<p>You seem to think I’m here to defend the study because I posted it. I never said it is or isn’t flawed. All I was trying to do is have people to consider the hypothesis and discuss it. </p>
<p>You keep restating the same points. I get it already. But if you notice the numbers, the researcher hasn’t misstated her findings when she summarizes her data. She is basically addressing how difficult it is for a tier 4 student to make up in salary for their undergrad degree regardless of the grad program they go to. You keep looking at tier 2 and 3 students who go to tier 1 graduate programs for their MBA’s and MD’s and how they do better vs tier 1 undergrads. I’ve already agreed with you about that those numbers were surprising. Yes, I saw the data, as did the researcher, I’m sure. But that is still a small part of the story. It does not negate all her other data. And the gap for tier 4 students is signicant and consistent. </p>
<p>I do find this study interesting. Would be important to see how this data applies by type of major. Maybe for Math heavy majors (STEM, Economics, etc.) the undergraduate rigor, great preparation, makes a bigger difference. When talking about college choices for my son - I have heard professors at flagship state schools (engineering profs) discuss the difficulty of some of the graduates students who came from Tier 3 (publics) and Tier 4 catching up in Math with the presumably more rigorous Math that their students who went to Tier 1 and 2 for undergraduate degrees got. Reminded me of a student at UT (“Tier 3” by this definition) complaining about multiple choice Calculus exams for engineers there (seemed implausible but maybe related issue if Calc is not taught really well).</p>
<p>I also remember an econ graduate student who went to Princeton undergrad, commenting to me how poorly prepared (in Math - especially Linear Algebra, Statistics, Advanced calculus) many of his graduate school classmates were who did not come from more rigorous programs and how much it hurt them in grad school. A lot dropped out.</p>
<p>There are intuitive reasons why some of the data about value of Tier 1 (and to a lesser extent Tier 2) undergraduate degrees should make sense if they teach relatively better things of value to the graduate programs, but this sounds like much more work needed to crunch more data to address the problems discussed earlier in this thread.</p>
<p>Princeton does offer the option of more mathematical undergraduate economics courses, so a student from there (or other schools offering more mathematical undergraduate economics courses like MIT, Chicago, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Berkeley) may have a head start on economics PhD study.</p>
<p>I posted this response in another thread to @2018RiceParent:</p>
<p>Good point that some state school grads may be under-prepared. They may not have as great of a network either (2 elite private-caliber networks being better than 1).</p>
<p>However, averages may be deceiving. Publics are more laissez-faire/sink-or-swim with less handholding. The resources are there for a bright kid to get an amazing education and grad school preparation as good as any at an elite private. But they would have to be proactive and internally motivated. If they just follow the sheep, they may not do as well. Certainly, slacker-types who just do the bare minimum required won’t do as well post-graduation if they went to state school compared to an elite private. Hungry bright internally-motivated kids will do perfectly fine anywhere, IMO.</p>
<p>Another thing is that if you examine the data, the good-private-undergrad advantage really only applies to women. Men who went to a pretty good state school undergrad and then a good private for grad school seem to do about as well as their private-private peers. However, the employment data for women is affected to a large extent by the large numbers that deliberately choose underemployment or dropping out of the workforce to devote more time to family. I wonder if there are cultural forces at work. Are the women who went to state school and then a good private for grad school on average more “traditional” in that respect than the women who went private-private?</p>
<p>I think you have to look closely, but I think it’s likely that different types (and tiers) of colleges provide different levels of preparation, even for highly able students. Another anecdote: my son is a composition graduate student at Juilliard, after majoring in music at Yale. He is finding that, compared to students who went to music conservatories, his preparation in music theory, and in general skills like writing, is superior. On the other hand, their preparation in ear training is superior to his. So, just to speculate–students from Tier 1 universities are used to a lot of close reading, and a lot of writing. If they go to a graduate program with similar demands, they will do well. It may be that students from Tier 4 schools don’t have that kind of preparation, and may have more trouble, at least at first.</p>
<p>The chart on page 7 of the author’s paper clearly explains the basis for the tier 1-2-3 breakdown.
