ISU drops in US News ranking this year

[Sigmapolis]

Not disagreeing with you but things have radically shifted in both education and the world since 1998 and 2008. In 1998 if you had a degree you were pretty much set. It’s a much different landscape now.

The orange bars (for 2008 graduates) don't show a different result than the blue ones (1993 graduates). My undergraduate year was 2009 and, boy howdy, don't I know that having a degree isn't a guarantee of much of anything. Finding an entry-level job in that environment was pure hell, but I made it.

The typical 2008 graduate is in their late 30s/pushing 40 now, so I think you have enough data to have a good sense of how "successful" their career has been in terms of renumeration. Anything earlier than that and you might be encountering "weirdness" from an unsettled 20s or still having a good number of people in graduate school or professional school up to and even beyond 30. I'm sure you as a physician are familiar with this, but my wife didn't become an attending physician leading an ER (and have the commensurate salary that comes with it) until she was 32 (and that was after going straight to medical school after undergraduate).

Funny thing is I think the "a degree and you're set" thing was always something of a myth. I discovered a whole literature of such comments from the late 1920s and 1930s while researching for my thesis in graduate school. Yes, those were very lean times, but lean times come and go and will come to us again.

 

[FriendlySpartan]

The orange bars (for 2008 graduates) don't show a different result than the blue ones (1993 graduates). My undergraduate year was 2009 and, boy howdy, don't I know that having a degree isn't a guarantee of much of anything. Finding an entry-level job in that environment was pure hell, but I made it.

The typical 2008 graduate is in their late 30s/pushing 40 now, so I think you have enough data to have a good sense of how "successful" their career has been in terms of renumeration. Anything earlier than that and you might be encountering "weirdness" from an unsettled 20s or still having a good number of people in graduate school or professional school up to and even beyond 30. I'm sure you as a physician are familiar with this, but my wife didn't become an attending physician leading an ER (and have the commensurate salary that comes with it) until she was 32 (and that was after going straight to medical school after undergraduate).

Funny thing is I think the "a degree and you're set" thing was always something of a myth. I discovered a whole literature of such comments from the late 1920s and 1930s while researching for my thesis in graduate school. Yes, those were very lean times, but lean times come and go and will come to us again.

Agree with alot of that. Your point about finding those first jobs for people graduating during or shortly after that recession was exactly part of what I was thinking of. Good points for sure.

 

[Sigmapolis]

Agree with alot of that. Your point about finding those first jobs for people graduating during or shortly after that recession was exactly part of what I was thinking of. Good points for sure.

I think the point of that paper was less, say, 2005 graduates compared to 2009 graduates (the former "safely in" before the recession while the latter, like yours truly, taking it right on the face).

It was more about graduates of different "tiers" of universities as measured by "selectiveness." They just didn't find much of a wage premium from "elite" schools assuming that you actually graduate.

Students willing to bust their humps to get into Harvard or Michigan or the like are just more likely to bust their humps once they arrive on campus and therefore are more likely to end up graduating.

Seems their key finding is the key thing is finishing the degree.

I imagine everybody graduating in 2009 had a hard time compared to those a few years before and then a few years after them. We had a recent crop of interns where I work casually discussing their 3-4 job offers that were "easy to find" and I'll admit I wanted to grab a stapler and beat some of them for it.

 

[FriendlySpartan]

I think the point of that paper was less, say, 2005 graduates compared to 2009 graduates (the former "safely in" before the recession while the latter, like yours truly, taking it right on the face).

It was more about graduates of different "tiers" of universities as measured by "selectiveness." They just didn't find much of a wage premium from "elite" schools assuming that you actually graduate.

Students willing to bust their humps to get into Harvard or Michigan or the like are just more likely to bust their humps once they arrive on campus and therefore are more likely to end up graduating.

Seems their key finding is the key thing is finishing the degree.

I imagine everybody graduating in 2009 had a hard time compared to those a few years before and then a few years after them. We had a recent crop of interns where I work casually discussing their 3-4 job offers that were "easy to find" and I'll admit I wanted to grab a stapler and beat some of them for it.

Agree with a lot of this. I went to Michigan for medical school but also got in as an undergrad (obv didn’t go) but truthfully I don’t even know if I would get in now if I was applying as a senior in 2024.

Many of my friends graduated in 2009-2010 and just went to post grad work be used the market was so bad so I’m sure you weren’t alone wanting to staple some peeps

 

[Mr.G.Spot]

I can’t see the wsj rankings so don’t know their methodology, but I’ll link the us news ones. Only real area of bias as I’ve mentioned is the academic peer rankings are most likely over weighted. Outside of that it’s fairly straightforward

Also I’m a little confused why you are praising the WSJ one so much when it has ISU ranked the same essentially?

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings

WSJ - Because of the mix of schools ahead of them. It exhibits dramatically less emphasis on grad schools like med and law. Just because a school has those doesn't mean they are automatically ahead of one that do.

Peer rankings are greatly affected by: no med school, no aau status, not is the pac12 or big 10.

 

[Dopey]

There isn't much evidence graduates of "elite" schools have better career outcomes.

https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uplo...ve-College-Equal-a-Bigger-Paycheck.pdf?x85095

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Iowa State would be somewhere in the "moderately selective" category.

Their findings are such that most of the earning bonus from people attending more selective schools comes from their higher likelihood to graduate (which is probably more of a reflection of the student and their underlying character/motivation than anything about the institution's quality). For those completing their degree, the main benefits of Harvard versus Mississippi State are there but rather minimal.

Harvard freshmen have a much better outlook than Westfield State freshman (a real school in western Mass). But once we're down to graduating seniors, much of the difference is gone.

The authors note the data above does not account for regional cost of living differences. Harvard graduates tend to live on the East Coast while Mississippi State graduates tend to live in, well, Mississippi. Account for the cost of living difference between NYC and Jackson and much of the wage "premium" from having a fancy degree from a fancy college or university starts to vaporize or even disappear with a COL adjustment.

Interesting.

Maybe this is a thing where the averages are very similar due to the number of students enrolled, but the high end potential at a selective school is much different.

25 Fortune 500 CEOs all come from Harvard...

 

[FriendlySpartan]

Interesting.

Maybe this is a thing where the averages are very similar due to the number of students enrolled, but the high end potential at a selective school is much different.

25 Fortune 500 CEOs all come from Harvard...

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Yeah looking at the median gives a slightly different look as it just excludes the insane high end options. Probably for the best but important to note.

Also is this undergrad or grad school. Big difference

 

[Sigmapolis]

Yeah looking at the median gives a slightly different look as it just excludes the insane high end options. Probably for the best but important to note.

Also is this undergrad or grad school. Big difference

I think the authors chose the median because of either data restrictions or because the 50th percentile better represents the "expected" return for the average student rather than some outlier.

I don't doubt the results for "elite" institutions might be skewed further to the right, but assuming that you'll automatically be one of those skewed to the right isn't how the reality of it lands.

It only looks at undergraduate institution -- not where you went to postgraduate school.

Interesting.

Maybe this is a thing where the averages are very similar due to the number of students enrolled, but the high end potential at a selective school is much different.

25 Fortune 500 CEOs all come from Harvard...

View attachment 135142

25/500 = 5%

Nothing to sneeze at for a small private school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, sure.

But there are plenty of others from other schools, including a lot of high-end state schools.

I've always thought the benefit of these "elite" institutions is less what you learn and more who you might meet while there... but even that is suspect to me. Maybe somebody at Harvard meets somebody who might give them a really good job, or maybe their parents already had a social network that could do that for them anyways or have the money to seed a business they may want to start after school.