<p>I don’t entirely understand why anyone would correlate basketball performance for a team affiliated with the university with alumni income levels. I definitely don’t think this is a causative effect. Do people think that the basketball performance earns graduates of the school a higher paying position?</p>
<p>I am also not sure that I understand the idea of determining an average income for all alumni of a school. It would make more sense if the averages excluded people who went onto post graduate work which so frequently carries an added increase in salary of bachelors holders. Also, it seems silly to normalize it across all fields since certain fields that aren’t represented at Duke, eg social work, pay much less than other fields that may be overrepresented at Duke eg. investment banking. Furthermore, the average income seems dependent on the age of the alumni poled. Recent grads won’t be making close to average and if a school expanded or decreased their undergraduate enrollment, it seems that that would change their averages as well. I don’t think that this is a very good way to judge the success of a school in preparing their undergrads for a career.</p>