Her tier distinctions are based on a combination of the Carnegie classification and the Barron’s selectivity index. There happen to be many more “highly competitive” schools in tier 2 (LACs) than in tier 1 or 3.</p>
<p>But why use the Carnegie classifications? What value do they add? Why not base the comparisons on the Barron’s selectivity index alone? Another researcher (Caroline Hoxby) did that, and also observed higher incomes among students graduating from more selective colleges (even after controlling for aptitude in a different way than Hersch does). </p>
<p>@Hunt: That doesn’t explain the difference by gender, though. Among men who go to TierI grad schools, there’s virtually no difference between public and private undergrad (comparing Tiers I and III).</p>
<p>Among women, there’s a big disparity both among those who go to TierI and those who go to TierIII grad schools.</p>
<p>Unless you’re going to advance the theory that the top men in state schools are more willing to engage in close reading even when not required or something like that, I have a suspicion that there’s a cultural component.</p>
<p>@tk21769 : indeed. The use of Carnegie adds only a few schools that aren’t highly competitive or higher to the private research universities, but a ton more to the LAC and public research universities groups, thus making the comparison not like with like. Would it have been too difficult to just create 3 extra groupings (separating the private universities, public universities, and LACs in to highly competitive and not)? Even if there was no ulterior motive, the tiering could certainly have had an effect on the overall results and conclusions.</p>
<p>BTW, Hoxby didn’t control for whether the students got admitted to an elite, however. Once that was controlled for, school choice usually did not matter.</p>
<p>Maybe part of the problem for me is that she’s using a 20 year old methodology, which Carnegie itself has called “flawed” and hasn’t used since 1994, the last time Canegie divided schools into the Research 1 and 2 and Liberal Arts 1 and 2 categories. Furthermore, Carnegie didn’t divide research universities into public and private. So that’s why the categories seem almost random to me.</p>
<p>The Carnegie Classifications weren’t meant to be a ranking of quality but back in 1994 they did use both percentage of degrees in LA fields and selectivity as dividing lines for their LA 1 and 2 categories.</p>
<p>@Sue22:
I agree. The use of some old obscure Carnegie classification that few people use instead of just Barron’s undergrad selectivity levels or USNews grad school ranks (her way would lower the average level of the public RUs and LACs vs. the private RUs). The division in to public and private (which neither Carnegie nor Barrons nor USNews does).
Labelling the private RUs “TierI”, the LACs “TierII”, and the public RUs “TierIII” (when Barron’s has all 3 types in all 3 tiers).</p>
<p>That’s what makes me suspect that the author has an agenda. Because the straightforward way of tiering would have been to use simply one system (like Barron’s or USN) for undergrad and one system (like USN or ARWU) for grad.</p>
<p>Hoxby (1998) used college admission stats (grades and test scores) to control for aptitude. She found that
“controlling for aptitude eliminates the majority (between two-thirds and three-quarters), but not all, of the income differences between college rank groups. That is, if we compare two men with the same measured aptitude, the one who graduates from a more selective college still tends to earn more over his career.”</p>
<p>Hoxby conceded, “It is impossible to know when one has controlled sufficiently for aptitude” and “some students may refuse admission offers from more selective colleges because they know something about their own abilities or earnings capacity that colleges could not know.” So it is interesting that Joni Hersch reaches a similar finding (about the earnings effects of attending a more selective college) even after using a different method to control for aptitude. </p>
<p>I don’t think using the Carnegie classes per se invalidates that finding, since ultimately she distinguishes all the “nonselective” from all the “most competitive” and “highly competitive” schools (regardless of Carnegie class). </p>
<p>Yes, Hoxby uses grades and test scores, but as we (hopefully) all know, the elite privates admit holistically, which means that they look at other stuff like ECs and essays and more that are usually more important than pure numbers in admissions. It’s that “soft” stuff that is likely to explain much of the remaining income difference between college rank groups.</p>
<p>Plus, someone who is insecure about their abilities wouldn’t reject an offer from an elite private; they likely would not apply to begin with even if they had high numbers. That probably explains the rest.</p>
<p>So I still don’t see firm confirmation that someone who could get in to an Ivy but chooses state school would do worse in life (other than in a few industries).</p>
<p>As for Hersch, she muddles things up. About the only thing you can say with the way she does tiering is that “most competitive” and “highly competitive” gives you an advantage over “nonselective”. But duh, and how many folks are deciding between Yale and Cleveland St. anyway?</p>
<p>Also, the poor way she tiers may mislead people. Obviously, no one would think that Syracuse and SLU are better schools than Dartmouth even though she has Syracuse & SLU as TierI and Dartmouth as TierIV, but some people who aren’t as good at understanding statistics may get the mistaken idea that Syracuse and SLU are better schools than SUNY Binghampton and SUNY Geneseo even though Barron’s actually has both those SUNYs on a higher tier than both Syracuse* and SLU.</p>
<p>*Obviously, Newhouse should be respected, but otherwise, there’s little to suggest that other schools in SU are superior to those 2 SUNYs.</p>
<p>I don’t think that there is any doubt that “better education” improves outcomes. But better education can be expensive. The question is not whether the most elite private education is better, but whether it is worth the cost and for which cases is it worth the cost. Other than the three Military Academies, these elite private schools spend more per-pupil. In general elite private schools (in part due to their large endowments and high tuitions, which subsidizes a lot of teachers and facilities) have smaller classes, more attention to each student, and some (like Rice, although not true of all elites) have a significant focus on professor teaching ability (not just ability to receive grants). In addition, students learn faster when challenged by their peers (being around smart students helps). Hoxby’s 25% adjusted difference in results seems plausible. But the real question remains - “When is it worth the cost?” not “is there any measurable difference?”</p>
