<p>The “bragging” point about Merrill Lynch was the it was the “largest” wealth management company in the world. There was no mention of minimum eligibility for investment, rates of return, customer satisfaction or the like. If we are looking only at size, then sure, the state school model, which emphasizes accessibility and size, beats out the Ivies, just like Merrill Lynch does in the investment world. </p>
<p>Some people try to be offended by anything.</p>
<p>I didn’t go to Harvard to be wealthy, to be famous, or to be a leader except in my local community.</p>
<p>I’m not offended – just baffled. And even more so now that you’ve mentioned an alternative investment manager and “customer satisfaction” in the same thread.</p>
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<p>Uhm, no. When asked how he ended up at FSU, Theil says (quoting from that alum newsletter article)</p>
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<p>The Yahoo article crowed that “Thiel gambled that he’d get back more bang for his buck at a public school than at a private one.” Nah.</p>
<p>“Just want to point out that a lot of the money they manage actually belongs to graduates of Ivies and other top private colleges.”</p>
<p>i lol’d irl</p>
<p>Our oldest Ivy League university is almost 400 years old. Why would one guy getting rich from a state school scrap that whole tradition?</p>
<p>There was a guy from Kansas U who started in the mailroom and ended up being CEO of a big company in New York City after only a couple of months.</p>
<p>Edit: Oh wait! That was Michael J. Fox movie.</p>
<p>Interesting thread considering a conversation I had earlier today. The CEO (non-family member) of Marriott Corporation went to Luther College and University of Minnesota Law School. Not the path I would have expected.</p>
<p>The Ivies will always be prestigious, and will always be fine institutions of learning. </p>
<p>That being said, I do believe we are moving towards a society where you don’t necessarily need to go to the most prestigious university. Countless graduates from little know LAC’s, state schools, and yes, even community colleges are beginning to show that your life will still be a treasure if you choose the school right for you, NOT “The Best School”</p>
<p>Some people fit into the Ivies. Others don’t. I think we are starting to teach our youth the latter, which in the long run will create more passionate individuals who will be second to none in their fields of study, and ultimately will go on to have a successful career.</p>
<p>Doesn’t surprise me in the least that a CPA didn’t attend an Ivy</p>
<p>I think the take-away from the article was not to blindly assume that the prestigious private university will skyrocket you into the 1%. Generally speaking, public universities are probably better bargains for most students (whose financial aid package is cheaper at the public than the private.) To be successful you need to make smart decisions early on, including not going to the university that will severely burden you with debt.</p>
<p>You don’t even really need to focus on the FSU guy. I only mentioned him because he stupidly implied that UCLA was a private school. Warren Buffett transferred from Penn to UNebraska; Larry Fink did both his undergraduate and graduate work at UCLA. Public universities can be excellent if they’re funded properly (some might even confuse them of being private universities ;)) and their alumni can enjoy greater success. </p>
<p>Of course the Ivy league schools aren’t going anywhere, but perhaps it might be better to do away with pricey LACs and no-name privates in favor of cheaper, and better, public universities.</p>
<p>“I didn’t go to the Ivy League; I didn’t go to Stanford or UCLA. I’m a CPA who went to a state school…:”</p>
<p>I get the point: you don’t have to go to the ivy league to succeed. However, is the dude implying that UCLA is NOT a state school? Lol.</p>
<p>I’ve always been amazed at the numbers/percentages of Ivy league grads who only get a bachelor’s degree. Why wouldn’t more of them get at least a master’s degree??? btw- check and you’ll probably find their professors with public U credentials somewhere in their list of degrees. Check the authors of the textbooks they use and see where those professors are as well. The advantage of an elite school is the peer group- they cut out the more average students that most public U’s have in addition to the Honors caliber students who could shine at Ivies.</p>
<p>UCLA IS a state school… albeit an incredible one.</p>
<p>The Ivy League offers some of the best education in the world. As long as it does so, the eight schools that are a part of it will always be the target for MOST high-achieving high school students. I guarantee you that 99% of kids who receive adequate financial aid from an Ivy will choose it over a state school. People like to question Ivy League schools for some reason, it’s almost like a bandwagon where people try to critique them and rationalize their underachievement. “Oh, the Ivy League isn’t THAT great…” Please. </p>
