The top ranked colleges in the article were Cal Poly and Wake Forest, hardly “Pigs Knuckle Tech.”
The same College Scorecard database shows relatively little difference in earnings of grads in many (not all) STEM fields. For example, some specific stats I looked up several years ago (earnings are old and not adjusted for inflation) are below. I’d expect this degree of difference to be largely explained by differences among individual students. For example, the average student at Stanford or MIT is more likely to be a gifted and high achieving student than the average student at a non-selective college. This influences post grad earnings, as do things like cost of living differences. Students at public colleges are more likely to prefer to remain in state than go to Silicon Valley, often at a lower cost of living. The results below do not suggest college selectivity is responsible for a significant boost in earnings, among typical engineering grads.
Mechanical Engineering Majors: College Scorecard
USNWR Top 20 non-Ivies Privates – $72k
Ivy League Colleges – $71k
USNWR Rank 21-50 Privates – $66k
USNWR Top 50 Publics – $66k
All 4-year Colleges Ranked >50 – $63k
Combining all majors with the word “engineering” in the title, the totals were:
Engineering Majors: College Scorecard
USNWR Top 20 non-Ivies Privates – $73k
Ivy League Colleges – $70k
USNWR Rank 21-50 Privates – $69k
USNWR Top 50 Publics – $67k
All 4-year Colleges Ranked >50 – $63k
Back to the original one, comparing schools is folly. As James Carville might say…”It’s the majors stupid.” A state school computer science major is almost certainly out earning an Ivy art history major. Does that make either school better or worse?
If I wanted to be a museum curator or work elsewhere in the art world, I’d much rather have a degree from Yale, Columbia, Chicago, Williams, etc. than Cal Poly.
And somehow I’d feel neither ripped off nor shocked to learn that a CS major from Cal Poly will be making more money than me ten years (plus) out.
I can’t see the article, but these surveys are often distortions of reality. The “tails” of the response distributions are always more interesting than the averages or medians.
I went to Harvard Business School and a few things pulled DOWN our average earnings:
Rich and/or idealistic kids who went to work for non-profits or the government.
People who just married classmates which drove their individual incomes to zero.
People who started their own companies and take very modest salaries…but who own a company and their share is worth $20 million.
People paid in non-cash ways (e.g., equity) who might not get a high salary that shows up in these surveys.
People changing careers or entering academia.
People making a lot of money and retiring in 5 years. So at the 10 year mark, they are earning zero in salary.
Deferred compensation, which makes people look poorer than they really are.
People who inherited money and retired or took easier jobs.
A significant portion of my class was “affected” by these 8 things. And I bet that we were affected by these things more than kids from a state flagship. Enough to really distort a salary survey.
There were a few things that pulled our average incomes UP:
Certain high paying industries used to LOVE Ivy grads. Consulting, I-banking, private equity, etc… Some of these industries used to slavishly favor Ivy League grads and even certain schools in the Ivy League. I am not sure if that is the case today.
Rich kids going to work for family firms who were automatically on the senior executive track.
People returning to the firms that they worked for before B-school who were already on track to do well at the firm.
But again, certain forms of compensation do not show up in these surveys.
So I also have concerns about the methodology and response bias in salary surveys like this. But I also think that Ivy grads are often different.
Again, I could not see the article, but I have worked with a lot of folk who have just undergrad degrees. McKinsey loves their Princeton undergrads. PE firms like STEM MS degrees…particularly from their favorite Ivies.
I am not sure when this article was written. Lots of folks have been mad at the Ivies because of protests. The downfall of the Ivies has been predicted for a long time and still has not come to pass.
The Ivies are treated differently by employers. Frankly, I am not sure that they should be. But they are.
The gist of the article was that, like most other colleges and universities, Ivy League schools don’t print golden tickets for every attendee. That’s it.
I’ve never seen a single article say every attendee of an Ivy was destined for wealth and greatness.
I’ve never seen a single poster on this board suggest that every attendee of an Ivy was destined for wealth and greatness.
The unfortunate thing is that some people take this to mean that highly selective schools don’t offer the potential for any advantages or benefits, and this simply isn’t true. Many of these people offer this falsehood as advice in thread after thread. It is really unfortunate.