On the subject of silly things said about academia, Matt Yglesias does a quick pass over “assessment,”, and in the process recommends Alan Kruger’s research that claims the benefits of elite colleges are all from selection effects. He links a Newsweek article on the topic, which contains this paragraph:
Dale and Krueger then compared graduates who had been accepted and rejected by the same (or similar) colleges. The theory was that admissions officers were ranking personal qualities, from maturity to ambition. Students who fared similarly would possess similar strengths; then, Dale and Krueger compared the earnings of these students–regardless of where they went. There was no difference. Suppose that Princeton and Podunk accept you and me; but you go to Princeton and I go to Podunk. On average, we will still make the same. (The result held for blacks and whites, further weakening the case for race-based admission preferences. The only exception was poorer students, regardless of race; they gained slightly from an elite school.)
You know, that’s one heck of an exception to blow off in a single sentence. Kruger has what appears to be an old New York Times column on his web site, but he doesn’t give much more detail, writing only:
One group of students, however, clearly benefited from attending a highly selective college: those from lower-income families — defined approximately as the bottom quarter of families who send children to college. For them, attending a more selective school increased earnings significantly.
To his credit, he does mention this in the recommendations to colleges at the end. Still, you might think this would rate a somewhat more prominent position in stories about the research. That would require a discussion of class issues, though, and we can’t be having that. Not in America.
A bit of Googling turns up the relevant paper, which appears to give the effect as a 7% increase in earnings for a 200-point increase in the average SAT score of the college attended by a low-income student. That’s not spectacular, but it’s not trivial, either.
It’s not hard to see why this would be the case, either– it’s all about connections and access. Students from higher-income families naturally have access to resources that lower-income students do not. Their families have more money, to help support them through graduate or professional school. They’re more likely to be able to secure loans to pursue business projects, and their families may have social or business connections with other people who can help advance these students in their future careers.
These are resources that aren’t available to low-income students, and they don’t get extra access to those resources by attending cheaper local colleges. Going to an elite school can provide some of these connections, though– the name on the diploma opens some additional doors at the beginning of a career, and the network of alumni and classmates that students naturally plug into through attending these schools can provide some of the same career boost that family connections give higher-income students.
This is something that we, as a culture, prefer to ignore, though. Outside of the occasional teen movie, we like to pretend that there aren’t these sorts of class-based distinctions in American society. When politicians bring it up, that’s “populism” or “class war,” and something to be avoided at all costs.
These issues are real, though, and play a major role in higher education. Not to get all Will Shetterly on this, but class privilege and bias is every bit as influential as the race and gender biases that get much more discussion.
The epitome of this sort of thing can be seen in this breathtaking James Altucher column from the Financial Times (via one of Matt’s commenters), in which he proudly declares that he has no intention of sending his kids to college, because it’s all a waste of time. What should they do instead?
1. Working – not just a labour or service job, but there are internet-content jobs out there. I have high school and college kids working for me who are making over $50,000 a year from writing gigs on the internet. Scour Craigslist for opportunities, your favourite blogs, or websites related to your favourite interests. Companies are dying for good content. Create your own blog, get yourself noticed, build relationships with other content companies and communities.
2. Take half the fee for one semester, give it to your kid, and tell him or her to start a business. Not every youngster has entrepreneurial sensibilities, but it’s always worth trying once. The cost for starting a business is next to zero, so it’s a viable alternative. What business should they start? For one thing, now that Facebook and MySpace have open development platforms, try out a few applications for these platforms; for a few hundred dollars you can outsource development of these applications to India, and get your friends to start trying them. Make sure they are viral (that is, a message should appear “click here to get all your friends to try XYZ”) and see which ones are a success. I mention Facebook and MySpace because every kid is familiar with these sites and comfortable with the subtleties, and it’s this comfort that can create the best businesses.
3. Spend a year trying to become good at one thing. Whatever your child’s greatest interest is, whether cooking, chess, writing, maths, there are so many resources on the internet available for learning that college is almost the last place a kid should go to pursue a passion. Intense immersion in a favourite topic is the surest way to become an expert in that field.
The reek of privilege here is overwhelming. Of course, everyone has the ability to just hand their kid a quarter of their college tuition (about $10K at an elite private college), right? To say nothing of the social resources needed to start a business.
It’s positively disgusting. But it’s something to keep in mind when the Financial Times, or the Wall Street Journal, or even the New York Times or Newsweek start scratching their chins and pondering the concerns of “ordinary people.”
Must be nice. I paid my own tuition when I could afford it. When I couldn’t, I worked shit jobs just trying to pay rent and eat.
“ (The result held for blacks and whites, further weakening the case for race-based admission preferences.)”
Yes, if one isn’t familiar with the actual case.
