<p>The more amazing thing is that Texas A&M and UT are even close in salaries (obviously even more surprising that Texas A&M is higher in some measures of salaries) given the significant difference in admissions (top 7% cutoff at UT for most admits vs. much lower threshold for A&M).</p>
<p>I don’t know the reasons and haven’t attended either, but it is a fascinating comparison since the two schools have multiple similarities (size, cost, region, graduation percentages etc.). The obvious reasons (A&M is more engineering for example) don’t work since A&M and UT have similar percentages engineers and even similar overall graduation rates and sizes, and Austin area itself has higher salaries (where UT is) than other cities in the state.</p>
<p>Similar comparisons in other states (UCLA vs. Berkeley, William and Mary vs. UVa and Colorado School of Mines vs. Boulder) don’t match up as cleanly as UT vs. A&M but might also be sources of useful objective data on comparison of practices that work well in education.</p>
<p>Comparing Mines and CU would not work at all because of the vast differences in majors.</p>
<p>Anyway, UT-Austin and A&M having similar salaries would be amazing to you only if you think that the top 7% at each HS are uniformly better than the other 93%. I would argue instead that the 7% policy actually ties UT-Austin’s hands. Because that policy fills the vast majority of their student body with whoever meets that cutoff, UT-Austin can not really employ a holistic admissions philosophy (or any other admissions philosophy). Their student body will be filled with plenty of students from weaker school districts who would not have gotten the foundational education pre-college to allow them to catch up enough by the time they graduation. It would be interesting to know the socioeconomic demographics of the student bodies at UT-Austin and A&M. UT-Austin’s would more likely mirror that of TX, I imagine. Is A&M’s richer? A&M is definitely far more white (67% vs. 46%), less Hispanic (20% vs. 23%, and less black (3% vs. 5%). Also, the Payscale data you posted excludes those who go to grad school while the Payscale data I posted does not ignore those who go to grad school. I’m not sure why ignoring those alums who go to grad school is a better measure of a school since we usually think of an undergraduate school sending a high proportion of its student body onward to get advanced degrees as a good thing.</p>
<p>Also, A&M has 20% of their undergraduate student body in engineering while UT-Austin has 14% of their undergraduate student body in engineering, so what you said about them having a similar percentage of engineers is wrong.</p>
<p>Furthermore, even within engineering, you have to make sure that you’re comparing like with like. For instance, Cockrell’s 2 biggest majors are MechE and EE. However, A&M Engineering’s 2 biggest majors are Petroleum and MechE. These days, petroleum engineers earn a premium over even other types of engineers. If you compare starting salaries of the same engineering majors across the 2 schools, they’re essentially identical.</p>
<p>But also remember that long term surveys of career, pay levels, etc. are sampling graduates from years or decades ago. For a given college, things like selectivity, mix of majors, curricular offerings, etc. could have changed considerably over time. So sampling mid-career people may be showing things relating to characteristics of their colleges that are very different now.</p>
<p>OK, I retract what I said about the engineering percentages being wrong, then. That was a little harsh, I admit.</p>
<p>There might be all sorts of stuff going on with transfers as well as attrition.</p>
<p>And good point by @ucbalumnus about the makeup changing over time. Wasn’t A&M smaller, more male, and had engineers as a higher percentage of the student body if you go back more than 20 years?</p>
<p>Having a higher percentage of both men and engineers would certainly boost up average earnings, as a much higher percentage of women compared to men deliberately choose underemployment for family reasons once they have children.</p>
<p>Plus, A&M students could have come from a higher socio-economic strata on average. </p>
<p>Researchers like Hersch, Krueger & Dale, and Hoxby are trying to identify differences in inputs that correlate (or don’t correlate) with big differences in outcomes. UT Austin and Texas A&M don’t seem to be all that different either on the input or the output side. They are both in Barron’s selectivity category 3, with only a .07 difference in average GPA-W and a 26 pt difference in average SAT-CR. Their average mid-career salary difference is only $2,600 (per Payscale). These are small differences compared to the kinds of spreads that could be considered in the research literature. Rice and Auburn for example have a .54 difference in average GPA-W and a ~135 pt. difference in average SAT-CR. Their average mid-career salaries differ by over $21,000. </p>
<p>Researchers are asking:
given a difference that large in the earnings outcome, how much is attributable to differences in student ability (nature) v. college treatment effects (nurture)? If we control for ability (by considering only students admitted to both kinds of schools, or with similar high school stats, or who wound up in equally elite graduate programs) does the earnings difference disappear? Krueger & Dale say yes (pretty much), Hoxby and Hersch say no.</p>
