Are prestigious colleges really so much better than everywhere else?

I recently watched Varsity Blues, and it really stuck out to me how much they were hammering on the point that prestigious colleges aren't anything particularly special. I'm willing to believe this, but I wish they would have given some evidence to support their somewhat counterintuitive claim.

People on reddit seemed to like my last analysis of college admissions, so I thought I would do a review of what economics research says about the value of prestigious colleges. I've written a more detailed analysis elsewhere, which I encourage you to read, but here's the quick summary:

The Educational Value

It's somewhat widely believed among economists that college is basically not about human capital formation at all--it's all about signaling intelligence and conformity to employers, and learning is completely unimportant. I don't 100% buy this, but I think it definitely has some points in its favor. For instance, there isn't a big movement of people trying to sneak into the back of Yale lectures, even though doing so is really easy (some classes are even available free online); therefore, the actual education part of elite schooling can't be what people are so eager to get.

There are studies that show increases in critical thinking ability in college, but it seems like there's a hard limit to how much scores improve. I think it's unlikely elite schools would really be able to boost your critical thinking much higher than other schools given this data

The Credential/Connections

Graduates of elite schools make a lot more money, but studies comparing students who were accepted at elite schools but chose not to attend with those who did attend finds no effect on income for the general population but a positive effect for students from low-income backgrounds. I think there may be some reason to believe the study is systematically understating the benefits of elite education, but not in a way that will shift the data considerably. The credentials from an elite school are particularly important for fields like finance and consulting, or top grad schools.

Conclusion

It seems like the case for elite education is pretty muddy. The main benefits are increases in social mobility for students from lower-income backgrounds and those students who want to go into high-prestige fields. Overall, this seems like a conclusion college applicants can find comforting. Elite schools are a goal worth working towards, but students who fall victim to the inherent randomness of the admissions process can rest easy in the knowledge that smart, driven people seem to do pretty well no matter where they go.

I hope you all find this helpful, and I'm curious to know your thoughts. Are there factors I didn’t consider?

Submitted March 27, 2021 at 08:36PM by eastwind-404 https://ift.tt/2PbjPYI