Only 2 Ivy League schools land a six-figure salary 10 yrs after graduation

Parents Forum
45

But the point of the article is that Ivy grads in general are not making six figures mid career.

As you know from those who fall over themselves on this website to go Ivy or parents willing to borrow everything to get them there, they see riches that only Ivy can bring them. That’s the belief.

I don’t think the schools themselves are looking for anything to diminish that argument. Their image and rep would be tarnished as this article tries to do.

You’re obviously very successful and well esteemed - but when they are marketing to full pay undergrads, while they may push PhD participation levels, they likely don’t want to push the accompanying difficulty in finding positions or lower level salaries.

It’s just a reality. The schools are a premium product - and the expectation is a premium outcome.

Your outcome may be premium to you and I understand and appreciate that. But it’s likely not premium to those spending $400k to send their kids there.

Even with big endowments, that’s the target - in part so that there’s future contributors to grow that endowment.

And future leaders that dominate the news.

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46

Ten years after graduation, in my mind, is not mid-career, especially since many people change careers either early or late in the game. It’s earlier than I would expect most people to earn that much.

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Am I the only one here who has family in Racine, Tulsa, Columbus, Ithaca, Burlington, Wichita… who educate their kids, have health insurance, drive two cars, take vacations, and don’t need to earn $200K to buy a house?

A lot of privilege going on here!

But again- the methodology of ONLY counting kids who got federal financial aid means that every single post needs a big old asterisk next to it. And what of the kid who IS in the pool being studied, went into the Peace Corps, then applied to med school- who is right now earning a small salary but once she finishes her fellowship in orthopedic surgery will be out-earning many of her classmates? 10 years after graduation- just finishing her training. (replace dermatology if you prefer).

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48

Elite schools open the door to highly remunerative and prestigious careers such as management consulting and IB. In addition to being dramatically overly represented in these lucrative careers, graduates of these elite undergraduate institutions are significantly over represented at the most elite graduate schools.

While not all students choose to walk through these “open doors”, access and opportunity are why many still covet elite schools.

It’s not how much someone else’s kid makes but how much your kid could make.

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Could be, but most people never earn that much. Many families don’t either.

Georgetown ROI analysis/rankings utilizes the same college scorecard data, and projects NPV out to the 20, 30, and 40 year marks (you would have to calculate the projected earnings). A First Try at ROI: Ranking 4,500 Colleges - CEW Georgetown

Organizations are utilizing the Fed’s College Scorecard data because that’s the best data we have, albeit incomplete. We will never have complete, accurate data, but many legit, highly regarded organizations like Institute of Higher Ed and the Georgetown ROI analysis I linked above utilize this data.

Most recent data I could find show 55% of 2019/20 grads received some type of federal financial aid. Press Release - Nearly Three-Quarters of Undergraduates Received Some Type of Financial Aid in 2019-20 - July 26, 2023

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Think again. Remember, these programs require at least five years of work experience, or did at the time I applied, so applicants are (often much) beyond their undergrad starting salaries. I had ten years under my belt before applying. My section was filled with people who already had the jobs most on the outside think you attend to gain–think IBs whose companies were paying for the degree to add to their bona fides and such. In my case, I and my start-up cohort had taken our computer services company public (still trades on the NASDAQ today). I was making six figures prior to HBS in '89, and I was not unique. Never mind the students in the program with household names who were already in executive roles or running their storied family companies and just wanted the additional caché and access to the network. Oh, and a few from political families, too.

Sure, there were students with more average incomes for whom the degree probably produced a better payout, but they were already doing amazing things that showed Harvard that they “had it.” They were going to be successful with or without the degree–because they already were. Money is not always the driver. I don’t recall anyone talking about future compensation.

Of course. And the answer to that question reveals what kind of changemaker you are/might be.

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51

Rent is not “insanely expensive” everywhere. Instead cost of housing is highly variable depending on where you live. For example, the median home sale price in Detroit is ~$80k. You could buy a decent home in Detroit, with a $400/month type mortgage payment. Obviously, $400/month wouldn’t go as far in Silicon Valley, Manhattan, Seattle, or similar.

This relates to large differences in cost of living in different areas, which is not reflected in such surveys. Highest salaries tend to be clustered in highest cost of living areas, where the high salary doesn’t go as far. There are many areas where it’s common to live comfortably on less than $100k/year salary, and in many cases still have plenty left over for retirement savings. $100k is a top 20% income in the US. The overwhelming majority of people get by with far lower incomes.

