Reply to "Elite schools"

I think the rankings in the PayScale College Salary Report can be a bit misleading for several reasons. For example, the type of education a school specializes in can greatly influence salary. Note what the article states: "In general, engineering schools produced the best starting salaries, and represented eight out of the top 10 schools in starting salary." If you're a left-brain thinker, that's great, but it's not so good for the right-brainers out there. Geography can also come into play. Schools in the northeast or West Coast will naturally have higher starting salaries because salary levels are higher in those regions. Even social connections can have an impact on earnings potential. For example, I doubt that SMU is a superior school academically to Texas A&M and the Univ. of Texas, but its graduates make better salaries. However, the study doesn't take into consideration that SMU students are extremely well-connected socially and most likely get a lot more help in obtaining a high-paying job than someone at A&M or UT.

Back in December, Smart Money magazine ran an interesting piece on college earning power. Here's an excerpt:

quote:

In a new twist on traditional college rankings, SmartMoney took a crack at quantifying the long-term value of a college education. Our goal was to spotlight the relationship between tuition costs and graduates' earning power. Working with consultant PayScale.com, which recently published a groundbreaking survey on alumni salaries, we first looked at what graduates from 50 of the most expensive four-year colleges earn in their early and midcareers. Then we factored in their up-front tuition and fees. The result? A unique "payback" ratio for each school.

In the end, our scorecard may be music to the ears of many state-school admissions deans—not to mention a lot of struggling parents. After all, who would've guessed that Texas A & M, No. 1 in our survey, would deliver a payback more than two and a half times that of Harvard? Or that the state universities of Delaware and Rhode Island would beat out every Ivy in the ranking?

Make sure to read both pages in the following link:

http://www.smartmoney.com/Pers...es-For-Making-Money/

http://www.smartmoney.com/Pers...lleges-that-pay-off/