<p>By no means am I trying to generalize the attitudes of people that do criticize Ivy League Schools. I am just highlighting a trend that I have observed among people.</p>
<p>I went to an Ivy League and have worked with Ivy League people since and don’t recall anyone believing it was a ticket to untold fortune or that there weren’t a million other paths to fortune and success, whatever that may be. Heck, there are countless other ways to get a great education, both in school and out.</p>
<p>Do you really think a Forestry major from Yale or a Nursing major from UPenn has bought the golden ticket?</p>
<p>The fundamental flaw of this argument -and you hear it all the time - is the assumption that college education is measurable by post-collegiate financial success. If someone finds another way, then the whole system must be bogus, right?</p>
<p>That’s just really ignorant. I enjoyed my education because I was able to banter with really smart people both in and out of class. I could hang with professors at their homes talking about the big ideas or little ideas. I had vast resources in an incredible array of fields at my fingertips. I went to school in a beautiful setting.</p>
<p>What’s the value of that? I don’t know but it certainly has little to do with who shuffles money around the best later in life.</p>
<p>Holy Cow. I’m sitting here in Harvard Square and I can see that the Harvard has vaporized. How about an unschooled kid who went to a prestigious LAC and now is at a prestigious physics grad school (I know one). Should we conclude that public education as we know it has ceased to exist? Looks like Rindge & Latin and BB&N have just vaporized as well. It’s amazing how reasoning from small samples leads one to infallible conclusions.</p>
<p>The truth of the matter is that most of the people who go to the Ivies end up being nobodies just like most people who graduate from lesser schools. By that I mean they do not excel at anything in particular so as to gain some sort of national recognition or positions of high leadership as compared to those from other schools. Most of them are quite adequate in their careers, like most other people. But the few truly exceptional people, the geniuses, do indeed go to the top schools (Gates comes to mind, although he dropped out of Harvard), and these success stories are the people who carry the distinction of the Ivy name forward. The Ivies probably rely on 1% of their graduates to carry their names. Then you have the failures, the GWBs who we all know are not that bright but got into an Ivy based on family pedigree (I hear that accounts for about 20 - 30% of all ivy admissions).</p>
<p>My kids are not exceptional, just like the great majority of IVY students are not exceptional. My kids are bright, probably bright enough to get into an IVY. But there is no point paying the full ride to do so when they can get a perfectly adequate education at our Flagship State School for a much lower cost and can meet plenty of other bright kids for their late night bull sessions. I believe they will be better served by going to a State School where they will hopefully meet normal as opposed to snobby, status obsessed students who actually believe they are somehow better or smarter than the rest of the population. Thats what I want for my kids. A normal school where they can have fun and learn. And then a normal life where they can be happy. One thing is absolutely true. Ivies DO NOT produce happier and better adjusted people than the State Schools. I would suspect that some of the students in IVIES are there because of parental pressure or expectations and that some of these people will never be happy as a result, especially when they graduate and are relegated to a normal life like everybody else when they expected so much more for themselves. Imagine going from an IVY where you believed you were surrounded by the best and the brightest, and then having to live out the rest of your life surrounded by “average” people in the workplace. That must play havoc with the psyche.</p>
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<p>Do away with pricey LACs? How do you plan to do that? Bomb the schools? Turn their power off? Did you forget the definition of private? </p>
<p>What kind of problem is solved by a solution that entails replacing part of the best undergraduate education with wasteful academic factories?</p>
<p>John Rockefeller never went to college, is it the end of higher education as we know it?</p>
<p>The Ivy League is an athletic conference, nothing more, nothing less.</p>