Jul

27

The top 10 of the lower tier colleges and grad schools make as much if not more than the bottom tier of the top ten schools. There are some reasons for this statistic. The competition is harder in the top ten schools so many smart people who can't make the top tier give up. They could have thrived in a less competitive institution. Or so says Malcolm Gladwell in his rambling book, David and Goliath.

Scott Brooks writes: 

Isn't it fair to say that attending a top 10 school gets you into the "good old boy" network of those schools?

If you attend a lower tier school, you don't get that benefit. Even the alumni of your lower tier school don't care about the fact that you attended SEMO (Southeast Missouri State University), too.

I also find (anecdotal) that those that attend the lower tier schools that go on to be successful are "under the radar" with their success. They may live in a nice house, but it's rarely an ostentatious house, and for the most part it's a boring small town or located in a city in "flyover country".

They also have less glamorous businesses than those that went to a top tier school or work for a less glamorous company.

You'd be surprised how many people in flyover country that went to Mizzou, or Missouri Science and Technology (formerly the University of MO, Rolla) or to SEMO that have a successful small business or worked at Boeing for 30 years that are doing just fine.

Most of these people have no debt, they have a decent 2,500 sq. ft. home with a 1/4 acre lot, a two car garage that is paid off, and between their pensions and social security, they've $6k - $10k per month coming in each and every month. They live very comfortably on that and travel the world.

But they also have $1m - $5m in their investments that they rarely, if ever, even touch.

And let me tell you what…95% of these people are very happy and satisfied with their lives.

So I guess the definition of success depends a lot on where you live and how you've come to live your life. 

anonymous writes:

"On the Payoff to Attending an Elite College":

"Students who attend colleges with higher average tuition costs or spending per student tend to earn higher incomes later on."

It's easy to imagine a selection bias there: Students who come from families that can afford expensive schools may already be networked into superior lifetime earning opportunities.

Regarding "Students who attended more selective colleges do not earn more than other students who were accepted and rejected by comparable schools but attended less selective colleges", this could be partly a legacy effect, i.e., children of alumni get, to some extent, preferential treatment and occupy spots in the incoming class that must then be denied to non-legacy students who may well be better prepared and more motivated. Those students get denied and then attend schools with lower requirements, where they excel.

Peter St. Andre writes: 

The most exclusive schools can choose students with the highest standardized test scores, which measure general mental ability or GMA; and GMA is strongly correlated with career success and lifetime earnings. It's not the education at the exclusive schools that helps you, but the fact that you were smart to begin with. 

Russ Sears writes: 

I wonder if athlete or academic scholarship students have a different distribution of future earnings depending on "cost" versus "eliteness", and if so, what does this say about the education quality or the student's quality that they bring to the table before going to the college?

I believe Malcolm Gladwell argues in his book David and Goliath that you should choose to be a big fish in a small pond in youth so you will be brave enough to try something new.

I found this true in my case. I maybe one of those people in flyover country that fit Scott's retiree profile exactly. But I am interested in other opinions.


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