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Private colleges are a waste of money for white, middle class kids

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Re: Private colleges are a waste of money for white, middle class kids

#21

Post by hacknat »

michaelochurch wrote: post #2

I tend to wish this were true, because it would be better for the world even if neutral-to-negative for me. In truth, though: pedigree shouldn't matter, but it does. Among the top 100 offerings or so, the differences in quality of education are very small. The differences in quality of students are pretty small. But connections matter, and even if Harvard student's aren't all shockingly brilliant, the dumb ones are c…

What a cute little story you've told. It sounds nice, but it just rings hollow with common experience. I consider myself a fairly social person, I went to one of the best Universities in the world. At least at this point, none of the people I still keep in touch with from my school (a fairly large group) would be helpful to my career in any way. I highly doubt they will be in the future. If, by some chance, in my 40s, a fellow alumni is helpful to my career by virtue of an arbitrary connection we have I would consider it remarkable, and a little bit of a personal failure.

I would never make a favorable business decision for the person sitting across the table from just because we happen to share an alma mater. If anything, I would be guarded against it being an issue.

I imagine the average person feels the same way that I do. I'm not saying there aren't politics as you make your way to a senior position, but don't count on any help to get there.

Re: Private colleges are a waste of money for white, middle class kids

#22

Post by rdtsc »

klochner wrote: post #20
loganadams_ wrote: post #10

I have a tough time with this article. I understand what it is trying to say. The costs are ridiculous. But what I see among my friends is that those who went to large public flagship schools got lost, and had a much tougher time. However, those who went to smaller private schools on scholarships built better connections with professors, and tended to do better long run.

My experience is that top students can get an equivalent if not better education at large public universities. (I went to Duke and Michigan) Public universities are much less forgiving , which means mediocre or unmotivated students get crushed in cases they would get hand-holding (and A- grades) at a private university. As for connections, they're important and you get better ones at top schools, unequivocally, but y…

> Public universities are much less forgiving

I went to a public school for CS. Noticed same. First and second years are full of "filter" courses. Calculus, Physics, and CS 101 weeded out whole swathes of students. Many large classes where you are mostly a faceless StudentID #. Many students switched majors, some schools, some droped out. It was brutal and this wasn't even a top tier school.

After that it was a lot better.

Re: Private colleges are a waste of money for white, middle class kids

#23

Post by Chronic29 »

benesch wrote: post #19
loganadams_ wrote: post #10

I have a tough time with this article. I understand what it is trying to say. The costs are ridiculous. But what I see among my friends is that those who went to large public flagship schools got lost, and had a much tougher time. However, those who went to smaller private schools on scholarships built better connections with professors, and tended to do better long run.

Interesting. That's directly opposite what I've seen. My close high school friends nearly all went to Ivy League-quality schools: Yale, Penn, MIT, Caltech, etc. Some of us are happy. Most of us are succeeding. A few of us are excelling. (Personally, I'm struggling. I have this irrepressible notion that liberal arts are a waste of my time, no matter how hard I try to subscribe to the learning-for-learning's-sake theor…

Interesting, in my experience, I've witnessed the opposite of what you've said. Most of my friends at private schools seem to be happier and tend to be more successful than those at mid tier state universities.

Re: Private colleges are a waste of money for white, middle class kids

#24

Post by Chronic29 »

mbesto wrote: post #17
jerf wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are going to send your kid to one of those, be sure to clearly explain to them that is the point, lest they fall into the trap of studying and getting good grades at the expense of networking. (I leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide which parts of that are sarcastic, and how much. Frankly I'm not sure myself.)

Pretty much every job I know of outside of our little SV tech bubble will reward you based on your college GPA. Unless something has changed in the last 8 years, a majority of my accounting/finance friends all were vetted on interviews and GPA when applying to E&Y, KPMG, Goldman and the like. Also, it's all about who you know. These type of people represent the majority of white-collar, white college graduate jobs ou…

Your last sentence illustrates the mentality of so many (unsuccessful) startups these days.

Re: Private colleges are a waste of money for white, middle class kids

#25

Post by hacknat »

Everyone talks about the great network-effect from going to a good school. As someone who went to one of these supposedly great "network-effect-ey" schools I say it's bullshit.

As a thought experiment, think of your own college experience. Do you really keep in touch with that many people? Of the people you do keep in touch with, can any of them open opportunities for you that are at all relevant to your field?

People who go to Harvard, Ivies, Stanford, Berkley, et al, have the same basic "College-Experience"(TM) as everyone else. No one wants to admit it, but it's not the network-effect that helps. It's the branding!

Harvard, the Ivies, et al, have brand recognition, and brand recognition helps...a lot!

