Are Elite Colleges Worth the Cost?

[preservationgal]

NYTimes Article Are Elite Colleges Worth the Cost? basically says, "no" although underprivileged minorities that attend elite universities do wind up significantly better off than their high school peers. On average, two students with similar backgrounds and similar test scores will have similar success after college, but the one that went to a

Comments

[tiurin]

I suspect the benefit to underprivileged minorities is mostly in the networking value, not actual education value.

[preservationgal]

This exactly. It's what my other half calls "Surrounding a person with success" to give them a better shot at it themselves.

[sasha_pervaya]

And then on the flipside, surrounding a person with success convinces people like you and me that by excelling at what we do, we too can have an interesting, high-paying job in our field fall into our laps! Which, as we've seen, is a lie.

[preservationgal]

bwahahahahahahahahahaha

[preservationgal]

My favorite graduate school professor (who has two post-bac degrees) said if someone had told her when she was 18 how much electricians and plumbers make she'd have never gone to college.

i totally agree with you that college isn't for everyone.

[tiurin]

The major problem with the American secondary school model is that it has taken what is a very good idea, that everybody should have the opportunity to try to go to college if they want to, and warped that into "everybody should go to college."

[preservationgal]

YES. Except in instances where the secondary schools have failed entirely (*DC*) and are graduating high school kids who can't write down a full sentence in English much less continue on to college.

And those kids shouldn't waste money and time trying for 4-year-lib-arts college since the education system has already failed them. They should just go hit up jobs like fivestone had and earn a living wage pipe-fitting or welding.

It's not like people can't go back to school later on in life and learn something then.