<p>I don’t think what researchers here are trying to measure is purely nature vs nurture. Going back to the hypothesis, prestige is also a factor. It is a perception held by many that the best and brightest students attend tier 1 schools and therefore get the best education. Based on the prestige (reputation) of a degree from a highly ranked school, more people are hired for the most lucrative jobs. The question is: can the lack of prestige of some applicants undergrad degrees be overcome by graduate work. If it can, then those candidates from tier 1 through tier 4 schools should be perceived as strong candidates and hired for the same jobs at the same salary after attending a highly ranked grad program. </p>
<p>In other words, most people will agree that the best outcome from college would be when a student comes into a program with a high level of potential (nature) and that in the program their educational needs are best met (nurture.) The prestige factor comes into play when people assume that those with the most potential will only get the best outcome from prestigious (highly ranked schools ). So how much weight does the prestige factor hold in the hiring practice? That is a factor that influences some of the income numbers. </p>
<p>I’ll give an example of what I mean. The top accounting firms in NYC will recruit along with finance and consulting companies at tier 1 schools in NYC like NYU and Columbia. But the top accounting firms will also recruit at Cuny Baruch (tier 4, but highly regarded program ) for the same accounting positions and lots of very bright students accepted into Columbia and NYU will go to Baruch knowing they can land the same job. . So in this case the prestige factor is not as clearly defined among tiers. But later, if that same Baruch student tried to get into a tier 1 MBA program , with identical work experience, same gpa, same scores, they might not be accepted. (The variable being the prestige–or lack of prestige-- of his undergrad program to admissions .) And if he is accepted and goes from Baruch undergrad to Columbia grad, but wants to now switch to finance, he might be behind in salary compared to the student who went to NYU, worked in the same acctg firm and went to Columbia for an MBA.</p>
<p>There’s really no contradiction if you think it through. Hoxby doesn’t control enough (just test scores and GPA). When Dale&Kreuger add the controls of getting in to an elite school (or even having the motivation & confidence to apply), the difference disappears (except for those from URM/disadvantaged backgrounds, and I’d add immigrants as well). The effect that Hersch sees can also be explained by those from URM/disadvantaged backgrounds not being inculcated with upper-middle class mores or having those networks.</p>
<p>^^But how is prestige of a program being measured on the part of those who a) are admissions people at grad programs and b) are HR people who do the job placement and see both undergrad and grad schools? That, to me, is an aspect of the study that needs to be examined, too. Prestige doesn’t necessarily follow Barron’s and US New and World Report rankings and can have regional differences based on a whole slew of other factors (ie. brand name of school, a school’s athletics success vs. academics, etc.)</p>
<p>This is true. For for Wall Street and consulting, someone interested can find out what are industry target schools pretty quickly.</p>
<p>For PhD programs, your potential to do research matters most, which is why a ton of LACs and good public research universities as well a good private RUs send a bunch of kids in to PhD programs (also, academics tend to rate public RUs higher than USN does). For many public med schools, prestige doesn’t matter one iota (just MCAT, GPA, and research). Law schools care most about LSAT. Most industries are pretty regionally biased. Also, HR doesn’t do the hiring at most places.</p>
<p>Even on the Street, scrappiness and hustle is prized most. Basically, your individual qualities are more important than your school in almost all endeavors. Plus, outside the CC bubble in the real world, the idea of prestige is so different. In my company in the Midwest, a high-level manager (and WVU grad) described UW-Madison as a good school that’s hard to get in to. I’d heard Miami(OH) called a good school as well (which I don’t disagree with, but no one’s going to mistake Miami for an Ivy-equivalent).</p>
<p>If you have some ideas about what you will do after college, you really should research what schools an industry recruits at as well as how many people go there from a particular school, etc. (As well as the economics of the industry). Overall prestige is somewhat meaningless outside of bragging rights. Do research what a school offers, though.</p>
The organizations of the tiers make no sense in relation to the article. For example, comparing the post graduate success of a Berkley grad with an Arizona State grad isn’t reliable. Similarly, Reed College has one of highest percentages of students who go on to earn Phds. And I can guarantee they are earning them at elite schools. However they are lumped with the likes of Nebraska Wesleyan University.
Before this article can be taken seriously, they need to figure this out.