Does It Matter Where You Go To School? Some New Thoughts

[downtown]

So I don't have time to crunch all the data now, but I've had enough experiences with these over the last few months that I thought I'd start a thread about it.

Most people casually familiar with US higher education know that 1) We have a crapton of colleges and universities, and that 2) there are "good schools' and "bad schools". The most common way of determining which is which is using the much-maligned US News Reports.

When I graduated HS in 2005, I remember there being a very strong cultural push to attend the best school possible. State schools, including decently well regarded ones like Miami of Ohio, and Ohio State, were regarded as fallbacks of last resort, and parents, guidance counslers etc pushed towards the "best school". In many pockets of the US, I think this attitude still is in effect, albiet a little less so, with the skyrocketing costs of college.

I know a LOT of people (as I'm sure many of you do as well) who are underemployed and face significant debt burdens after getting their degree. Given that economic conditions that really disadvantage young people are not likely to change soon, it seems to me that placing a higher emphasis on avoidind debt burdens would be wise.

I work in the staffing industry now, so all I do everyday (besides lurk here and twitter), is either talk to hiring managers about what they're looking for, or read resumes. I've been surprised to find so many people this month who are making veyr good money (6 figures) who went to commonly described as crappy schools...schools outside of the US NEWS top 175, or even online schools. I have read 30 resumes today of people who got their MBAs from Devry and now make 150,000.

Do we need to reevaluate our opinion of some of the "lesser" schools? I'm thinking that if you are studying something directly applicable to a job (say, a more IT related major), going to a lesser-ranked school should be perfectly fine. Do we really think there is a substantive difference between a school ranked #40 and one ranked #75, except in price, and maybe average ACT score?

Why would you want to go to say, DePaul, (a private college in Chicago, ranked #132, at 33,000 a year), when you can go to University of Illinois at Chicago (ranked #150, just across the street, 13,000 a year), unless there was a very specific major that only DePaul had?

I think once you get outside the Ivy League or Ivy-like private college (say, the top 20), there really isn't a big difference between #26-#80. Below 80 or so, there isn't a big difference between 81-150, as long as you're a good student and willing to sell yourself. Why spend the extra 30 grand?

Am I crazy here?

 

[BvBPL]

There are a number of elements that cause me to question your thesis. Principally, I think the role of collegiate education in finding a job is smaller than the role that social networks play in finding a job. Most jobs are still obtained through social networking between peers. The real economic advantage of going to a good school is not the quality of the education, or even the prestige of the institution, but the alumni networks that enable access to parties that are already wealthy. These alumni networks tend to be a lot stronger in prestigious schools than in less prestigious schools. Since the CVs you’re seeing are coming to a staffing agency, I think we can assume that the social networks of the people sending you their CVs have failed them in finding a new job. So basically, when you look at the salaries commanded by those who went to prestigious schools you’re basically seeing the outliers who didn’t make sufficient contacts within the school to assist them.

In addition, I think we should ask if you are correcting for the level of workplace experience of your clients. It seems reasonable to suggest that a worker with ten years’ experience in an industry will command a superior salary than those that just came out of school. At a certain point, the CV talks and the BA walks.

Finally, I think it is questionable whether it is fair to compare a BA from DuPaul with a MBA from Devry. The MBA, as a professional degree, commands noticeably more attention than any BA. Furthermore, it is possible, given the nature of the school, that someone who obtains an MBA from Devry may already be employed in a business administration capacity and is using the MBA as a way to advance an already healthy career. This is significantly different than the experience of a student who has just earned his MBA but has never had a occupation.

 

[illram]

School prestige is big in sectors of the legal community and from experience, it is mainly a psychological thing. Large business clients like reading the bio page of the partner they are using for their M&A and seeing an Ivy League credential. It is an indicator to people devoid of any other means of evaluation that the person "must be smart," at least. It's a warm and fuzzy thing.

In practice there is rarely much of a difference between the school and the skills someone can muster to their profession. Only experience can really tell you that. What school you got into is an indicator of what grades you got and how well you did on standardized tests; I am not convinced those things alone are really a good indicator of how well someone can actually do a specific job, such as lawyering. Sometimes they actually give you the wrong impression. I think this translates into other professions where there is a disconnect between pedigree and actual skill. It might be more important in applied things like graduate degrees in math and scientific fields where your school choice might indicate who you worked with, and where standardized tests might translate into the skills required for those fields... but I am speculating there.

 

[Patroklos]

I think the snobbery about state schools is a Northern thing, at least far more than in other areas of the country. In the West and South with some notable exceptions like say Stanford or Duke I really don't see a stigma against state schools.

In fact, State schools like VT/UNC/USC/Alabama/Florida are generally the first choices. I think a good part of this is those schools getting a lot of exposure due to their sports teams (deciding on a school based on sports fandom is stupid, but better than going 100K in debt I guess). Also, since many of the elite expensive private schools are clustered in the North there may be more pressure to imagine yourself included in that world.

