Hey Adil, fellow elite grad and former debate team partner here with the opposing view.
The last decade has seen a significant shift for how students approach elite college admissions. Spend any time on Reddit or in affluent suburbs and it’s a lot different than when we applied to school.
I’m a fan of the pundits you mention and have read their requisite books. I do think one thing lost in Selingos book is how valuable a need based aid school can be for someone lacking funds. Many lower income students, like I was at Middlebury, went for practically free.
But many top students only index for prestige like it’s a handbag and other schools are lesser than which considering the flawed rankings is just wrong.
Yes if you want to work on Wall Street you’ll be best served at at Ivy which you probably won’t get into. And if you do your parents may mortgage the house to pay for it. And then comes the pressure for ROI. or you pay less to go to Baruch which also sends a lot of grads to Wall Street. Baruch isn’t better than Cornell but for a certain student it might be.
So many kids fall in love with the idea of a school then see it and it’s gone. Maybe after committing ED AND full pay. There’s no hedge against that other than alternatives. And good for the pundits for talking those up. The top 20 schools don’t need any more advocacy to drive more interest or students.
Brian, great to hear from you here, and appreciate the thoughtful push. Always loved debating with you, and against you :) You’re right that elite need-based aid can be transformative for lower-income families, and that’s a point worth underlining. Where I diverge from the pundit line is on two fronts:
1. Sticker parity + aid asymmetry: as you know from Midd, the typical choice isn’t between “Elite at $90k” vs. “mid-tier at $40k.” As I showed in my chart, sticker prices are ballpark the same irrespective of level prestige. And once aid lands, it’s often the opposite: elite net prices are lower, debt loads lighter. Families get told “less selective = cheaper” when the data often says otherwise.
2. Access funnels: Baruch does send kids to Wall Street, but the slope is steeper. The rational hedge that families are making isn’t prestige as a “handbag,” it’s prestige as a risk reducer in a system that overscreens by pedigree. That’s what pundits gloss over when they recast rational choice as pure vanity.
Totally agree more students should see and consider strong programs outside the top 20. But my worry is the way “fit” gets weaponized, shifting focus away from economics and outcomes.
Points well taken... I think the calculus and optimization is hard with so many unknowns and the point of those pundits is to get students to cast their net wide and be open to possibilities. Personally, I think that the elite small liberal arts school like our alma mater provides the optimal mix of an ideal network, prestige and a personalized experience.
But any consumer of higher education ideally has a number of options come admission time: perhaps a state flagship honors college at a fraction of the cost of the Ivy is the best move, perhaps not, or the mid-tier full ride. Debt for many grads continues to cripple their own balance sheets and those lower cost options can't be underestimated.
Prestige has a positive signaling effect early in a career when a worker has less of a reputation to rest upon. In my 20s "oh yeah Middlebury, good school" helped but then that signaling is less important in many industries. Surely there are some where your Yale degree will make a difference, but that's a minority of paths.
One thing I've noticed as the parent on college tours is that there is indeed a "vibe" on each campus that works or doesn't work and isn't easily quantified. Schools I thought would be perfect for my daughter we ruled out fast. It's that sort of vibe that my friend experienced on her visit to Middlebury in 1995 that had her return to tell me that she "hated it but it was perfect" for me. in short it should be more than a tie-breaker.
Anyway, interesting take as I think this is really about an optimal path that values prestige, but also isn't wedded to it as necessity. ROI can be found across the spectrum of higher education choices.
Hey Adil, fellow elite grad and former debate team partner here with the opposing view.
The last decade has seen a significant shift for how students approach elite college admissions. Spend any time on Reddit or in affluent suburbs and it’s a lot different than when we applied to school.
I’m a fan of the pundits you mention and have read their requisite books. I do think one thing lost in Selingos book is how valuable a need based aid school can be for someone lacking funds. Many lower income students, like I was at Middlebury, went for practically free.
But many top students only index for prestige like it’s a handbag and other schools are lesser than which considering the flawed rankings is just wrong.
Yes if you want to work on Wall Street you’ll be best served at at Ivy which you probably won’t get into. And if you do your parents may mortgage the house to pay for it. And then comes the pressure for ROI. or you pay less to go to Baruch which also sends a lot of grads to Wall Street. Baruch isn’t better than Cornell but for a certain student it might be.
So many kids fall in love with the idea of a school then see it and it’s gone. Maybe after committing ED AND full pay. There’s no hedge against that other than alternatives. And good for the pundits for talking those up. The top 20 schools don’t need any more advocacy to drive more interest or students.
Brian, great to hear from you here, and appreciate the thoughtful push. Always loved debating with you, and against you :) You’re right that elite need-based aid can be transformative for lower-income families, and that’s a point worth underlining. Where I diverge from the pundit line is on two fronts:
1. Sticker parity + aid asymmetry: as you know from Midd, the typical choice isn’t between “Elite at $90k” vs. “mid-tier at $40k.” As I showed in my chart, sticker prices are ballpark the same irrespective of level prestige. And once aid lands, it’s often the opposite: elite net prices are lower, debt loads lighter. Families get told “less selective = cheaper” when the data often says otherwise.
2. Access funnels: Baruch does send kids to Wall Street, but the slope is steeper. The rational hedge that families are making isn’t prestige as a “handbag,” it’s prestige as a risk reducer in a system that overscreens by pedigree. That’s what pundits gloss over when they recast rational choice as pure vanity.
Totally agree more students should see and consider strong programs outside the top 20. But my worry is the way “fit” gets weaponized, shifting focus away from economics and outcomes.
Points well taken... I think the calculus and optimization is hard with so many unknowns and the point of those pundits is to get students to cast their net wide and be open to possibilities. Personally, I think that the elite small liberal arts school like our alma mater provides the optimal mix of an ideal network, prestige and a personalized experience.
But any consumer of higher education ideally has a number of options come admission time: perhaps a state flagship honors college at a fraction of the cost of the Ivy is the best move, perhaps not, or the mid-tier full ride. Debt for many grads continues to cripple their own balance sheets and those lower cost options can't be underestimated.
Prestige has a positive signaling effect early in a career when a worker has less of a reputation to rest upon. In my 20s "oh yeah Middlebury, good school" helped but then that signaling is less important in many industries. Surely there are some where your Yale degree will make a difference, but that's a minority of paths.
One thing I've noticed as the parent on college tours is that there is indeed a "vibe" on each campus that works or doesn't work and isn't easily quantified. Schools I thought would be perfect for my daughter we ruled out fast. It's that sort of vibe that my friend experienced on her visit to Middlebury in 1995 that had her return to tell me that she "hated it but it was perfect" for me. in short it should be more than a tie-breaker.
Anyway, interesting take as I think this is really about an optimal path that values prestige, but also isn't wedded to it as necessity. ROI can be found across the spectrum of higher education choices.