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Do You Need A Degree From An Elite University To Have Success In Life?


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2019 Sep 15, 6:04am   3,486 views  57 comments

by ohomen171   ➕follow (2)   💰tip   ignore  

#collegecheatingscandal
Madame President:
Your Sunday newspaper...I have many things to be proud of in you, Pedro, and Luah. All of you have incredible educational achievements. Of equal importance, all of you worked hard and earned your educations in a completely honest manner.
Right now there is a big scandal in this country about wealthy parents who paid large bribes to get their children into elite colleges like Stanford, Harvard, Yale, University of Southern California, UCLA, etc. The largest bribe was a stunning $6.2 million paid by the owner of a Chinese pharmaceutical company to get his daughter into Stanford. There is a long list including one actress who paid a $500,000 bribe to get two of her daughters into elite schools. One person who paid a $15,000 bribe already got 14 days in jail. Many other still face sentencing. If they had been honest, they could have made large contributions to these colleges. It would have helped their kids to get in honestly.
There is some question about the value of getting a degree from elite colleges. On one hand let us look at the educational institutions of our last few presidents as follows:
President Bush I BA Yale
President Bill Clinton: Yale Law School (Hillary Clinton also graduated from Yale Law School)
President Bush II: BA Yale and MBA Harvard
President Obama: Harvard Law School honors graduate (Michelle Obama also graduated from Harvard Law School)
President Trump: Attended Wharton Graduate School of Business
There is another side of this debate questioning the value of these elite schools. Only 23% of the Ivy League college graduates make it into the top 1% of wage earners in the US.
Let us look at the curious case of Elena E. Torello, MD. She graduated from the University of Buenos Aires Medical School. Elena spent most of her life speaking Spanish. Before coming to the US, Elena read English but could not speak it. When she arrived here and took the three tests for her US medical license, she scored in the top 5% of those medical school graduates taking the test. She was right up there with graduates of Harvard, Yale, and Stanford Medical Schools. She got accepted to the very competitive Kaiser San Francisco residency program. She did so well there that she was offered a job at Kaiser San Francisco when she graduated. Getting a job as a doctor at Kaiser is like getting accepted to the US Navy Top Gun fighter pilot's school. (Only 1% of the fighter pilots are selected.) Getting hired is not the last obstacle to having a career at Kaiser. After a probationary period, your fellow doctors must vote you in as a shareholder. When Elena started her career at Kaiser, her first office had previously been occupied by a Stanford Medical School graduate who had failed to be voted in.
A degree from an elite college is not an absolute necessity in life or an absolute guarantee of success.
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1   theoakman   2019 Sep 15, 6:34am  

You need that degree to coast your way through life.
2   Y   2019 Sep 15, 6:36am  

Well i have to disagree as to a degree it is
ohomen171 says
A degree from an elite college is not an absolute necessity in life or an absolute guarantee of success.
3   Shaman   2019 Sep 15, 7:52am  

I’m really not sure what a degree from an elite university gets you other than a pile of unmanageable debt and a foot in the door at a snooty company you’ll absolutely hate working for. It’s waaaaaaaay overvalued and should be thought of as a babysitting service for rich kids until they’re old enough to accept a sinecure job at their dad’s firm.
4   Tenpoundbass   2019 Sep 15, 8:50am  

Thomas Sowell did a lecture about inequality.
He talked about Brilliant educated minds. From an educational standpoint all of those in this study were on equal footing.
The difference in their success was their household they grew up in. Those that were raised in a wealthy household, went to ivy league schools, then when they graduated had the drive and tools to be very wealthy. Successful if you measure success by wealth. Those that grew up in a poor to modest household, but by the grace of their academic achievements they got full scholarship to a ivy league school. When they graduated. They continued to live a modest life style. These are the professors, doctors, and other professions that has peers that with in a decade of working in their fields. Those with their low 6 figure incomes, manage to amass a million to millions in the bank. Mostly through smart investing, and putting their money to work. They have a drive beyond their intellect, to be upper middle class. While those from modest back grounds, are happy taking a job just shy of 6 figures, drive a Commoner car, and live in a Starter House neighborhood. Or if they are living expenses does commiserate with their income. They are always having financial problems. Many Ivy Leaguers have financial problems. Foreclosures, Over extended credit card bills, liens and other financial liabilities.

When these two educated people with different economic drives, are in a professional setting. Giving lectures, or writing on their field, there is no difference in style nor is what one says more valid over the other.

