Greg Mankiw must have made money hand over fist from his econ text to justify having no issue paying $2500 per ticket for Hamilton. 
Way off topic but a good friend recently retired form being the head of higher education publishing at a major house. he worked with all the universities and negotiated plenty of deals with professors and their text books. Youād be amazed at the royalties contracts. Many times just writing a new forward to go from third edition to fourth edition and itās another 300k-500k if itās a popular textbook. Not a bad life.
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He reportedly received an inflation adjusted $2.6 million + an estimated >$50 million in 22% royalties for his Principles of Economics textbook, which costs $300 new and has sold over 1 million copies (https://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/14/business/a-hard-act-to-follow-here-goes.html , A $280 college textbook busts budgets, but Harvard author Gregory Mankiw defends royalties - oregonlive.com ). His other textbooks have also done well enough to cover Hamiltion tickets. Some are regularly used in classes at other highly selective that are known for economics, such as Chicago and UCLA.
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Being a student at Yale, Iāve noticed (some) people are quite smart
But there are plenty of idiots and average people here too. I know that from experience.
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So by those numbers, the majority of Harvard College grads end up in only 3 states (MA, NY, and CA).
Does this include those who went to grad school too? As grad schools are fairly spread out across the country (even the good ones), that means those who enter the work force are even more concentrated.
Iād guess itās undergrad. Living in MA I can attest to the fact that Harvard grads are thick on the ground.
Countering that trend:
- The top privates have gotten so insanely expensive (and give little/no merit money), so many more talented doughnut-hole family kids are going somewhere cheaper compared to a generation ago (basically, the doughnut-hole was smaller/nonexistent then).
- I believe the Ivies/equivalents are filling more of their class with strongly hooked applicants, forcing talent elsewhere.
- The big publics (and some other privates) take in much more internationals compared to the top privates (often because they need/want the money) and many Internationals are quite talented and dedicated even if they donāt have the ECs/etc. to get in to Ivies/equivalents.
- Public honors colleges much more developed than a generation ago.
This has led to the rise of various schools below the Ivy/equivalent tier. Vandy and WashU helped by #2 (and #1 to an extent too). USC helped by all first 3 factors. NYU by #2 and #3. The better publics (especially those strong in STEM/business like GaTech and UIUC) helped by all 4 factors.
I think you see more bifurcation among public flagships because of all this too. I believe the delta between UIUC and, say, Iowa, in student quality is bigger than a generation ago.
I meant, do those numbers include Harvard College grads who went to grad school straight from undergrad.
How much of the admission competitiveness between different statesā flagships is due to the relative sizes of the state flagships to their state populations? IA, like AZ and HI (and perhaps some other states) have relatively few state universities that are large relative to the state populations, so they also function as the broadly accessible regional public universities that are not that hard to get admitted to.
Probably a lot.
The flagships in smaller states (especially in the Northeast and Midwest, where HS populations are shrinking) really need more and more OOS and Internationals just to run in place.
In my opinion, itās two things. One of them is the general level of academic achievement of the students. Most students who get into tippy-top schools on the basis of their class rank and standardized test scores (not necessarily on the basis of their familyās donations, or their race, or their desired athletic ability) are very intelligent and very hard-working. Iām no dope, and when I arrived at my Ivy, I was happy to find that there were lots of people who were my intellectual equal, and plenty who were smarter. Most people did their work. I also did one year at the top CUNY college. There was absolutely NO comparison. Many of the students who were there didnāt even belong in college. They belonged in community college, to do remedial work to fill in for what they hadnāt learned in high school. Friends of mine who had attended flagship state Uās said they had the same experience - that many of the students just werenāt serious students, although with the increase in the cost of college, flagship state Uās have become much more selective. As for the professors - they were equally good at both places. The competition for teaching positions at colleges is so tough that the faculty is excellent anywhere. If one is motivated, one can get an excellent education at oneās local state college, let alone flagship state U.
The other issue is who the other students are. One gets to meet other very high achievers at the tippy-top schools. These are often people from wealthy and influential families, from the US and from across the world. These are people who will be future scholars, politicians, lawmakers, judges, industry leaders - the leaders in every field in the US. Sure, there will be people in the US who are leaders who never went near any college, but in general, the concentration of 18 year olds who will be future leaders in the US will be highest at the tippy-top schools. If youāre there, you get to meet and go to school with these people.
So I would say that the real issue is who your peers will be, not that the school offers a better education because of having better faculty. Another issue may be easier access to research opportunities, internships, recruiters. But that too goes back to the issue of who your peers will be, at these highly competitive institutions.
