What would you suggest is driving the appetite to enroll at an elite institution? While the reasons are manifold, I would assume prestige, networking, and our innate braggadocio aren’t far from the top. And to what degree does the prestige associated with the handful of truly elite universities – and the networks they carry with them – trickle down into career-defining heuristics, such as the quality of a graduate’s first job or his long-term earnings potential?
While I like the idea of a student’s attending university as a purely intellectual endeavor, we need to maintain an air of pragmatism. I fear that an oversupply of many good institutions will unintentionally hamper the post-college success of those who attend all good institutions, while almost certainly impacting those who attend universities that are currently in the elite tier. As they say, there is no free lunch.
What would you suggest is driving the appetite to enroll at an elite institution? While the reasons are manifold, I would assume prestige, networking, and our innate braggadocio aren’t far from the top. And to what degree does the prestige associated with the handful of truly elite universities – and the networks they carry with them – trickle down into career-defining heuristics, such as the quality of a graduate’s first job or his long-term earnings potential?
While I like the idea of a student’s attending university as a purely intellectual endeavor, we need to maintain an air of pragmatism. I fear that an oversupply of many good institutions will unintentionally hamper the post-college success of those who attend all good institutions, while almost certainly impacting those who attend universities that are currently in the elite tier. As they say, there is no free lunch.