Why do people pay SOOOO much to go to a presitgious college?

[Ameesh]

if you think san jose state gives you the same education as say cal tech? sorry to burst your bubble man but they are two completely different ball parks

 

[rockyct]

Originally posted by: freesia39

Originally posted by: BruinEd03
I go to a prestigous college w/o the debt

-Ed

yay! go bruins!

although i have the debt because parents are paying for two UC educations at the same time so i took on some of the burden. plus rent is expensive.

Many UC schools and a couple of Cal State schools (mainly Cal Poly SLO) are thought of very highly and yet cost far less than a private school. I'm biased because I go to Cal Poly but you get a great value.

 

[gotsmack]

Originally posted by: chizow
Simple answer: Many top-tier firms ONLY recruit out of the "prestigious colleges".

Chiz

Yea, that and you get a better education in some fields. Like if you wanted an MBA in srategic management the only place to go is Harvard and study under Michael Porter. But I'm poor So I'm going to Rutgers.

 

[TrueBlueLS]

I'm happy with the little community college I go to. My marketing 101 professor was explaining how the program we had was the same one taught at Wayne State University. He stated, "Why should I bother to change my ways of teaching if someone is paying more for it?"

 

[rgwalt]

I suppose it is all in what you want to study. I went to the University of Kansas and got my degree in chemical engineering. I'm now in grad school at prestigious university (I won't say which, but you can figure it out by checking my profile). In my opinion, on the whole, the quality of chemical engineers produced at KU was/is much better than here. I think that prestigious universities are more likely to coddle their students, and let them pass classes without learning anything just because the students are paying so much money to attend the school. So, while class sizes may be smaller at prestigious schools, it does not mean that you are going to get a better education. No matter the class size, you are only going to get out of an education what you put into it.

I had the chance to go to Washington University in St. Louis as an undergrad. I decided to go to KU instead to save money, and I don't regret it at all. I think that the right state college in the field of interest can give a person a better education than an ivy league institution ever could hope to. For instance, the University of Wisconsin has one of the best chemical engineering programs in the country, arguably better than MIT. It is certainly better than Harvard. The take home message is that when looking at colleges, examine the areas that are of interest, look at school rankings and reputations, and go from there. If you don't know what you want to study, you may want to think about going to a well-rounded state school, and save some money.

Ryan

 

[fizmeister]

Originally posted by: chizow
Well here's the deal: You can still get an excellent job out of a major state university if you do well. There are however, firms like McKinsey & Co., Booz Allen, AT Kearney etc. that ONLY recruit out of the Ivy League for undergrad and Top 25 for grads. The situation is similar on the Tech/Engineering/Science disciplines.

Exactly. That is the reason I attend a Top 15 University.

And for other people's info (e.g. the thread starter), if you get the external/internal scholarships right, you can be like me and pay $6k/yr to go to a Top 15 university . A little less than your $10k/yr state school .

Anyway, I could have gone to my state school. But the reason I applied to schools in the Ivy League (Cornell, Brown) and to schools with de facto Ivy League status (Rice, Johns Hopkins, Stanford) is for both networking and for the experience: beautiful campuses surrounded by very intelligent people (granted, you'll find this elsewhere, but the proportion of intellectuals you find at prestigious schools is much greater). I'm only a freshman, but I've gotten as much of an education from my peers as I have from the books.

Also, the school I chose to attend was because of its size and the oppurtunities it provided; I could be given excellent attention from my professors, as well as garner research/internship oppurtunities as early as freshman year, which is very valuable in the long-run.

Living in a highly meritocratic society, a prestigious school is a boon to one's future, in my opinion. Of course, you can be just as successful or moreso from a non-prestigious school, but a prestigious school gets your foot in the right door a little earlier. And if you're interested in grad/law/med school, it doesn't hurt that your school has a 75% admissions rate into one's top choice grad/med/law school.

Cost shouldn't be a factor in where one decides to attent college. All the top schools now have need-blind admission, and will do their best to provide you with the means to pay for the education. I know plenty of people who couldn't afford to go to top schools (and parents wouldn't pay), but they're paying $3k a year right now...a lot of schools now cap the amount they can provide in loans, so you are guarunteed much less of a debt than in the past when you graduate. If you need more than the loans provide, you get it all in generous grants.

 

[aolsuxs]

I believe that college, while there are a few exceptions, is like many things in life, you get what you pay for. While I don't think I go to a prestigious school, UCD, it is a lot better IMO then the state school here. The out of state fee kills me though. Kinda OT but I also think one gets much more of an experiance of college and growing up by moving to a new location and not staying at the local college where all your buddies are going to.

