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Payton Zolck Prestigious colleges are not worth the money they make you pay. When seniors are presented with the time to apply for college, the prestige of attending reputable colleges or Ivy Leagues has been echoed many times as the path to a successful life and career after college. However, these highly expensive, prestigious colleges aren’t worth the name. According to a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, which followed 19,000 college graduates in their success post-grad, students attending prestigious and state colleges in the same area did not yield a vast difference in earnings. Another study conducted by economists Alan Krueger and Stacy Berg Dale revealed a similar result: students from elite schools did not earn more than students who attended less selective universities. Further, when interviewing for jobs after college, many jobs don’t consider where someone got their degree but rather the experience and characteristics that would make them the best fit for the job. Instead of focusing on the prestige of colleges and how we may look by attending these universities, we should instead examine the schools that would best fit our ideal lifestyle and would provide the best opportunities for our planned careers. Take specific career fields such as journalism, theater, music, environmental science, or computer science, for example. Choosing a school specializing in these particular fields may serve as more beneficial, as it can provide a student with many opportunities and a focused program. A specialized school or program could be more beneficial for success in a career by giving individualized opportunities, which would be harder to acquire at competitive, prestigious universities. As students, it is imperative we start considering how the
by
Nicole Coleman
school we plan to attend will serve us in terms of education. Nevertheless, ultimately it comes down to the person and their work ethic. No matter what school you decide to attend, if you are willing to put in the effort and reach out to make the connections and find the experience, you will be successful. Take two students; one is a high achieving student at a state school who reached out to work on a research project with a professor and is achieving high grades. They would probably be more successful than a slacker at Yale who is flunking their classes. Although these may seem like two extremes, it highlights the central point that inevitably, what we get from our college education comes down to us, not what school we attend. Reputable schools such as Ivy Leagues also come with a price tag. According to a study done about student loan debt by Adam Looney and Constantine Yannelis in 2014, Harvard students owed $1.2 billion, Yale students $760 million, and University of Pennsylvania students a whopping $2.1 billion. Students at other elite schools, like the University of Southern California, NYU, and Columbia, owed billions more. These immense college debts demonstrate how big the price tag for prestigious schools truly is. With the community college system, and state schools providing an affordable option for acquiring an education, if the quality of education comes down to the connections someone makes and the effort they put in, these extreme prices aren’t worth it. This is not an argument against the excellence of the academics of these schools, as they will provide their attendees with a deep and quality education. However, these schools’ opportunities don’t outweigh their price and the education you can get at less prestigious schools. Ultimately, which college you attend doesn’t necessarily matter in terms of prestige, but it is more dependent on the individual and how they use their college education to create success in their life.
JANUARY 2022 HIGHLANDER 49
