Is going to a prestigious university worth the premium?

Parents Forum
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<p>I don’t think it’s overkill so much as it is the natural human desire to want to be better than everyone else. Humans like hierarchy and class structure. </p>

<p>It’s the reason the major airlines offering a bajillion different boarding classes… Silver members, gold members, platinum members, platinum plus members, executive platinum gold members, super platinum gold plus executive star members… I mean it’s ridiculous if you think about it (and also the reason I prefer to fly Southwest!)</p>

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<p>But being a platinum member of an airline isn’t because you want to be “better than everybody else.” It’s because you pay a lot of money / fly a lot of miles and want to have the airline recognize you by giving you perks such as upgrades to first class. There’s nothing “ridiculous” about gold / platinum / super platinum or whatever, and there’s no analogy to colleges at all.</p>

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<p>I think that motivated, bright, ambitious people will do well no matter where they go. What they may be exposed to may be different, but that doesn’t necessarily track with prestige. If I had gone to the Ivy League school I dreamed of in high school (where I am now a graduate student), I may have gone on to become a management consultant or an investment banker instead of a social health psychologist. The psychology department here is mostly composed of cognitive and neuroscience classes, and I probably would’ve balked and majored in something else. I went to a small LAC instead and my role models were black female professors and researchers.</p>

<p>Besides, where you go to graduate school largely determines the kind of scientist you become, not your undergraduate education. There you learn only the basics.</p>

<p>It may be different for career fields that require only a bachelor’s, or where bachelor’s education is really important in determining future career trajectories. Let’s take nursing for example. I was completely unaware that there is an entire branch of nursing research and never even thought about teaching and doing research within nursing. Most students who major in nursing are probably unaware, too! They have to take one nursing research class, but the quality and the way it’s taught probably differs a lot.</p>

<p>If you go to a small regional state school where the nursing professors mostly have MSNs or maybe a DNP, and who are concentrating on turning out competent practical nurses, it may focus completely on very applied research or on how to apply already-done research to nursing practice. If you go to a nursing research powerhouse, like Penn, maybe the class sparks an interest in nursing research as a field. You may be then more likely to go on and get a PhD in nursing and become nursing faculty and researchers. Or maybe at Penn, you have more exposure to other fields of nursing - like telemetry, nursing epidemiology, community health nursing, or nursing management - whereas at your local public university, you’re only exposed to being a nurse working in a hospital.</p>

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Another issue is that they don’t take the quality of incoming student into account. There is no way to tell whether the benefit comes from the student or the school. Too bad there’s no accurate way to normalize this.</p>

<p>Given a cohort of entering students with MIT level abiltiy, I would expect them to make more over their careers than the typical engineer, regardless of where they went to school.</p>

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<p>To me it all comes down to value. I will pay if the value is there. If its not, I won’t. I simply do not believe $4500 plus per an undergrad college course can possibly be justified. </p>

<p>Can I justify paying 250K over four years just for a B.A. or a B.S. . . . unequivocally NO. I refuse to help pay for the luxurious lives of these under-worked, overpaid professors at these hallowed halls of higher education. I will willingly pay when I see the value. A year overseas for study abroad? Sure. A top Grad School? If D has a particular field of study and this will give leg up on the competition? Yes. Undergrad? No. </p>

<p>If I truly believed the education was superior, I might consider it, but I really don’t believe that. In the end, a student will learn as little or as much as they want by reading the textbooks and class material anyway. The lecture itself will only go so far.</p>

<p>And the airlines are a good analogy. I have flown first class only when offered to me for just a few more dollars as a special. Otherwise, I’m sitting in coach. My ability to fly first class is irrelevant. But even there, there is some value to flying first class. In particular more comfortable seats.</p>

<p>As for the peer argument, I simply don’t buy it. The kids at the more elite schools may have done better on their SATs or their GPA’s, but that in no way means they are higher quality people to be around. That to me is total nonsense.</p>

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<p>There it is in it most basic and banal.</p>

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<p>So don’t, then! I feel that I can, will, and am doing so for 2 kids at elite schools full-pay. My house is paid for, I’m not into fancy cars, my retirement is planned for, I have not a penny of debt … I can’t imagine anything else I’d rather spend my money on than my kids’ education.</p>

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<p>I suppose there may be people who apply the same kind of ROI “value” calculation to everything they buy–resale value for houses, gas mileage for cars, durability for clothing, etc. This is a valid way to live, and it may be essential if your finances are limited. But if your finances are less limited, this is not how most people think about value with respect to ordinary purchases, and I’m just suggesting that you can think of value more broadly in terms of college choice as well. What’s the value of the fact that the chorus at college A takes cool international tours, while the chorus at college B doesn’t take tours? You won’t sing any better for having gone to college A, probably.</p>