There are poor people or people from lower middle class backgrounds, that are driven to amass wealth and can be over achievers. But those people don't even require a High school diploma.
5   Onvacation   2019 Sep 15, 9:42am  

Trayvon got a degree from Florida memorial. See how that's working for him?
6   MisdemeanorRebel   2019 Sep 15, 9:58am  

Yes. Nobody on the faculty at Harvard Law except Pocahontas has a degree from a State School, I believe.
7   MisdemeanorRebel   2019 Sep 15, 10:23am  

Tim Aurora says
That said, just by going to an elite school does not make or break a career.


None of the current SCOTUS judges have a law degree from a non-Ivy.

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/articles/where-supreme-court-justices-earned-law-degrees
8   SunnyvaleCA   2019 Sep 15, 10:31am  

Onvacation says
Trayvon got a degree from Florida memorial. See how that's working for him?

Trayvon has stayed out of trouble for 5 years now. He deserves that degree.
9   SunnyvaleCA   2019 Sep 15, 10:39am  

Quigley says
I’m really not sure what a degree from an elite university gets you other than a pile of unmanageable debt and a foot in the door at a snooty company you’ll absolutely hate working for. It’s waaaaaaaay overvalued and should be thought of as a babysitting service for rich kids until they’re old enough to accept a sinecure job at their dad’s firm.

Still, if I'm choosing between an elite university with a pile of debt verses a second-tier university with a similar pile of debt, I'll take the elite university. If you're only going to college as a babysitting period before your sinecure job at the family firm, then it's perfectly fine to major in a worthless field of study. The less fortunate, however, should only take on that mountain of debt if they are learning useful job skills. In that case, you have useful job skills AND a foot in the door for your first job.
10   Ceffer   2019 Sep 15, 10:41am  

Toiling, sweating, bootlicking Poindexter or anointed psychopath scion of Daddy Warbucks: Ivies are for you!
11   mell   2019 Sep 15, 10:44am  

No
12   FuckTheMainstreamMedia   2019 Sep 15, 12:59pm  

Hard work is the biggest factor, at least as far as financial success goes.

And no, janitors and fast food workers do not work hard. Not in the manner I’m speaking.

The most financially successful people I personally know are all business owners. And all have put in at times 80-120 hours a week for years on end. Most have degrees in fields other than what their business is, or no degree at all.

Degree from wherever is whatever.
13   zzyzzx   2019 Sep 15, 2:11pm  

Do You Need A Degree From An Elite University To Have Success In Life?

14   MisdemeanorRebel   2019 Sep 15, 2:25pm  

SunnyvaleCA says
Still, if I'm choosing between an elite university with a pile of debt verses a second-tier university with a similar pile of debt, I'll take the elite university. If you're only going to college as a babysitting period before your sinecure job at the family firm, then it's perfectly fine to major in a worthless field of study. The less fortunate, however, should only take on that mountain of debt if they are learning useful job skills. In that case, you have useful job skills AND a foot in the door for your first job.


Yep, the point of going to an elite university is the networking, not the quality of the graduates.

"C" students on community college probation have hacked themselves into the Ivy Leagues, then got straight A's.
15   Shaman   2019 Sep 15, 2:44pm  

SunnyvaleCA says
The less fortunate, however, should only take on that mountain of debt if they are learning useful job skills.


Yes but no. The less fortunate should never take on a pile of debt UNLESS they are taking out loans for medical school. Not law school. Way too chancy there, and a second or third tier degree works just as well in the long run. Medical school is worth it for one reason: specialized surgeons can make a ton of money and easily pay back the student loans. This will take them a long time even so. It will be 4 years of medical school and 4-6 years of residency until they are free agents pulling down the truly big money. Still, it’s worth it.

But wait!

Even if you’re going to medical school, don’t waste money on an expensive undergraduate degree! Those are just about worthless. You’ll major in biology or chemistry, either will not be worth much on its own. And it only matters where your final degree is from. When it matters. Which isn’t often and certainly not always.

If i was planning to head to medical school, I would take cheap college (state u perhaps) or maybe even community college for a couple years to get gen Ed’s and weed out classes out of the way. The transfer to a state school to finish the undergraduate degree. From there, apply to a bunch of state schools Unless your MCATs are super high with a corresponding GPA. Then accept the best school that accepts you and study hard!
This way you should be relatively debt free for the undergraduate degree, and free to pile up some debt for the medical degree.
16   SunnyvaleCA   2019 Sep 15, 3:00pm  

Quigley says
a second or third tier degree works just as well in the long run

But the problem there is that second-tier schools cost as much as top-tier schools. Might as well shoot for the top-tier schools. If you don't make it into a top-tier, then go for something cheap... state school.

