I wanted to note differences between schools. Here is a copy of my comment, but there are also some resonses on the site. Anyway, here is the copy.
“Unfortunately, gross statistics can be misleading in the case of higher education. This can be especially true for low-income students who are most likely to not be able to afford the best colleges.
Here are some statistics from three schools that demonstrate the problem with overgeneralizations about college degrees. The schools are Duke, Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Missouri in St. Louis. The statistics I give are 30 year return on investment with aid (from Payscale’s site); the percentage of graduates who go to one of the top five business, law or medical schools (from a Wall Street Journal study); and the rank of the university as a feeder school to Ph.D programs. Here are the statistics.
Return on Investment: Duke $1,170,000; Wash. U. $547,000; Un. Mo. St.Louis $19,800
Percent going to top schools: Duke 8.6%; Wash. U. 1.7%; Un. Mo. St. Louis Don’t Know
B.S. to Ph.D. rank: Duke 12; Wash. U. 22; Un. Mo. St. Louis 223
Though I only picked three schools and the statistics are far from perfect, this should be enough to demonstrate that it is not true that “a college degree is a college degree is a college degree”. (Even for colleges that accept the same quality of student.)
The articles I have been reading here in the Atlantic by Jordan Weissmann have been full of the type of information, that when explained by someone with experience in the higher education is very useful. I thank Jordan and the Atlantic for that. I have tried to comment with useful explanations on previous articles. For anyone that wants to read these, they can be found on Jordan’s February articles on education, “How Many Ph.D.’s Actually Get to Become College Professors?” and “The Ph.D Bust: America’s Awful Market for Young Scientists—in 7 Charts”.”
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