a lot more money up front.
In fact, again statistically most graduates will not get a higher return, so those choosing to pay more for college for this reason will mostly just pay more for no financial benefit.
And I think also critically, even to have a chance at that compensating return, you need to make certain choices about what sorts of careers you are going to pursue, career choices that might not actually be in your interests as a human being.
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You said it far better than I did, but this is what I was getting at.
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Not sure the bulk of students are not relatively disadvantaged, given the numbers on financial aid. Of course it is not possible to break down incomes that meet the “$200k or less” limit. Back in 2008 free tuition went to those with incomes under $65k, as I remember. A family with an income of $190k would now still get free tuition but might not be seen as disadvantaged, at least in many areas of the country.
Our guidance counselor directed the best students to public universities and colleges, and did not tell us that an Ivy might cost less. They actually weren’t aware. So that may happen elsewhere. We had to find that out for ourselves.
Great post overall. You captured so much so well.
I’m not as up on the details of this as some of you, but I recall seeing things at some point that one of the “disadvantaged” groups who studies show benefit from going to these Ivy+ schools are Black students. And, I’m not talking just low/middle income Black students, but Black students period. Including those from higher incomes.
If I am remembering/understanding that correctly, technically it might still be a “tail effect” because the paltry number of Black students at these schools is so paltry. But, from the perspective of a Black student, I’m not sure it would be a tail effect because it is talking about the impact on a class of students like you overall.
Again, I am working off of general memory that I have not researched or delved into. So, I’m sure others will chime in to tell us if my recollection is off.
It depends on how you define your terms, of course. But some of the results on this subject from the Chetty study are reported in this presentation:
At the Ivy-Plus colleges, only 3.8% of students came from the reported bottom parental income quintile, only 13.5% from the bottom half.
There is a chart in there where they compare Harvard, Cal, Stony Brook, and Glendale Community College. Among the four-year colleges, Stony Brook is closest to actually having a relatively proportionate distribution, although even it is skewed a bit to the top quintile. Glendale, though, is skewed the other way. Cal is then skewed toward the top relative to Stony Brook, and then Harvard is skewed toward the top even relative to Cal.
Part of the issue in public commentary on these subjects is I am not sure all the families looking seriously at the possibility of attending these colleges really understand intuitively what the family income distribution actually looks like in the United States. The authors present their graph for parents with children of the relevant age in 2015 dollars, and the break points where $25K for 20th percentile, $60K for median, $111K for 80th percentile. Household income distributions in the US evolve in a complex way, but just adjusting for inflation since 2015, in 2026 dollars that would be about $35K, $84K, and $154K.
So yes, a US family today with college-aged kids and $190K in income is unlikely to count as relatively disadvantaged as compared to other US families with college-aged kids. In other words, these colleges with generous aid policies are giving at least some “need” aid to many families that count as solidly middle class, and indeed into the lower part of what many people would consider the upper middle class.
Whereas kids from the actual lower half of the relevant US family income distribution are still mostly represented at publics, including community colleges. And kids from the actual bottom quintile are extremely scarce at these Ivy-Plus privates, and even more disproportionately found in community colleges or less selective four-year publics (assuming they attend college at all, of course).
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This is a very good distinction to keep in mind.
However, I’m not aware of there being a good study focusing specifically on the sorts of Black students from families that would not, say, at least qualify for a lot of aid from an Ivy-Plus. Whether it would actually make more of a consistent difference for those students to attend an Ivy-Plus over, say, a top flagship, versus non-Black students with similar financial resources, is an interesting question, but I don’t know if we have a reliable answer.
Another dimension that might not be fully appreciated is that more students from elite universities might be able to compete (defined by, say, being invited to interview) for rare jobs such as working at the New York Times. So even though the outcomes (being hired) might be a tail effect, these jobs are a real possibility (and therefore “pertinent”) for a larger set of elite university students. For example, observing the experiences of my D22’s cohort at Oxford, quite a few of them got MBB interviews even though the majority did not receive MBB offers. For some families, the greater opportunity to compete for rare jobs might justify paying more (this aspect is less relevant to my D22 as all UK universities essentially charge the same).
In addition, there are other tangible benefits beyond tail effect outcomes. I did not attend an Ivy/Ivy+ or a global elite university but instead worked at an MBB a long time ago (as noted in my previous post). Time and again, this association has opened different doors and reduced day-to-day “frictions” (ranging from gaining insights on a new industry to getting access to decision-makers) for me. Compared to my state flagship undergraduate institution and my top (but not top top) graduate school, the MBB association has been most helpful to me on a day-to-day basis (FYI, I love what I do but it is far from spectacular!).
I tend to agree that we probably do not have a reliable answer, at least I do not know of one. There has not to my knowledge been a study that focuses on that, and at this point I would be surprised if one were to be conducted anytime soon. I just don’t see that as something likely to be funded or supported in this day in age. That said, I do not recall anything in the studies that did exist that suggested that Black students from families who do not qualify for a lot of aid did not benefit from Ivy+ like their less advantaged Black peers.
My very anecdotal evidence suggests that a significant portion of Black students at Ivy+ schools for quite some time have not been those that I would characterize as “disadvantaged.” Many of those are what I’d classify as second-generation college students (or beyond) with parents in educated professional fields, or Black immigrant families (which I know is a distinct group in some ways). And, my own anectdotal experience is that the Ivy marker (and later on some other similar prestige markers) has made a difference in perception of me/my career compared to talented Black peers I know who went to “normal” state flagships (I live in CA, so UC Berkeley is not a fair comparator as it has more in common with Ivy+ than it does most state flagships on this prestige dimension in my opinion). I wish there were a study on this specifically (or if there is already one, I hope someone here points it out) as I think it is an important topic.