This is tuition only, but room and board are a smaller addition and likely to be similar.
Top tier: Harvard: $45k, MIT: $50k
Second tier: Boston College $52k, Boston University $51k, Brandeis U $51k

For reference: http://www.collegecalc.org/colleges/massachusetts/?view=all

Also...
Harvard’s financial aid programs pay 100 percent of tuition, fees, room, and board for students from families earning less than $65,000 a year. Families with incomes from $65,000 to $150,000 pay between zero and 10 percent of their income. This means that, for 90 percent of families earning less than $150,000, a Harvard education is competitive with or less expensive than a public university in a student’s home state.
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/harvard-initiative-to-attract-low-income-students-includes-free-tuition/

You think that medical school is the only way to go, but tell me what's so wrong with this:
Using my alma mater as an example: go to Stanford as an undergraduate in major called "mathematical and computational sciences" (B.S.E.) and simultaneously complete a co-term in computer science (M.S.). With a few A.P. courses and decent planning you are done in 4 years. I know someone who did exactly this. The clever trick is that the undergrad is the easy 1/2 of the math major and the easy 1/2 of the CS major with no overlap for your M.S. in CS. (You're not allowed to double-count classes in co-term program.) The other clever trick is that if you qualify for financial aid as an undergraduate, you will get that for your masters degree, as it is simultaneous with your undergraduate degree.

If you're from a "poor" family you're out practically debt free with financial aid. If you're from a moderately rich family you might have $50k of debt if your stingy parents only kick in the in-state cost of a U.C. school. With an M.S. in computer science you should start at $150k in a silicon valley high-tech firm and pay off your debt in 2 years tops.

Or, you could go to 3rd or 4th tier school on the cheap for undergraduate, then wind up paying $60k to do a masters program somewhere. That'll put you a year behind, plus you won't have the prestige of the top-tier school.
17   Shaman   2019 Sep 15, 3:52pm  

And for all that... one of my friends from high school is making more than the rest of us with no degree at all. He went to swing hammers and do construction, then started building houses himself as a contractor. Opened a snow plow business for the winters, hired some guys for both gigs, and kept expanding. Now he’s doing great and high rolling. Best part is he doesn’t have a boss. Awesome.

And most of the guys I work with who make the same wage scale as I do have no degree and very little to no college. True they don’t understand the more technical aspects of my job like I do, but they make the same money, depending on overtime worked. Average is 165k/year for day shift and $210k/year for night. Oh and full benefits including a no out of pocket Cadillac health care plan and a very healthy pension. Hard to find any job to train for that offers better compensation.
18   Reality   2019 Sep 15, 4:59pm  

Would putting a short guy on the basketball team make him taller?

Would putting a house cat into a pride of lions make him into a ferocious lion?

Is the life of a house cat hunting down all the chipmunks, rabbits and field rats around the house for fun (top of the little food chain) and still enjoying full meals inside the house a better life . . . or that of the lioness running with the pride all her life and porked by different lions every couple years . . . or that of the lion having about 1/10 chance of ever heading the lion pride and porking all the lionesses for a couple years then getting killed by another lion . . . which of the three has a happier life? (the other 9/10 chance of a male lion is living a lonely life never mating or getting killed by resident male lion without ever winning leadership of the pride)

As for all the Supremes being Ivy grads, does it take becoming a Supreme to be free to pork hot girls half your age or younger regularly (say, 3 tims a week or more frequently)? Would becoming a Supreme get in the way of porking hot girls half your age or younger (and still of legal age of consent of course)? How do you define success?
19   Rin   2019 Sep 15, 11:00pm  

ohomen171 says
When she arrived here and took the three tests for her US medical license, she scored in the top 5% of those medical school graduates taking the test. She was right up there with graduates of Harvard, Yale, and Stanford Medical Schools. She got accepted to the very competitive Kaiser San Francisco residency program.


But that's the point right there, there's an objective path of examination scores which leads to a top residency. The folks at Harvard Med are pass/fail (no honors) and have little incentive to push themselves, once they gain admissions to the school.