As and example I graduated from high school in VA and even with places like Richmond University and Georgetown, top ranked private universities nearby, most wanted to go to either public UVA or public VT. And even between UVA and VT, VT was far more in demand despite UVA being ranked higher on paper. Part of that was VT being an engineering school and UVA being (perceived at least) a liberal arts school.

 

[downtown]

Since the CVs you’re seeing are coming to a staffing agency, I think we can assume that the social networks of the people sending you their CVs have failed them in finding a new job. So basically, when you look at the salaries commanded by those who went to prestigious schools you’re basically seeing the outliers who didn’t make sufficient contacts within the school to assist them.

Nah, I actually don't get very many resumes from people who actively apply. I usually try to steal employees from other companies, so I focus on people who already have jobs. There are certain data mining programs (like Jigsaw and Hoovers) that let headhunters find people who aren't in the active jobhunting pool.

Finally, I think it is questionable whether it is fair to compare a BA from DuPaul with a MBA from Devry. The MBA, as a professional degree, commands noticeably more attention than any BA. Furthermore, it is possible, given the nature of the school, that someone who obtains an MBA from Devry may already be employed in a business administration capacity and is using the MBA as a way to advance an already healthy career. This is significantly different than the experience of a student who has just earned his MBA but has never had a occupation.

That's a fair point, but I've yet to find anybody who got their degree from a bigger name school (say, somebody in the top 150) and then got an MBA from Devry. What is far more common is for somebody to get their BA from an online school, or a very lowly ranked state school (say, an Eastern Illinois or a Youngstown State), and then going to a DeVry type place.

Your point about social networks is a good one, and one that I think people should place more emphasis on when making a college decision. I went to Ohio State, which is a good school, but not an outstanding one. It does have the largest alumni network of any other university in America though, and I've been able to use that to get ahead of people who went to much more expensive institutions.

I think that a high achiever at a lower ranked state school can find themselves in similar social networking circles as students in more expensive, and perhaps more highly regarded schools, expecially if you are attending a school in an urban area. Part of this is personality...if you're somebody who is terrible at networking, perhaps paying extra for the networking premium is worth it. I'm skeptical of it though.

School prestige is big in sectors of the legal community and from experience, it is mainly a psychological thing. Large business clients like reading the bio page of the partner they are using for their M&A and seeing an Ivy League credential. It is an indicator to people devoid of any other means of evaluation that the person "must be smart," at least. It's a warm and fuzzy thing.

Yeah, I know it's still a big deal with the legal community, along with consulting and medicine. I think it's silly, but there we go.

 

[sophie]

It really depends on what you want to do. Professions like law, medical work, any higher education positions, and the like, it really does matter where you went and what you studied, but for your run of the mill white collar job, I don't think it matters so much where you went or where you studied; rather just the fact that you have a bachelor's is important.

 

[downtown]

I think the snobbery about state schools is a Northern thing, at least far more than in other areas of the country. In the West and South with some notable exceptions like say Stanford I really don't see a stigma against state schools.

In fact, State schools like VT/UNC/USC/Alabama/Florida are generally the first choices. I think a good part of this is those schools getting a lot of exposure due to their sports teams (deciding on a school based on sports fandom is stupid, but better than going 100K in debt I guess). Also, since many of the elite expensive private schools are clustered in the North there may be more pressure to imagine yourself included in that world.

Yeah, there aren't many other options in the South...there are only a handful of fancypants private schools (Duke, Tulane, Richmond, Rice, Vandy, Davidson, Elon?). With the exception of the HBCU schools, I'm not sure the gap between the best public school in the state and the 2nd or 3rd best is that high either. It's different in the midwest and northeast.

 

[illram]

In the West, some of the best schools are State. (UC Berkeley, UCLA.) Never thought of it that way but the whole State < Private does seem like a "Northern" thing I guess.

I raised the example of the legal field but I think it is applicable to most professions. Your school pedigree is good for bragging rights and a foot in the door at some of the more "prestigious" jobs in certain fields, but nothing much beyond that.

 

[JollyRoger]

I went to SMU law because I couldn't get into Texas Tech. Though their admission standards (GPA/LSAT) were and are similar, SMU consistently ranks at around 50 in US News and Tech is listed as a third tier toilet. The big Dallas firms were more selective about taking on Tech grads in relation to SMU grads. Even at the retail, solo level where I operate, SMU gets undeserved credibility from my petential client base as there is some mistaken local presumption that it is the Texas equivalent of an Ivy League school. One client alone that chose me because of SMU and would not have chosen me if I had went to Tech has paid me enough to make up the price difference. So it can matter in some situations but it shouldn't.

 

[MobBoss]

In talking with various attorneys and other professionals, unless you are going to an extremely prestigious school and are in the pipe to work at a firm/hospital/etc. that actually cares about such things, then it matters. For the other 99% of us - not so much.