If you're hiring someone, don't you think that the person with a brand that you recognize is going to at least get that person a phone-screen or an expedited interview? You're desperate to hire someone and they went to Stanford, so they must be good, right?

Ivy league degrees are simply the best door-openers out of all the door openers you can get. Once you're in the door they're as useless as the other degrees are.

Re: Private colleges are a waste of money for white, middle class kids

#26

Post by rayiner »

klochner wrote: post #20
loganadams_ wrote: post #10

I have a tough time with this article. I understand what it is trying to say. The costs are ridiculous. But what I see among my friends is that those who went to large public flagship schools got lost, and had a much tougher time. However, those who went to smaller private schools on scholarships built better connections with professors, and tended to do better long run.

My experience is that top students can get an equivalent if not better education at large public universities. (I went to Duke and Michigan) Public universities are much less forgiving , which means mediocre or unmotivated students get crushed in cases they would get hand-holding (and A- grades) at a private university. As for connections, they're important and you get better ones at top schools, unequivocally, but y…

This is absolutely true. I went to Georgia Tech for undergrad, Northwestern for law school. After being given the run-around any time I wanted to do any little thing, I was floored by how much attention I got in the private institution. When my wife got pregnant her third year of school at Northwestern, with a delivery date during finals, our dean of students took care of everything to accommodate her. At Tech, she would've been shuffled from disinterested administrator to disinterested administrator for weeks.

Re: Private colleges are a waste of money for white, middle class kids

#27

Post by pfisch »

benesch wrote: post #19
loganadams_ wrote: post #10

I have a tough time with this article. I understand what it is trying to say. The costs are ridiculous. But what I see among my friends is that those who went to large public flagship schools got lost, and had a much tougher time. However, those who went to smaller private schools on scholarships built better connections with professors, and tended to do better long run.

Interesting. That's directly opposite what I've seen. My close high school friends nearly all went to Ivy League-quality schools: Yale, Penn, MIT, Caltech, etc. Some of us are happy. Most of us are succeeding. A few of us are excelling. (Personally, I'm struggling. I have this irrepressible notion that liberal arts are a waste of my time, no matter how hard I try to subscribe to the learning-for-learning's-sake theor…

You can't assess anything until college is over and you are actually in the real world. Good Grades does not mean you will succeed in real life. It mostly means you are good at following orders.

Re: Private colleges are a waste of money for white, middle class kids

#28

Post by aetherson »

pfisch wrote: post #27
benesch wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. That's directly opposite what I've seen. My close high school friends nearly all went to Ivy League-quality schools: Yale, Penn, MIT, Caltech, etc. Some of us are happy. Most of us are succeeding. A few of us are excelling. (Personally, I'm struggling. I have this irrepressible notion that liberal arts are a waste of my time, no matter how hard I try to subscribe to the learning-for-learning's-sake theor…

You can't assess anything until college is over and you are actually in the real world. Good Grades does not mean you will succeed in real life. It mostly means you are good at following orders.

I think good grades probably mostly means that you picked courses you're well suited for.

Re: Private colleges are a waste of money for white, middle class kids

#29

Post by [deleted] »

pfisch wrote: post #27
benesch wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. That's directly opposite what I've seen. My close high school friends nearly all went to Ivy League-quality schools: Yale, Penn, MIT, Caltech, etc. Some of us are happy. Most of us are succeeding. A few of us are excelling. (Personally, I'm struggling. I have this irrepressible notion that liberal arts are a waste of my time, no matter how hard I try to subscribe to the learning-for-learning's-sake theor…

You can't assess anything until college is over and you are actually in the real world. Good Grades does not mean you will succeed in real life. It mostly means you are good at following orders.

[deleted]

Re: Private colleges are a waste of money for white, middle class kids

#30

Post by benesch »

aetherson wrote: post #28
pfisch wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't assess anything until college is over and you are actually in the real world. Good Grades does not mean you will succeed in real life. It mostly means you are good at following orders.

I think good grades probably mostly means that you picked courses you're well suited for.

That's why you have to evaluate the grade in the context of the course! GPA is meaningless; individual grades are much more informative. See Harry Lewis, recently appointed dean of Harvard's engineering school, on the subject. [0]

The savvy employers do this—though probably not enough. There's a finance firm that hires exclusively Math 55 [1] alumni—I forget the name; a number of tech firms screen for CS161 [2]. Both among the hardest classes you can find. An A in those takes a hell of a lot more than just following directions.

[0]: http://harry-lewis.blogspot.com/2014/11/can-we-find-better-w... [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_55 [2]: http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~margo/cs161/

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