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What is MBB? I’ve seen you mention that a few times now and I have no idea what that acronym stands for. Suspect it is far enough from my field it means nothing to me.
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McKinsey, Bain, and BCG. The most desirable consulting companies.
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Thank you. No amount of me trying to work it out in my head was ever going to get me to that. 
I couldn’t even work out that it was consulting as opposed to finance or something else.
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Sorry about that. I actually learned this term a few years ago on College Confidential. MBB stands for McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group and Bain, the top-tier firms in management consulting.
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Ditto. I will even go a step further and say that the while I have kids at Ivy+ schools (between my two oldest and myself, we have attended 3 of HYPSM), I thought the Atlantic article was a turn off from those universities, and I came away from reading it thinking that the last thing I’d want is to send my younger two to one of those schools for the goal of spending more time competing with ambitious students to “become a leader among their peers.”
On the other hand, my college experience was very collegial and collaborative as is my workplace and social circles. There are plenty of families who attended a wide range of colleges in those circles (and some people who didn’t attend college at all), but yes, a lot of those friends and colleagues graduated from universities frequently mentioned on this site as desirable for leading to lucrative careers. Most are just ordinary people enjoying (or not) their ordinary lives. Very few are in lucrative careers though some may just be keeping quiet about just how much money they have. I imagine that some are rich or extraordinarily good savers/investors given I know that some are full-pay at their own children’s colleges. I don’t know many who are quite as broke as I am –I have chosen fulfillment over money every time the choice has been available and I have no regrets. But many of my peers get at least some financial aid for their kids’ education and in some cases, their kids take out loans as well, and hopefully it will all work out in the end; it did for their parents. The sense of urgency that I read in the posts of prospective applicants here along with their certainty that the name of their undergraduate degree is all important just doesn’t match the outcomes that I’ve observed many years of rubbing shoulders with graduates of all sorts of colleges. However, I do think that some of these decisions make a bigger difference in the lives of FGLI students, and to me the value in this site is offering advice to that set of families make wise decisions that will be helpful in the long run.
As for my non-FGLI kids, based on my conversations with them, I am skeptical of the claim that most students spend their time at those college laser focused on competing with other ambitious, determined, and talented students. I do think students seem more pre-professional and competitive now than 30 years ago, but I think it is a cultural shift based on other trends and not really about those Ivy+ colleges. D22 has bought into some of that competitive mindset. D24 not at all as far as I can tell. To take it a step further, I have to admit that I would consider it a lousy ROI if my kid came out of college with the sole goal of making as much money as possible and if that is what these universities are selecting for in a student body, I consider it another reason perhaps to avoid them. I guess that I can’t comment on the ROI to the tuition dollars that I have spent given my kids get a lot of aid, but I think it would be a lousy ROI on the many hours of parenting that I’ve invested in my kids and the many conversations that we’ve had about their goals and interests. Would I feel differently if I were paying more out of pocket? I guess if I would if I were draining my retirement savings or making unbearable sacrifices to send them to college but I don’t think I would feel that way if the schools were affordable to me even if it required signifiant (but not unbearable) sacrifice/lifestyle change. After all, why accumulate money if not to spend it on the things that you value and they people whom you love? Is it to buy more expensive cars and bigger houses? Meh.
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One other thing the discussion of the tail effect here has me thinking about is the common challenge in the US is how much everyone focuses on the 1% and the billionaires. What I mean by that, is that it is not unique to college admissions/prestige that Americans unduly focus on what is possible by thinking that they too may be part of the small percentage who have outsized success. The middle class person who overidentifies with the success of those who have climbed into the 1% or billionaire ranks because they may not correctly perceive how not open that path is to most hard working, intelligent people. It feels like the perception of what most Ivy leaguers careers are like similarly gets downplayed by most because of what people see as the tail and their believe of how likely it is that will/may be them.
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I think this is a generalizable observation. Like, I actually did go to a top undergrad and top law school, but the things that were actually most relevant to my career as a lawyer were my federal appellate clerkship and working for the Department of Justice. And then, of course, what I actually did in major cases where other people could observe. As I like to suggest, building a professional career in the US is often a long series of, “And so what have you done lately?,” sorts of evaluations, where more distant and less on point accomplishment and credentials fade in relevance.
But part of what this particular professor is arguing is that my college experience helped prepare me to succeed in these later ways. And who knows? I certainly got my butt kicked in college in certain ways, pivoted, and learned from the experience. Whether that was net helpful, I’ll never know.
I do think quite a few of my college friends with good but not spectacularly lucrative careers fell into the good savers category such that we had ample 529s and such. Not all, like I have friends who have been very devoted to public interest paths who never had the income for that level of savings. But I think a lot of us had it drilled into us that college was going to be incredibly expensive for our kids, so we started saving early and often, and it happens that by the time we were up, the markets had largely cooperated.
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My early legal career has some similarilties to yours. In my case, I’d argue that the ability to get the clerkship and early prestige positions was heavily influenced by going to a top ranked law school though. The number of students who clerked from my law school was way outsized compared to all but the other top ranked small set of schools. And the clerkship and other early career credentialling is still something that a lot of lawyers view as significant even as I sit here in middle age. Thus, I feel there is some correlation there that is attributable to the school. But, that portion of the legal community is overly prestige focused and weighs certain eliteness signifiers far more than it should in my opinion.
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