<p>What would be most interesting to me is to look at individual graduate institutions and outcomes. There’s got to be a lot of data out there within the institutions themselves. I have no first-hand knowledge, but I am certain that Harvard Law knows all about the outcomes of its HYPS enrollees and its tier-IV-valedictorian enrollees. I am 100% sure that they track admissions data vs. law school grades, but I’m betting they also know how the admissions data predict career outcomes, alumni donations, etc. My guess is that any institution with a robust development office knows ALL about which admits go on to make money and so on.</p>
I agree that the quality of your education can make a difference. However, the thing is that a motivated bright student can seek out a quality education at any decent university/college or higher level. The Purdue/Gallup study comes to that conclusion: <a href=“Gallup-Purdue index releases inaugural findings of national landmark study”>http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2014/Q2/gallup-purdue-index-releases-inaugural-findings-of-national-landmark-study.html</a>. At most public RU’s, you’ll have as big a percentage of faculty interested in teaching undergrads as at most private RU’s.<br>
The biggest advantage (besides the better access in to certain industries) that certain elite privates have over state flagships is for those who are more slacker follow-the-crowd types and those from environments that are far removed from upper-middle class mores. A bright internally-motivated kid doesn’t need to be challenged by classmates to excel (and in any case, honor colleges at publics would have those types of kids) and they’d seek out extra instruction/research from professors (who may actually have more time to devote to them since the vast majority of state school kids wouldn’t be seeking them out, unlike at many elite privates). Not to mention that the smaller classes and more attention would be available in many honors colleges (and it’s not like private RU’s don’t have big impersonal lecture classes either). Also, some kids actually thrive better when they’re a big fish in a small pond (where the profs would be more likely to lavish attention on them).</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Unless you believe that holistic admissions is a giant waste of time, you have to come to the conclusion that Hoxby’s grades and test scores don’t capture the whole difference in entering student body quality, and that the ECs/essays/etc. that can get you in to an elite private do predict future success to an extent.</p></li>
<li><p>Those that aren’t motivated or confident enough won’t even apply to elite privates even if they have high test scores & grades. That’s also a differentiator. I believe that was a Dale & Krueger conclusion as well. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Take all those together, and I still come to the conclusion that for a bright motivated kid, unless they are targeting a small number of career paths (and especially if they’re upper-middle class to begin with), if they’re good enough to get in to an elite private (or maybe even if they’re motivated and confident enough to apply), choosing a lesser, cheaper option (so long as it’s at least an average flagship or decent LAC) would actually make <em>no</em> difference in their success in life.</p>
<p>Going to an elite private may make a difference for the brilliant slacker who manages to get in or transfer in, however.</p>
<p>The thing is, we actually know how well students of various schools do in getting in to elite professional schools or getting PhDs or winning student awards or in becoming great in their field (“American leaders”). The first is from a WSJ study. The last 3 are Forbes subcategories.</p>
<p>The numbers in Hersch’s study suggest that for males who go to a good private for grad school, there’s no clear advantage between attending a good private, state flagship, or LAC as an undergrad. Again, (outside of the lowest tier) the big discrepancy is concentrated among females (large numbers of whom deliberately choose under/no employment for family reasons). Which is why I’m wondering if there’s some cultural component at play here.</p>
<p>Well, she does show a 7% income advantage ($191K v $178K) for a tier 1 BA with a tier 1 post-BA degree over a tier 3 BA with a tier 1 post-BA degree. If we “un-muddle” her tiers, and compare only the “most competitive” tier 1 BAs with only the “highly competitive” tier 3 BAs who have tier 1 post-BA degrees, presumably this spread would increase. </p>
<p>I’d say the jury is still out on the value (in future earnings) of attending a more selective/prestigious college. It appears to be worth some price premium, but not a very big one unless the difference in selectivity/prestige is quite large. You have to compare on a case by case basis (taking specific career plans into account). Another thing to consider is that, unless your family income is rather high (> $150K or so), there may be little or no price premium to attending a “most competitive” college. In many cases, it will be cheaper. </p>
<p>Why presumably would that spread increase? As it is, she added a bunch of less selective schools to TierIII and only a handful to TierI.</p>
<p>Maybe there is <em>no</em> difference between “highly competitive” and “most competitive”. We don’t actually know.</p>
<p>Also, as I pointed out, the BA premium between Tiers I and III is solely concentrated among females (who have a high propensity to choose underemployment for family reasons). So it could be cultural rather than anything to do with school (unless you posit that men benefit more from public flagships than women by some weird fashion).</p>
<p>These conversations always seem strange. The same people who say the important thing is education not careerism then say the best measure of a degree is now income. What?!</p>
<p>That said, our economy has changed so much recently I’m not sure any of these studies has much relevance for current students who have to make school choice based on economic concerns. If it does, then we are headed for further and further economic class gaps and the social mobility in our country is going to be even further degraded with time. </p>