<p>“Would this take away from prestige?”</p>
<p>I think that would depend on what your definition of ‘prestige’ is. In terms of the general public will it still be considered prestigious to go to an Ivy League school? Yes, I can’t see that changing… they will still always be smallish schools that are hard to get into. The comments were in line with how they will compare with other schools both in terms of the quality of the education they provide and the quality of the students they attract. In that department, I think we’ve seen a lot of movement and the top students no longer automatically go to the Ivy League (yes many still do, but there are now many more equally good and often less expensive choices available). There is a lot of evidence of this both in student output (as highlighted by yuiop) and the increasing pressure on Ivies and other expensive private schools to justify their much higher costs given that many would now question if, in today’s world, the education is actually any better. Harvard’s now taken that question off the table now with their aggressive subsidies towards tuition. However, financially many other schools facing similar situations can’t afford to do that and I think they might struggle to attract top students in the future. </p>
<p>If one feels that other places now gaining much more prestige takes prestige away from currently prestigious schools then yes I suppose it would take away prestige, but I don’t think that’s really has to be the case. At the end of the day, it’s the individual person and qualities that matter the most anyway.</p>