And besides the class privilege issue in the Altucher column, his other complaints include:
“First, and foremost, it’s too expensive. To send a kid to college you need from $200,000 to $400,000.” – which
a) well, maybe something could be done about that, and
b) Altucher appears to be on crack, unless I’m misunderstanding something. (Now, to send a kid to an elite private college paying all of the costs yourself – well, Harvard just hits the $200,000 mark if 2007-2008 costs remain current (which they won’t, but they’re not going up that much) . . ) (again, I can’t swear I’m not missing something).
Which isn’t at all to say that college isn’t waywayway too expensive for lots of folks – but see point (a).
“Second, I don’t believe in a balanced education.”
Yes, we can tell.
I mean, there’s a set of much more interesting issues here about the necessity (or not), purposes, structures, and meanings of college – but jeez, what a waste of space.
I am curious about the 7% additional earning for a student from a poor family who goes to an elite college. Could you explain why you think this is due to connections and access? I would tend to think that it would be more about inspirations and dreams. Many people from poorer families do not know about the opportunities outside of what they know. At an elite college, a student from a poor background is much more likely to get know students who have different plans for life. As such, these other students serve as inspiration for the poor student’s dreams.
Excellent post. And it is a bit surreal to be saying that; I came here after getting email from a blog reader who thought I would like the post. He didn’t say I was referenced, so I was completely croggled when I hit my name. Good luck with not getting all me on this! *g*
I am curious about the 7% additional earning for a student from a poor family who goes to an elite college. Could you explain why you think this is due to connections and access? I would tend to think that it would be more about inspirations and dreams.
Cynicism, mostly.
The inspirational stuff you describe could also be a factor, but I don’t think there’s that big a difference in the types of things that good students at elite schools think about doing and the things that good students at sligtly lesser schools think about doing. That 200-point SAT difference isn’t all that big– Union’s average SAT scores are almost 400 points below the average SAT scores at Williams, but I don’t see a qualitative difference in what my students plan to do after graduation from what my classmates planned to do after graduation.
If anything, I might expect this to cut in the other direction– students at less elite schools would be somewhat more likely to pursue practical career paths that would lead them to get more money, while students at more elite schools are somewhat more likely to go into academia or other impractical areas, where they will end up working for peanuts.
I’m excited by Altucher’s suggestion that I can spend a year learning mathematics from the internet and become an expert. Can I then get a job as a mathematician? I know exactly what I’m going to tell the search committee when I interview for my faculty position in the Harvard Math Department: “I didn’t go to a university and I don’t have any formal training but I read a bunch of stuff on the internet.” If that doesn’t work out, I can always fall back on my internet cooking training.
This is probably a factor, and may explain in part why going to an elite university does not have a significant effect on average earnings for students from middle to high income families. But as I noted in a comment to one of ScienceWoman’s posts the other day, going to grad school is financially difficult for someone who already has serious student loan debt from undergraduate studies. The people I know who went to grad school in the 1990s or 2000s, when I know anything about their family situations, are almost always from well-off families (that applies to most foreign students as well as Americans). The one exception I can name (1) did his undergraduate work at CUNY (very inexpensive if, like this guy, you are from New York City) and (2) turned out to be good enough at physics to have a first-author publication by the time he got his bachelor’s degree.
I am trying figure out Eric Lund’s comment about going to grad school with serious student loan debt. Why?
As long as I was in school, my loans were deferred. I did not have to worry about making payments with my grad stipend. Once I got my Ph.D., that is when panic set in (I got pretty luck in my postdoc, good pay and sharing housing meant I paid off my debt in four years.)
Brad,
You seem to have answered your own question, but I’ll go into it anyways: why the hell do people think deferring loan payment makes the situation acceptable? Deferring a loan is not discharging it, and to think the two are equivalent is a gigantic mistake. I remember having to explain how this works to my advisor at the time and a fellow grad student who had worked for nearly a decade before going for the PhD at lunch the day I gave the weekly seminar after defending my MS.
Every day deferred makes loans more expensive because of the accruing interest, which gets capitalized when the loans come due. That’s right, the deferred interest on the loan starts earning interest. (Of course, this doesn’t apply to subsidized Stafford or Perkins loans, since there’s no deferred interest to capitalize, or to private loans, which can have quite different terms. Unsubbed loans are a lot more common, in my experience and that of the financial aid officers I’ve known.)
The longer you take to start paying them off, the greater the mountain you face is, mentally as well as financially. If you are from the lower class to begin with, such large debt looming in your future can be a real monkey on your back. Which is why I’m still in school this semester despite everything imploding last semester: I’m maintaining the cheap-o health insurance and delaying student loan repayment while I try to line something up that will allow me to cover the additional monthly expense when they come due. And I didn’t even go to some place that expensive as an undergrad.
My student loans were deferred all through graduate school, which for federal student loans means they do NOT accrue interest. “Deferral” usually implies interest accrual freezing.
That’s only true for Perkins and subsidized Stafford loans, which have both been cut way back over the last few years. Not for nothing have we had the recent student loan scandals.