Is an Ivy League education worth the money ?

Smart Money ^ | Dec 16 2008 | Neil Parmar

[Viet Vet in Augusta GA]

Too narrow a definition of education. College is not, IMHO, the same as a trade school where you can compare cost/revenues. Hopefully a good college, Ivy league or similar, will make you an educated person with a background in literature, the arts, philosophy, etc. so you can lead a meaningful life and enjoy the fruits of your work. (Trinity (Hartford) ‘65 - English Major; Columbia ‘66 - Masters; Harvard Law ‘72 with US Army ‘66-’69 in between. I like the people I served with in the Army better than my classmates in any of the schools mentioned).

[staytrue]

name-brand cachet that, along with their active alumni networks, have long provided entrée into the upper echelons of the working world.

Your question: 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?

Coming from a poor area in Ohio and going to Stanford, I can say the facilities and profs at OSU are just as good for the undergrads. I'm going to say, the name cache and friends you make have made Stanford worth 10-100 times the tuition they charged.

For example, Filo and Yang who started Yahoo met at Stanford, as did Hewlett and Packard, and Brin and Page of Google. While my friends at Stanford are not high profile like that, they are way above who you meet at a public school.

Further, the financial aid at the Ivies are usually much higher than at the publics.

I will say that maybe some of the second tier Ivies (Columbia, Smith, Swathmore, Brown, etc.) may not be worth it. But the upper tier of Cal tech, MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Georgetown, Princeton definitely are.

[staytrue]

After all, who would've guessed that Texas A & M, No. 1 in our survey, would deliver a payback more than two and a half times that of Harvard?

An expert in political fundraising told me, if you go to Texas AM, this is one of the best schools to have alumni support you. She said, graduates there are very close and fundraising is not much of a problem.

[truthguy]

NO! Strictly in terms of education.

YES! In term of credentials and prestige.

Note: There are probably about 2 dozen or maybe more excellent public universities where you can get just as good of an education as any of the Ivy League Schools. They also cost quite a bit less. But the Ivy League Sheepskin is deemed to be more valuable to so many. So I would have to say YES the Ivy League diploma is worth it.

[SeekAndFind]

So I would have to say YES the Ivy League diploma is worth it.

Even if one has to go in debt for $250,000 ?

[staytrue]

My advice to anyone able to get into an Ivy League college is to do it. Don’t hesitate. Yes, you will have high debt on graduation but you will make it up in spades. Just my 2 cents (which would have been 50 cents had I graduated from the Ivy League college)

I'm from Ohio. I did not know much about stanford and neither did most anyone else I knew in Ohio. I almost went to Ohio State for the same reasons you went to a state school. And I'm glad I went to Stanford.

[pieceofthepuzzle]

“An Ivy League education will open doors for the rest of your life. Damn right it’s worth it.”

But it shouldn’t. Having spent time at both state and Ivy universities it is my opinion that the Ivy universities are extremely overrated. In some fields I would say that certain Ivy League Universities are significantly inferior. The other interesting thing to note is that many of the best people on the faculty at Ivy universities did not train at Ivy universities.

[shhrubbery!]

Let me give you a perspective from someone who had the opportunity to go to an Ivy but did not. I had very high SAT scores (I won’t boast). Thus I got offered admission into both Harvard and Yale. However, due to the fact that my father was a middle class guy with a decent income I was not offered a substantial scholarship.

I appreciate your point (that given the choice again, you would've attended the Ivy).

Your post struck me for another reason, which is the quaint idea that very high SAT scores give a student a chance of admission to Harvard and Yale.

That may have been true 20 years ago but it certainly has not been so for white or Asian guys recently.

When one of my sons was of college-application age a few years ago, I saw several of his ultra-high scoring, ultra-qualified classmates get rejected from all the Ivies and from MIT.

The Ivies offer no merit-based scholarships, either, AFAIK. (Not if you're caucasian, anyway. For URMs -"underrepresented minorities"- it might be a different story.)

[truthguy]

My conclusion; It's not so much about the quality of the education but what other people PRECIEVE.

There is also the issue of the contacts you make. That's just as important. That's the real issue here. If you are in a business where you are your own boss then the Ivy League (or about a dozen or so other schools; Northwestern, MIT, Standford) isn't that important. But when you have to deal with others that is where it becomes valuable.

[shhrubbery!]

Yes, gcc is an excellent school. It’s an “old school” liberal arts college, by which I mean they teach English and history the way all good schools (including the Ivies) used to teach those subjects before trendy rot settled in.

[seowulf]

What if you want to get into law, MBA or med school? Having that Ivy undergrad will give you a better shot of getting in. And then after med school having that pedigree will again help you matching for residency at a better place.

Sounds as bad as affirmative action.

I not sure I want a surgeon cutting on me who got into med school or a "good" residency because he has connections.

He may just be a talentless hack who's going to butcher me. How would I know?

[the invisib1e hand]

Is an Ivy League education worth the money ?

I think unemployment benefits are about the same no matter where you went to school

[pieceofthepuzzle]

I not sure I want a surgeon cutting on me who got into med school or a “good” residency because he has connections”

Good reasoning. Ivy medical schools and residencies aren’t necessarily exceptional clinical training programs. They can be, but it is not a given. The ranking of medical schools is based in large measure on the amount of federal grant funding that those institutions have been awarded, which is most often for basic research. These grants, and the number of scientific publications from those institutions are not good indicators of the quality of clinical medical education or clinical skill of the faculty. From a clinical perspective only some of the Ivy universities with medical programs are outstanding.

[The_Reader_David]

Well, I think mine was worth every dime. Of course, I only went to an Ivy for grad school, and they payed me to be there, so maybe I have a biased view. :-)

[PapaBear3625]

If you want to study under great academics and do research for famous scientists, Ivy League may be a good idea.

How much do undergrads see of these great academics? For getting your PhD, yes. Particularly since if an employer sees an MIT PhD, he won't even ask where you got your BS.

[Oldhunk]

If you are the type of person who is happy having a boss for your entire working career, the Ivy education is probably worth it.

[SoftwareEngineer]

You are right. SAT alone wont do it, although since I had a 1600 atleast that separated out my application (sorry, not trying to boast, just telling you why my application was separated to be reviewed). I still had to do my essay and all that jazz and a personal interview.

You are right. If you are White, Asian (Chinese or Japanese or Korean) or Indian (Hindu or Sikh) good luck getting ANY kind of scholarship.

In fact if you are Asian you have the highest amount of reverse discrimination done to you in this nation (even more than Whites)

[combat_boots]

Yeah, but those private databases of alumi whom you can contact about jobs. Those are worth something.

[aggie21]

Gig ‘Em Ping

[SeekAndFind]

Of course, I only went to an Ivy for grad school, and they payed me to be there, so maybe I have a biased view. :-)

That doesn't count in these discussions. We're talking about PAYING for an Ivy League Education vs. PAYING for a Good Public University.

Of course if a Harvard or Yale is going to pay for your tuition, you'd by foolish not to go for it.