 

[fizmeister]

Originally posted by: rgwalt
No matter the class size, you are only going to get out of an education what you put into it.

Well put.

I had the chance to go to Washington University in St. Louis as an undergrad. I decided to go to KU instead to save money, and I don't regret it at all. I think that the right state college in the field of interest can give a person a better education than an ivy league institution ever could hope to. For instance, the University of Wisconsin has one of the best chemical engineering programs in the country, arguably better than MIT. It is certainly better than Harvard. The take home message is that when looking at colleges, examine the areas that are of interest, look at school rankings and reputations, and go from there. If you don't know what you want to study, you may want to think about going to a well-rounded state school, and save some money.

Ryan

Yeah, but Harvard is more for a liberal arts curriculum, so engineering there is fairly weak. Wisconsin may be stronger than MIT in that field, but the doors an MIT education will open may be a lot more. The saying at MIT goes: "You don't want to be AT MIT, you want to be FROM MIT."

 

[Ameesh]

i think some of you might think differently if you found out the obscene amount of money a mckinsey asscoiate makes right after joining. (you could pay for all 6 years of college in probably 2 or 3 years and still live extremely comfortably)

 

[Siddhartha]

Lets see:
Bush Jr: Yale
Clinton: Georgetown, Oxford, and Yale
Bush Sr: Yale
Reagan: Eureka College
Carter:Georgia Institute of Technology and Navy Academy
Ford: Ann Arbor
Nixon: Whittier College, and Duke University Law School
Johnson: Southwest Texas State Teachers College at San Marcos, Texas
Kennedy: Harvard
Eisenhower: West Point
Truman: Attended night classes at the University of Missouri - Kansas City School of Law. Did not graduate
Roosevelt: Harvard

Oh yeah, I work for a Fortune 500 company, it mostly,90%, only hires from Ivy League schools. You have to be special if you are not from schools like Cornell.

 

[fizmeister]

Originally posted by: Dr Smooth


Oh yeah, I work for a Fortune 500 company, it mostly,90%, only hires from Ivy League schools. You have to ve special if you are not from schools like Cornell.

What about schools like Johns Hopkins, Rice, Stanford, WUSTL, Norwestern, Chicago, etc.? I turned down Cornell, and if those places don't higher people from my non-Ivy League University (listed as one of the above), that's no good...

 

[joohang]

If they can afford it, why not?

I made a good decision for my studies, though. I go to UBC, which is local (so I didn't have to move) and I only pay $2500~$3000 *CANADIAN* per year for tuition. And for that money, I get to take courses from some of the leading experts in East Asian studies. I do plan to apply for some of the "prestigious" colleges for graduate studies, though. Only because I will have many more financial options than as an undergrad.

 

[gopunk]

it's just another edge they can get over other people

it doesn't seem very likely that there are very many people that work their way through an ivy league without any assistance, whether it be from their parents or from financial aid. those two things can make ivy league costs a lot more bearable, so then the question is, why not?

it depends on where you want to go with your life, but in general, it's better to get a degree from a prestigious school than to save a few thousand bucks.

and yea, if you're going to go to grad school (research, not med or law), where you went for undergrad does not matter *as much*, as long as you went to a decent school. but it's all about getting edges. if you can get an edge, it's best to take it.

and btw, i don't go to an ivy league

 

[LS20]

Well a lot of "prestigious" schools do not cost "soooo much"

michigan, texas, california, wisconsin, virginia, illinois, north carolina, etc

i know that texas and NC each cost around 2500$ per semester.

hell, im paying alot less at texas than i would even at lesser-known state schools

 

[Ylen13]

one of the reason is because you can. Second is becauser of networking"connections" You actually don't need to go to private univecity to have connections, you can get them from high school, if the school you attended was attended by student whos parents well connected. I personally went to beverly hills high school.(no i didn't know her).I meet their people that are really well connected and if when neede can connect me with the right people that can keep going till i get to the person that can help me and soon. Also when you a deploma from one of those univecity u will get higher 10 times faster just because of the name.

 

[wyvrn]

Not in my experience. The smaller class size led to a more thorough understanding of the material in less time. In my state college classes, I usually go to class to get the notes and then do most of the "studying and learning" of the material on my own. The trade off is more time and less money when you have bigger classes, imo.