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If a ranking’s title begins with the phrase “A First Try At…”, that’s certainly not a good sign. This ranking seems more useless than most, as it suggests that college name primarily determines earnings. The rankings methodology assumes that major, career field, and individual student have no influence on earnings. The rankings methodology assumes all students from a particular college have the same earnings and the same cost (after FA). It’s twisting the CollegeScorecard stats into something else, much like the article linked in the original post.

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I didn’t say the rankings made sense, nor did I recommend them.

I was merely showing where one can get earnings data (albeit projected) that go out farther than the 10 year mark in College Scorecard to the poster who suggested a 10 year mark may be too early to look at earnings data.

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According to the methodology, “we assume no growth in median earnings after 10 years” . I doubt that’s what the other poster was looking for – projections assuming no growth in earnings after the year 10 numbers reported by CollegeScorecard. It’s also trying to estimate a form of ROI, not earnings.

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While not insignificant, less than half come from consulting, PE, and financial services.

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Why would and Ivy League graduate who has debt have significantly diffferent earnings than an Ivy League graduate without debt?

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Understood. I should have been clearer. I meant that this is quite a lot of money to expect ten years into most careers, not that it’s a yardstick by which most people’s earnings should be measured at any point in their careers.

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I did stipulate, “where I live” and I live in Canada. Rent is very high even outside of the major metropolitan areas, and that’s if you can even find vacancy. We’re currently experiencing a significant housing shortage nationally.

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Study includes kids with Pell grants. So a kid from a low income family ends up Columbia; gets a degree and takes a job in Wichita to be close to family. Nice, solid, job; great benefits- not only is he the first to get a college degree but he’s the first to qualify for company paid 401K, great healthcare benefits, etc.

I don’t think this is an indictment of Columbia. It’s a success story.

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Clearly, not dealing with majors is an issue. I wonder if the cultures of some schools like Penn and Princeton makes majors like CS, finance, math/stats and engineering more salient and perhaps the culture at Brown guides people a little more towards humanities/social science majors. And I wonder how much is selectivity – different kinds of people go to different schools. I am surprised at Harvard’s apparently low rank as my perception is that lots of kids are very status/money oriented, but I wonder if there is a difference between the full pays and others on this and my sample is biased towards full pays.

ShawSon’s experience at his elite LAC was that his upper middle class friends got guidance from their parents about getting internships, majors, how to manage your finances once you have a job, etc., whereas his friends who were from economically disadvantaged backgrounds did not get any of that. A number ended up in career paths that would not get them $100K in 10 years and several ended up switching careers a few years out because of uneducated choices made earlier on.

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61

That is my impression as well, at least when compared to Princeton. Maybe the ultimate goal is the same but my impression is that kids that go the Princeton way are more into the learning for the sake of learning sort of thing. I remember reading somewhere, in all the legacy/no legacy discussion, these schools saying that legacy (and therefore wealthier?) students were more likely to go into service or academia (maybe because they have the luxury of being able to afford it?). I also have the impression that FGLI skew more pre-professional. This also makes sense to me, but overall, college counselors in my area (several selective BS and day schools) have remarked on the trend towards pre-professional majors and decline in interest in a LAC education.

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From the same source as that provided in the original post in this thread:

Median salaries 10 years later:

National Universities:

MIT $124,200
U Penn–$112,800
Princeton–$110,500
Stanford–$107,000
Cornell–$98,300
Columbia–$97,600
Duke–$97,400
Yale–$95,600
Dartmouth–$95,600
Harvard–$95,100
Notre Dame–$93,200
WashUStL–$90,700
USC–$89,900
Johns Hopkins–$89,600
Brown–$87,900
Rice–$87,300
Northwestern–$85,800
Vanderbilt–$84,400
UCLA–$$79,800
NYU–$79,800
U Chicago–$78,450

LACs:

Claremont McKenna–$97,200
Colgate–$86,800
Colby–$84,500
Wash & Lee–$84,300
Amherst–$81,900
Swarthmore–$80,400
Haverford–$78,300
Davidson–$77,400
Hamilton–$77,200
Wellesley–$75,800
Middlebury–$74,500
Williams–$74,500
Pomona–$74,300
Wesleyan University–$72,600
Carleton College–$70,400
Bowdoin–$68,200
Bates–$65,900
Vassar–$64,650
Grinnell–$62,500

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I don’t think there is any rational reason for the trend, but it’s what we are seeing amongst my kids classmates. Not to mention the overload of CS and Neuroscience majors. Whatever the reason, it is misguided IMO.

I am a firm believer in a liberal arts education (which several, if not most, of the schools in the first group offer, in one form or another). And then, there is this. It will be interesting to see what the next few years bring.

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64

No argument there. I was responding to the comment about the level of incoming salaries.