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<p>The peer group present at the school may affect how the courses are offered. With “better” students, the school may choose to offer honors courses, or make the regular courses faster paced or more in-depth. But this is not always the case, and may vary from one course to another at the same school (e.g. Harvard frosh math courses range from a calculus-AB-paced frosh calculus course Math Ma-Mb to a triple honors course Math 55a-55b).</p>

<p>Of course, in subjects with external accreditation (e.g. ABET for engineering, articulation agreements between the state flagship and community colleges), the standards of such accreditation may enforce a lower bound on the course rigor and content, so that the courses for those subject cannot be “watered down” too much.</p>

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<p>That’s cool. I wouldn’t presume to understand your family’s consumption utility any more that I’d expect anyone here to understand mine. </p>

<p>As for the airlines, “premium” status is thin-gruel compensation for way too much time spent in airport waiting areas. But I do tend to think that airlines that have seven boarding groups (<em>cough</em>United<em>cough</em>) have over-engineered the process to the point where even McKinsey would say it’s a little much.</p>

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They aren’t higher-quality people, but they are higher-quality students, just as the athletes on the top travel soccer team are higher-quality athletes than the ones on the rec team (all on average, of course). It’s no mystery why a top soccer player wants to be on the top team–the desire to be with similarly accomplished students isn’t really all that different. When my daughter dropped down from a travel team (where she was a below-average player) to a rec team (where she was significantly above average), she was often frustrated by her teammates’ lack of skills. “I could score if there was anybody who could pass to me, etc.”</p>

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<p>Pizzagrl, I hate to +1 because it doesn’t add much to the discourse, but I feel a desire to do so here. </p>

<p>We, like you, have “taken care of business” by fully funding our retirement accounts, paying off our home, having no debt, etc. The joy I would get in sending the two remaining children to whatever school they are a match for would far surpass the moderate pleasure I’d have in adding another $500k to our retirement savings.</p>

<p>That said, they still have to be accepted :slight_smile: Please cross your fingers for us.</p>

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<p>I don’t see it as a team . . one for all and all for one at the undergraduate level. The student goes to school and hopefully learns as much as possible. That student is a team of one and is competing against all other students for the best grades. There is nothing about the other students in her class that will help my child learn more or less than she is willing or capable of learning. This is not first grade where the teacher has to hand feed each individual student to teach that student to read. The teacher will assign readings from textbooks and will broadly cover the material in the 50 minutes allotted for class time. It is up to the student to read as much and as comprehensively as they want to learn the material. What some other student learns or doesn’t learn should have no impact on what my D learns or does not learn.</p>

<p>For those of you willing to pay full ride at 250K to 500K over four years for your children, that is great for you. To me, that is a significant expenditure. I WOULD do it if I honestly believed it would make a difference, if the value was there. But again, I don’t believe that. Not at the undergraduate level.</p>

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<p>I think being around a heavily-concentrated peer group of similarly-smart and motivated students is the #1 reason for going to an elite college over an “average” one, frankly. Learning from others both inside and outside the classroom.</p>

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I think this is a misapprehension of what college classes are like. Many college classes involve class discussion, cooperative work (such as projects and presentations), and more. And beyond that, the professor must target the lecture to the preparation level of the typical student at the institution. So that lecture on the Civil War at one school may assume knowledge and understanding that the lecture at another just can’t.</p>

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<p>Truthseeker, I really think you don’t understand what college courses are like now. Perhaps you majored in science at a very large university, so your expectations are colored by that experience, in which you attended large classes in auditoriums, took notes and passed your exams without ever having much interaction with your professors or your classmates; all I can say is, that is not typical of today’s schools, and especially not of the good ones. Learning, in most subjects, is not just reading and listening to the professor lecture. At a good school, a very great part of the learning comes from discussion, from interactions whether in class or out with peers and with professors, from writing, from directed thinking: learning is not simply memorizing information that will then be output in later life. I would argue, in fact, that the vast majority of stuff one learns in college is not of direct value later, a one-to-one equation where fact learned is fact used. Even in the sciences, the specific facts that are memorized are not likely to remain static. It is what one learns about how to learn, how to apply information, how to analyze and redact information, that marks a person who is well-educated from one who has just been to college. And yes, a person can acquire a good education in many places, and of course that person’s motivation is the most important factor, but let’s try another analogy: I can plant peas in pretty poor dirt, and I will get a harvest. If I plant peas in rich, nutritious soil, I may double or triple my harvest. The seed is the same, but the growth will be different. The original post had to do with how much a degree from a prestigious college is “worth”: that, as we’ve seen, can vary a good deal with the circumstances, the student, and the college. The name of the school may not matter–there are many very good schools that can provide an excellent education on a par with that of any “name” school–but that is not the argument you’re making; you seem to be saying that any school anywhere is just as good as any other, that there is no difference between schools at all, and that is simply untrue.</p>

