Only 150 of 3500 U.S. Colleges Are Worth the Investment

Did you go to school at Brigham Young? That describes every single Mormon girl I have ever met who went to BYU. They go there to get their MRS degree, and never work a day in their life.

But back to the main point–this goes to the fundamental disagreement that Itera and I have. He thinks that success is binary–either you have it or you don’t, and that the only way to get there is by going to a top-3 school. (Cue quote from CvM.) And if you can’t get there, then it’s time for some scrotum self sacrifice.

I don’t think that success is an all-or-nothing thing, and I think that “lesser” colleges benefit a lot of people. I’m a good example. Got my part-time MBA from a mediocre public school, and was able to GIVE the CPA exam. This has done wonders for my career. If (after getting out of the Marines at 25), I had applied at any of the 150 schools in the list, my application would certainly have found the working end of the shredder pretty quickly.

It’s not all about your achievements. It’s about your achievements relative to where you started. If you get the ball on your opponents 5-yard line and kick a field goal, that’s a whole lot different from getting the ball on your own 5-yard line and kicking a field goal. Nominally, they’re the same 3 points. But one is a relative overachiever and one is a relative underachiever.

Pretty sure TRH went to either Williams, Amherst or Middlebury, which was right in his Northeast intellectual liberal wheelhouse and then had to get the F out of dodge before he went insane so he moved to Russia and/or India.

Yes, he seems to be a poetically symmetrical foil to Henry David Thoreau.

Do you know me in real life?

You are manipulating what I have said. I have NEVER said the only way to get to the top is a top 3 school. I have said your chances are significantly greater, and it is without question in your best interest to shoot for a top school. The opportunities you get at that level are unrivaled (compared to a low tier school).

People do win the lottery, and poor entrepeneurs do become billionaires. But those are few and far between and it would be poor advice to hype up your opportunities at a crummy school compared to that of a top school.

I also think your success vs where you stand is a bunch of crap. you can’t just discount someone’s success just because thye came from a wealthier family. And you can’t set that person’s bar much higher just because their social standing is higher.

I also believe there’s a cutoff where instead of borrow lots of money, going to a crummy school to learn asian history, that person would be far better learning a trade like plumbing or masonery.

Success from where you stand? Well Buffett and Gates both grew up pretty rich. But I think they did a Hell of a lot more with their parental wealth than a lot of other people.

But sure, I guess all you can do in life is work with what your given and take the opportunities that life presents itself, so I get where you’re coming from, Greenman.

However, how dare you flip-flop and say “GIVE” the CPA exam. Shame on you! Ask yourself, What would Zimmerman do? Stand your ground :wink:

I am much more impressed that my buddy from the Jersey City whose dad is about a blue collar as they get got a PHD and became a professor at a major university (on this list) than I am the Eric Trump runs a large charity. Just saying. I’m also more impressed when a country boy becomes a deputy ambassor or CIA guy than when the son of the US ambassador to Iran does. Locations changed to protect identities.

While “success from where you came from” is relative, I don’t see how it affects this argument. Yes, if you are disadvantages, you are less likely to get into Harvard. Given your circumstances, it becomes more important, not less important, to consider the economic argument for attending the colleges where you are admitted.

Have to agree with ohai on this one, no matter how you slice the top 10, or 15, or 20, if you can get into one of those schools you are probably going to do fairly well. The real value in this data relates to the schools well down the list. Is it really “worth” it to go to school number 1037 (whatever school that is) if that’s the “best” school who will have you and that you can afford?

Real-life numbers:

Greenman’s salary before attending #752 - , $33,000 per year.

Greenman’s salary after attending #752 - $60,000 per year.

Again, I’m not saying that you should shoot for a school that’s low on the list. I am saying that for some people, a lower-numbered school might make a lot of sense. For example, BS would not consider going to school at Vanderbilt. If I could go back in time to when I was 26 and entering my part-time MBA program, I would give my left nut to go to Vandy. His decision makes sense, given his situation, and mine makes sense given mine.

Ok, please don’t let this devolve into the same discussion that happens every time. We have established that Whanvard is better than Vandy.

What this article is trying to say is that a lot of schools are just taking kids money without providing any ROI. I think that is true, despite the lack of good analysis in the article.

Greenman, I’m glad you doubled your salary, but that is anecdotal. I know the valedictorian of a large state school. I am sure her school ranks lowly on this survey, but that’s because the other 99% of people are less gifted/less hard working than her. The fact that her alma mater ranks poorly is not a reflection on her intelligence.

The average HS grad makes 25k and the average college grade makes 40k (about 60% higher). Also, the unemployment rate for college grads is about half of what it is for those without college. College with all its faults is still the best ROI around.

Bill Bennet is a partisan hack loser.

Yo Iter, you need a new drum to beat.

http://www.analystforum.com/forums/water-cooler/91313700

This is the for profit schools. I have to disagree with my man Shaq, U of P and any other publicly traded ‘university’ is complete garbage.

The real challenge is that academe has a broken business mode (one of the main reasons I left academe; though there were others).

There is no doubt that participation in the modern economy requires more thinking skills and global knowledge than the past, but what we probably need are more thoughtful kinds of trade schools, and perhaps a longer high school. The four year school just doesn’t fit the world anymore, because what we really have is a need for constant learning to adapt for changing workforce demands. So training is no longer - school, then job - but rather, school and job, with courses designed to be more on-demand.

We are kind of seeing this with the explosion of certificate programs (like the CFA, though people might niggle that it’s a charter). What we need is for businesses to recognize the need for their staff to allocate time to this, and also better industry acredditation of stuff that they find useful, with regular reviews of content so it can keep up to date.

We many need a longer high school (maybe two years) to cover basic material (history, writing skills, and the like) that wouldn’t be “chosen” by companies for specialization but are necessary to create informed citizens, but other than that, we need to have educational institutions that respond to the marketplace better.

And that’s exactly the kind of analysis everyone needs to conduct prior to deciding to go to school #752. While there were no guarantees going in, I assume you were pretty confident that you would get a pretty big bump and that bump would justify the cost. Of course the article and the numbers focus on undergraduate degrees, not MBA’s. Either way though, a prospective student needs to sit down and determine if spending $xx,xxx at ABC University to get a BA or BS from that school is going to pay off or not. Choice of major makes a big difference as well (probably bigger to be honest), but that’s a different discussion.

So we should have no carpenters, plumbers, electricians, auto mechanics, UPS drivers, etc.? What about average salary for community college graduates?

This is a bunch of bologna. All this time, Greenman’s been acting like he’s not some elitist despite going to #752, while working class Joe’s like me went to lowely ranked #1119

Dunno bout you higgy, but I wouldn’t trust a HS grad to build my house. I’d at least want him to learn the skills from some trade based education ;-).

If I have to cut my nuts off with a hacksaw, I shudder to think about what might happen to you.