Posted on 12/25/2008 7:56:25 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Except certain sciences... IMO NO.
For a slide show of the Top colleges that pay off ( value for the tuition you pay ), see here :
http://www.smartmoney.com/Personal-Finance/College-Planning/colleges-that-pay-off/
How much of that is because of the education itself and how much because of contacts made in college and the families who send their kids to those schools?
According to Ray Kerrison of the NY POST, Here’s a list of some of the main players in this financial crisis and their academic credentials ( notice the Ivy League credentials) :
It was then discovered that Fannie Mae had improperly deferred $200 million in expenses, allowing Johnson and his cronies to walk away with huge bonuses. Johnson took down $21 million.
His credentials: A master’s in public affairs from Princeton University, later a member of its faculty.
Franklin Raines: Served as Fannie’s chairman and CEO from ‘98 until he took “early retirement” in ‘04, when he was accused of promoting massive accounting shenanigans enabling him and others to earn huge bonuses.
Raines left with a $90 million payout. He set in motion the subprime avalanche resulting in charges of “pervasive and willful” earnings manipulation, lax controls, perverse incentives, unjust bonuses.
Raines is a graduate of Harvard Law and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford.
Jamie Gorelick: Vice chairman of Fannie from ‘97 to ‘03, serving alongside Raines. In an interview with Business Week in 2002, Gorelick said, “We believe we are managed safely. Fannie Mae is among the handful of top-quality institutions.” A year later, regulators accused Fannie of a $9 billion accounting scandal, of which she was a prime beneficiary.
She walked away with $26 million.
Gorelick’s education: A BA (magna cum laude) from Harvard and a JS (cum laude) from Harvard Law.
Richard Syron: Chairman and CEO of Freddie Mac until he was terminated on Sept. 6. Like the rest, he made a killing while the ship was sinking beneath him. In 2007 alone, he took home $19 million in cash, stocks and other compensation.
Four years ago, Syron was warned by his own risk officer that Freddie Mac was embracing too much risk underwriting shaky mortgages. He brushed it aside.
Syron graduated from Boston College with a BA and earned advanced degrees in economics (can you believe it?) from Tufts University.
Rep. Barney Frank: One of Fannie and Freddie’s biggest boosters in Congress. In 2003, when the Bush administration recommended tighter regulation of the two companies, Frank rejected the idea out of hand, saying: “They are not facing any kind of financial crisis.” Famous last words.
Frank graduated from Harvard.
Sen. Chuck Schumer: Second only to Frank in the Congress in his unwavering support of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Three years ago, when Fed chief Alan Greenspan warned of problems with the two institutions, Schumer replied, “Fannie and Freddie have problems, and there are ideologues who want to undo it. But there are ways to fix the problems . . . When the sink is broken, you don’t want to tear down the house.”
Last July, Schumer raised an alarm on the solvency of a mortgage bank, IndyMac, setting off a panic among depositors, who withdrew $1.3 billion from the bank. Financial analyst Jerry Bowyer charged that Schumer had set off “the second largest bank failure in US history.”
Schumer got his BA at Harvard and JD at Harvard Law.
Sen. Chris Dodd: The No. 1 recipient in Congress of campaign funds from Fannie and Freddie. When they were about to crash with a thud heard round the world, Dodd said, “They are fundamentally sound and in good shape. To suggest they are in major trouble is not accurate.”
Dodd has a BA from Providence College and a JD from the University of Louisville.
The question arises: How could so many learned men and women, endowed with so many honors from America’s highest institutions of learning, set in motion the financial catastrophe that now grips the nation?
Conclusion: The evidence here is overwhelming that a superior education can certainly rake in big money - tens of millions of dollars, in fact - but sadly it is no guarantee of competence, judgment, prudence, trust or integrity.
Especially in politics.
An Ivy League education will open doors for the rest of your life. Damn right it’s worth it.
Exactly. Just as important as Ivy education was their baseness and corruption.
Any honest and decent person wouldn't have made it to the positions of the above mentioned illustrous characters.
A lot of business graduates from small, less well known colleges went on to open small businesses.
Which isn't a bad thing... and "small" businesses generally pay-off attending "lesser known" colleges.
Absolutely. And in quality of life measures beyond income.
But in a world of subsidized lending for college, who cares about the ROI on tuition anyway? Only absolute return should matter.
It isn’t the education it is the Rolodex.
Depends on what you define as “worth the money”. If it means securing the highest paying jobs, than often no. If it means becoming an expert in a certain academic field, than often yes, its worth it. If you want to study under great academics and do research for famous scientists, Ivy League may be a good idea. If you want to start a business, a good internship might be a better use of your money.
Not every institution of higher learning offers a course in "Scoring Major Moolah at the Public Trough While Undermining a Nation" in the curriculum?
Yup. The education is there for free in libraries all over, but the contacts can be worth their weight in gold and then some.
That's why I made a distinction between hard sciences and humanities.
The vast majority of Ivy faculty on the humanities is commie. There is no way of putting it mildly. You can't study under great academics in these areas, unless you become yourself a flaming liberal.
I would say yes only if you make good contacts that will assist you in finding a job. The alumni is very strong at Ivy League schools.
Compare the number of times someone from an Ivy League college says something like "I learned more about supply and demand curves than someone from a public university" versus "I had classes with/roomed with/was a fellow alumnus with X which helped me get a job at Y."
I know the Ivies also give some 100% to poorer students, but I wonder if they are kept out of that most important part of their private college experience.
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