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<p>Just had to chime in here. I don’t post too much but read a lot of CC threads. I find this discussion fascinating (and sometimes baffling). I think it really comes down to what an individual’s philosophy of education and the purpose of college is (and varying viewpoints can be equally valid IMO). I think these assumptions are deeply ingrained in each of us depending on our upbringing, community, education experience, etc. and that we’re not always even aware that we hold such views so strongly. </p>

<p>If the purpose of an undergraduate education is to get a degree so that one can get a particular job and the only return on investment is future earnings, then I can understand thinking that there is no substantial difference between a “prestige” college and another maybe not so prestigious. </p>

<p>However, from my point of view, the purpose of college / undergrad is to broaden one’s mind, learn critical thinking, problem solving and writing skills, think in different ways about the world from a variety of perspectives, learn how to live in a community, etc. During this time, one hopes that a student will figure out what they might be interested in learning more about and what they might want to do for a career but I would hope that they will also have the skills to succeed if they later decide they want to do something else. Is this kind of education strictly necessary, probably not. It’s a luxury item that I for one am willing to pay for (although not to go into significant debt for). I am investing in an education in the broadest sense and not only training. And I firmly believe that the peer group of interested, smart and motivated students (which one can certainly find at places other than the “prestige” U, although perhaps not in such a high concentration) makes an enormous difference in the quality of classroom discourse.</p>

<p>FWIW, I also don’t believe that college courses just teach a set of “content” that one can learn anywhere. If that’s the case, just go to the library and read some books or take an online course (which absolutely works for some people). Perhaps for engineering, accounting, intro STEM courses, etc. there is a standardized curriculum at the undergrad level that is somewhat consistent from institution to institution…I don’t really know as my background is in the humanities but I would assume that might be the case.</p>

<p>However, there is always an element of “curation” by the professor even in a large lecture class. That individual decides what readings to assign, what to emphasize in lectures or class discussion, how fast to cover the material and therefore the content and depth can vary greatly. For any subject there is always way more material that can possibly be covered and someone is making choices and guiding students in their thinking/learning. </p>

<p>Finally, I find it sad if someone takes a college class and doesn’t learn anything from his or her classmates. There’s always another perspective or a different way to solve a problem that can and should inform one’s own thinking about a subject. I also never felt that I was competing against other students for a limited number of good grades – the goal was to master the material, write a good paper, etc. Of course, this may be because I did not take too many classes graded on a curve where students’ relative success depending on how others did…</p>

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<p>In high school, it was hard to find friends of comparable intellectual level with whom to discuss a variety of topics. One evening after a very interesting movie, my BF at the time said to me, “TheGFG, I know you want more from me, but I just can’t analyze things and think like you do.” Fast forward to college: a young man not my BF with whom I had had some interesting discussions over dinner, found me one day and said, “TheGFG, you just have to come with me to see this new movie.” I went, I was deeply moved, we discussed it for hours, and it was a transformative experience. </p>

<p>I did not attend a super elite school, but it was highly competitive in admissions and the students were all smart. Had I attended the local state school, I would have been surrounded by people like my old BF–very nice, kind, and good but simply not as bright. It makes a difference in the experience.</p>

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<p>Truthseeker2 – I totally get what you’re saying, because that was me. I went to college to win, to get something I wanted, to check off a box. I did all of that. But what marysidney just said is true, too. As one who now spends a ton of money on an “elite” education at the high school and college level, it’s my opinion that the added benefit is mostly in the peer group around my kids rather than the quality of the instruction. I have forgotten the specifics of much of what I learned in the college classroom; I hope my kids long remember a host of interesting people and experiences.</p>

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<p>There must be some reasons why these types of threads draw and create so much energy. There must be something of significance at stake. And clearly, contrary to what some say, you don’t “spa” yourself into or just fall unintentionally towards one pole or the other. Especially with the prestigious pole, one has to WANT it, and it’s the wanting it part that some folks seem to struggle with saying that’s a part of it. But that’s why the arguments about no greater ROI and the like so often fall flat…because it’s about a lot more than money or whether it “pays off in the end.”</p>