Universities Weblog

(Source: Williams College)The debate, it seems, rages on. Scholars can't seem to figure out if attending an elite university pays off. Some claim it does, that going to an Ivy or Stanford or Amherst will afford greater dividends (read: you'll make more money). Others contend that smart people will succeed regardless of where they attend college. In other words, if you're smart enough to get into an Ivy, you're probably already on the road to a good career, so why pay the high tuition costs?

Check out this piece on MSN Money, which examines that very question and offers differing views. (It's actually an odd piece; it begins as a "journalistic" article but slips into first person halfway through.) Then draw your own conclusions.

But what always strikes me about these studies is the unquestioned link between money and success. Let's say you're eyeing an academic career. Will going to an Ivy help you get into a better graduate school and eventually help you land a faculty spot at a more prestigious institution? Probably. As an assistant professors at a top place, you'll pull in a decent salary, and you'll eventually climb into the comfortable ranks of middle to upper-middle class. Riches, though, likely will never come. Did going to an Ivy thus help your career? You could argue it did.

Yet would you have made more money had you attended a state college and chosen a different field? Would you be that much more successful? Stupid questions.

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