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Harder workload and content (again).
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Agree with much of whatās been written above, but there is one important difference that hasnāt been touched upon. In Justice League, the Flash asks Bruce Wayne: āwhatās your super power?ā Bruce replies: āIām rich.ā Schools with huge endowments like Harvard and Yale can buy the best students, best profs, and best opportunities for their students. For students considering pursuing a PhD, where letters of recommendation make a huge difference in admissions, the letters from their undergrad profs will hold great weight at the highest ranked grad programs. Their extensive alumni networks make possible summer internship opportunities that are completely unavailable to students from other universities in the US, and their great wealth allows them to fund their undergrads for what would otherwise be unpaid internships.
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To address each of these in turn:
Yes, the Ivies/equivalents tend to have the most well-known profs in their field. . . along with some of the top publics.
As for resources/wealth/funding/connections/network these days, some (not all) honors colleges and elite named (funded cohort) scholarship programs offer the same.
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For example, over the years, Harvard has arranged Bank of England summer internships which are unavailable to US college students, and Yale has arranged EC Stagaire summer internships for undergrads. The EC positions are normally five month post grad (and most of the positions go to those who already have a post grad degree) positions and are totally unavailable to EU undergrads - let alone US undergrads.
I have not seen āhonors colleges and elite named (funded cohort) scholarship programs offer the same.ā They certainly offer excellent opportunities, but there are some things they just canāt match.
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How many students are getting those opportunities? Thatās usually my issue with these posts. Folks like to throw out opportunities that are super rare and go to a handful of students.
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Another thing too is that while London is definitely a more exotic locale than StL, Dallas, and the Twin Cities, the BOE is around the median of the regional Feds (slightly above the Dallas Fed and slightly below the StL and Minny Feds) when it comes to quality of research output (according to Repec). And kids from publics far below the top tier manage to intern at those places. Obviously they would be a big fish in the small pond they are in, but itās actually not clear that it would be easier to get the opportunity to do research with a top economist at HYPSM vs an honors college/cohorted scholarship program (even at a directional/branch public) as the folks who run those programs try (and have a vested interest in) setting up their students with good internships.
Definitely, if you are a rising superstar in econ (one of the best talents in the world), it makes sense to go to a school with the best econ faculty. But if you would be middle-of-the-pack at Yale upon entrance? A less famous school that looks out for its top students may nurture your development better.
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For economics specifically, would it more specifically mean an economics department that is not afraid to cater to strong students (including not being afraid to use higher level math and statistics as needed)?
LinkedIn shows zero summer interns at Bank of England who attended Harvard. They also donāt have any results for anyone who listed their college as Harvard and current or past employer as Bank of England, so it doesnāt sound like this has changed recently. Instead the intern and quality positions appear to be dominated by students at British universities, which makes sense considering Bank of Englandās internship requirement that ānon-British/Irish nationals are required to be currently studying at a UK university and hold a valid Tier 4 student visa.ā I expect that a student interested in such UK positions would have a much better chance of achieving goals by studying as an international at British colleges.
Iām not sure which EC stagiare internship you are referring to, but in general itās not the college that arranges the internship, itās the student and employer. Desirable employers may recruit at certain colleges and not others, but which colleges they choose are rarely primarily based on prestige. For example, itās quite common for some desirable employers to choose to recruit at the state flagship, including for interns, rather than Harvard. It depends on many factors, including the employer and position.
Continuing the linked in example, the most common colleges for some example positions at various employers are below. Harvard tend to do well at āeliteā Wall Street finance type positions, but not in many other desired fields.
Software ā¦ Intern at Google
- Stanford
- CMU
- Berkeley
- Waterloo
- UT Austin
Software ā¦ Intern at Microsoft
- GeorgiaTech
- BirlaTech (India)
- UCSD
- Purdue
- Maryland
Intern at NASA
- U Houston
- UCF
- Columbia
- UT Austin
- Purdue
Intern at SpaceX
- GeorgiaTech
- Purdue
- MIT
- Michigan
- UCLA
ā¦ Analyst at Goldman Sachs NYC Office
- Columbia
- Cornell
- London School of Economics
- Harvard
- Penn
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Well, an econ department doesnāt have to really ācaterā. I suppose they could advise, but info can also be found in the internet. Basically, take the math that a good econ PhD program would expect, which can be found at any research U (as well as any LAC with a math major).
BTW, as @Data10ās data suggests, geography does matter. Many of the econ faculty at any research U in the same metro as a regional Fed will have connections to the economists working at that Fed.