[SirLinksalot]

Here is the key sentence that is revealing to me ...

Despite more and more evidence that graduates of the most selective schools do not earn much more over their lifetimes than their counterparts at other very good but less selective colleges, many students (and their parents, who pay the freight) still believe there is the kind of earnings premium for attending elite schools that might have existed a half century back.

[Clemenza]

We alumni of U of Chicago like to refer to Harvard as a safety school.

[LA Conservative]

I'll be happy to get my daughter into Pepperdine, a halfway decent conservative university.

[martin_fierro]

[tbird5]

Yale (the school of choice for Taliban legacies)

HA HA HA

[GSlob]

"The Bell Curve" has a nice graph about the typical students at different schools.

[Tzimisce]

...and yet in this election year, we're going to hear all about how education is being screwed out of money. :(

[RayChuang88]

What's interesting is that the best business schools are mostly NOT Ivy League schools, if anyone read Business Week magazines knows. According to the Business Week lists, only the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania has a world-renowned business school program on both the undergraduate and graduate levels for the Ivy League schools (a Wharton graduate actually has more prestige than a Harvard graduate with an MBA degree).

[traviskicks]

A very good article. FYI, some more in a similar vein:
http://www.neoperspectives.com/college.htm

[jcs1744]

I have a lot of friends who ended up going to Ivy League schools and places like Notre Dame. I'd say more than half of them are just so unhappy being at those places, they ended up having to major in things that they simply aren't interested in. All of their parents basically forced them into going to these schools. The ones that have graduated haven't exactly gotten prime "Ivy League" jobs. I'm pretty thrilled that I decided not to go to one of the Ivy League schools I got into. I decided to follow my heart and I'm really enjoying college and what I'm majoring in now.

[Jim Noble]

I went 0-for-8 in 1968.

It sucked at the time, but has turned out to be meaningless, as is 95% of the who-gets-in-where BS.

[napscoordinator]

To all who think that Ivy Leagues are the be all end all. I would humbly disagree. I went to state school (FSU), my brother went to state school (Penn State) and my sister went to Catholic University (Seton Hill). I have had many friends that went Ivy and owed sooooo much money that they are still paying off the debts after 15 plus years and still complaining. I hope parents will talk to the kids about state schools or small colleges and see if maybe that is a better option for them. I understand how the "prestige" is especially to a senior, but life will go on whether a student goes to Ivy or not.

[ugstudent]

Is there any links/citations associated with this statement? I have heard this cited several times and would like to read this steadily accumulating research myself!

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Despite more and more evidence that graduates of the most selective schools do not earn much more over their lifetimes than their counterparts at other very good but less selective colleges
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[blahblah1]

I have to disagree with a majority of the points made in this article. Firstly, the fact that you suggest that “only 10%” of major business leaders in America are Ivy League graduates is impressive simply because 10% is high in relation to the percentage of college graduates who come from an Ivy League university.

Secondly, schools don’t “game to accept a lower percentage of applicants”; schools (from Ivy to state school to community college) all have set limits on how many students they may accept per year in order for their school. It is ridiculous that you suggest one school might tweak numbers so that they don’t take as many kids from one year to another, simply because they want better “stats”. Schools might accept fewer students (especially now, during a time rampant with budget cuts), but that has no correlation with trying to be “prestigious”.

Thirdly, when you talk about parents who drop 30 grand on their kids for a college counselor, you’re talking about a very small exception to the average American college applicant. What high school, private or public, do you know where the majority of students have a 30,000-dollar college tutor? None that I know of, for sure. And furthermore, you have just generalized every Ivy kid as being a rich, pompous, self-conceited brat who takes advantage of such resources. I am a student at Yale University (before you get caught up in the bias, remember that you yourself went to the humble college of MIT) and the majority of kids I have met do not have enough money to afford such extravagant counseling for applications, nor are they spoiled brats.

For years, I was set on attending my favorite state school in Colorado (go Buffs), and I still love CU Boulder to death. In fact, some of my best friends in the world go there; I am a firm believer that the education is practically equal at every school regardless of prestige. The DIFFERENCE is in the PEOPLE you meet. And I found that the diversity of faces, although still similar had more draw for me PERSONALLY. Does that mean I look down on them? NO. You assume so much, and yet make generalizations about everyone in the Ivy League based on the most extreme exceptions to the average.

Finally, we come to your last comment about affirmative action. I have met COUNTLESS kids who are African-American, Hispanic, or Native who, simply because of people like you saying that they “only got in because they fit under those three groups”, feel that they have been judged for their race and not their grades. Why do they feel that way? Again, because people such as yourself pointed it out and harped on it. Schools do not pull the quota card like it’s 20 years ago; get with the present.

In conclusion, I did not mean any disrespect in this post, but I thought I should clear things up because I very strongly disagree with so many of your points. Having had the most difficult time of my life in deciding between Yale and CU Boulder, I feel that it is my right to defend both state and Ivy schools.

Stop making generalizations, please, and then reassess just how “over-rated” your alma mater and every other so-called prestigious institution is.

(P.S. Thank you for your time.)

In conclusion,