Elite/Ivy grads really do earn more? (new study)

roethlisburger
Sat, 29 Oct 2016 19:44:49 +0000

@Data10 The study found that the higher earnings followed the unique traits that were correlated with applying to elite colleges, rather than attending an elite college. Maybe students who are more focused on attending HYPSM… are also more likely to be focused on pursuing careers associated with higher incomes than other high achieving students. Or maybe students who prefer to stay in their immediate area for college are also more likely to want to stay in their immediate area after graduating, which more limits job options than students who are thinking nationally.

1. Harvard and MIT weren't part of the Krueger study and Princeton and Stanford were hardly the highest ranked schools in the study. Your implied ranking of schools is different than the study's ranking of schools.

2. Even some of the lower ranked private schools like Emory and Denison get the vast majority of their students from out of state, so the argument that students who only apply to lower ranked schools all live in the immediate area of those schools doesn't seem very plausible. In some cases ex. Penn State vs UPenn, you have high ranked and low ranked schools in the same state, so geography seems a less than satisfying explanation even for the in state residents.