So, while class sizes may be smaller at prestigious schools, it does not mean that you are going to get a better education. No matter the class size, you are only going to get out of an education what you put into it.

 

[Mister T]

top tier consulting and wall street firms only recruit at the best schools...

How else can you make close to 6 digits one year out of college and only 22 years old?

 

[Trader05]

probably to waste more money on getting wasted there

 

[BD2003]

For those looking to jump in to a prestigious law firm and ride the ladder to the top, or do major research, perhaps going to an ivy league is a requirement.

But the vast majority of people in those expensive schools are just there to go to college, and many are just as confused as I am.

Is there really any reason other than "my parents pay for it", for someone to go to harvard to be lets say, a sociology, or liberal arts major?

 

[WinkOsmosis]

Originally posted by: BD2003
For those looking to jump in to a prestigious law firm and ride the ladder to the top, or do major research, perhaps going to an ivy league is a requirement.

But the vast majority of people in those expensive schools are just there to go to college, and many are just as confused as I am.

Is there really any reason other than "my parents pay for it", for someone to go to harvard to be lets say, a sociology, or liberal arts major?

So they can go to law school??

 

[Ylen13]

Originally posted by: BD2003
For those looking to jump in to a prestigious law firm and ride the ladder to the top, or do major research, perhaps going to an ivy league is a requirement.

But the vast majority of people in those expensive schools are just there to go to college, and many are just as confused as I am.

Is there really any reason other than "my parents pay for it", for someone to go to harvard to be lets say, a sociology, or liberal arts major?

othern get connections and being abel to "my parents pay for it" no.

 

[PowerEngineer]

Originally posted by: chizow
Well here's the deal: You can still get an excellent job out of a major state university if you do well. There are however, firms like McKinsey & Co., Booz Allen, AT Kearney etc. that ONLY recruit out of the Ivy League for undergrad and Top 25 for grads. The situation is similar on the Tech/Engineering/Science disciplines.

The key thing is to keep in mind, as someone stated, that most people don't know what they want to do during undergrad. And thats fine. If you do well in undergrad, you still have the opportunity to go to a "prestigious school" for grad work. Depending on how well you did in undergrad, you may go free, or even get paid to go.

Chiz

And even when big companies (like GE or IBM) do come to the less prestigious schools, they are often looking to fill the lower level openings; the "plums" are for recruits from the prestigious schools.

I'll agree that there's no guarantee that you'll get a better education if you pay more for tuition (as already stated some state schools have top level programs in some areas), but private schools with higher tuitions are usually better than their state counterparts. I certainly found that my own education in engineering put me way ahead of my competition who had degrees from the University of XXXX or YYYY State.

It's a judgement call.

 

[DigDug]

Is there really any reason other than "my parents pay for it", for someone to go to harvard to be lets say, a sociology, or liberal arts major?

Its relative. The difference between Harvard and the other top 25 schools isn't much at all if anything (especially considering smaller schools with higher teacher/student ratios), but there is a significant difference as the gap increasese to second-tier schools and beyond. You have to remember that the instructor quality is only one part of the whole picture. What I found to be the most amazing experience of going to a "prestigious" school was the challenge and intellectual enthusiasm that my peers posed. Where I went to school, doing well was a good thing, and smart people were admired and not made fun of. There were no fraternities promoting mindnumbing beer bashes, and athletic scholarships were simply not given out, i.e. we had no boneheads to dumb down the student population. The grouping of kids of a certain calibre really had a positive effect on me, making me more challenged and enthusiastic about learning than I had been in highschool.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the alumni connections offered. Being a small school, I really felt a fanatical loyalty to the student body by the alums of my school. Many of them are tops in their fields, very well placed, and were EAGER to help us out.

 

[BD2003]

I can understand that. Where I go, doing going isnt really frowned upon, but its not the goal of everyones life. Then again, it isnt mine either. I've never heard anyone get made fun of for doing good since high school.

Theres a lot of frats and sororities around here, and a lot of partying. Would I rather be without it? No way!

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: gotsmack

Originally posted by: chizow
Simple answer: Many top-tier firms ONLY recruit out of the "prestigious colleges".

Chiz

Yea, that and you get a better education in some fields. Like if you wanted an MBA in srategic management the only place to go is Harvard and study under Michael Porter. But I'm poor So I'm going to Rutgers.

harvard business... for when you can't get into texas law.

i'm sorry but i have little respect for the good ol' boy network, though going to a "prestigious" institution is a great way to get into it.