For careers like banking or management consulting, resumes are passed around by Ivy Leaguers so that a clubhouse effect is created.
20   Rin   2019 Sep 15, 11:07pm  

SunnyvaleCA says
Harvard education is competitive with or less expensive than a public university in a student’s home state.


I don't know about the rest of the USA but at least for Massachusetts, anyone with the numbers to get accepted to Harvard, will have a full scholarship of any one of the public colleges in the state. Now, is that 'lower tier' education worth it? Well, if it means graduating with no debt and then, pursuing a trade, instead of corporate BS, w/o overhanging debt then why not?
21   MisdemeanorRebel   2019 Sep 16, 12:55am  

Anne Wojicki was married to Sergei Brin when she founded 23andme. Guess what company underwrote 23andme?

Google, of course.

And how did Google get started? In Susan Wojcicki's garage, which they rented for $1700/month. At the time she was an Intel Executive. Of course, she went to harvard.

All networking and friendships. If not the "Ace Tomato Company", since Brin and Page's Google was originally underwritten by the MDDS: Massive Digital Data Systems Initiative, the goal of which was, assuming that humans of like minds would "Flock" online, coming up with ways to identify and track individual members.

The interesting thing is that the Wojcicki Sisters are both involved in businesses or wings of the business (Google AdSense, Youtube) primarily financed by the sale of personal information.

23andme sells your genetic data to private researchers. Google, Adsense, and Youtube also sell your personal information.

I mention this because there's a campaign out there to celebrate the Wojcicki's mother as a model parent, for teaching her kids "Kindness".

And because, from the very beginning, despite the "Don't Be Evil" Claims, the entire point of Google was to collect and sell personal information.
22   Rin   2019 Sep 16, 6:09pm  

CornPoptheOriginalGangster says
despite the "Don't Be Evil" Claims


First of all, why would a company need to pre-announce to the world that it isn't planning to do any malice? I mean consciously speaking, aside from Big Tobacco, how many companies intentionally go into business, just to screw people over?

I mean when we launched our firm, adding "alpha to a conservative portfolio" was our motto and we used the fact that we were New Englanders and not Wall Streeters to up sell that credo. Well, up until we merged, that was exactly what we were. If our motto was to "we won't (wink! wink!) risk all your funds and hopefully we don't crash & burn" then chances are, by year three that's exactly what would have happened.
23   Ceffer   2019 Sep 16, 6:26pm  

Rin says
But that's the point right there, there's an objective path of examination scores which leads to a top residency. The folks at Harvard Med are pass/fail (no honors) and have little incentive to push themselves, once they gain admissions to the school.


My graduate school was supposedly pass/fail, too, because of the ostensible merit of the selected pool. However, the faculty kept track of an awful lot, especially since there were a number of political and social justice admissions that were real clinkers.

There is NO admissions policy at any institution at any level of selectivity that does not result in a minimum of ten percent clinkers, either through developmental failures, fraud or undue influence, and the scatterings of sociopaths and psychopaths are everywhere. Even Harvard Med has a vested interest in ranking students somehow, even if it is not on public record.

I would imagine Harvard Med would have a generous helping of legacy toads, too, just like all their other professional schools. They need people with good tans, proper manners, right backgrounds and the right accents and dress code in order to write scrips for the wealthy and hang out at the country clubs. These guys refer patients to the 'real doctors' when actual medical services are required.
24   Rin   2019 Sep 16, 7:08pm  

Ceffer says
There is NO admissions policy at any institution at any level of selectivity that does not result in a minimum of ten percent clinkers


I'm not so sure about this.

One of my senior partners, both Univ of Penn and Columbia dean's list alum, couldn't get above a 2:2, lower half second class honors, at Univ of London LLM (Law) program.

So perhaps the idea here is to eliminate grade inflation and let the Al Gores of the world take their D's so that the school still remains prestigious academically, while certain loser but aristocratic members get their posts in the Senate and the VP but can't brag about it since ppl can always show how they under performed.
25   SunnyvaleCA   2019 Sep 16, 10:44pm  

Rin says
SunnyvaleCA says
Harvard education is competitive with or less expensive than a public university in a student’s home state.


I don't know about the rest of the USA but at least for Massachusetts, anyone with the numbers to get accepted to Harvard, will have a full scholarship of any one of the public colleges in the state. Now, is that 'lower tier' education worth it? Well, if it means graduating with no debt and then, pursuing a trade, instead of corporate BS, w/o overhanging debt then why not?

If your "family income" is $65k or less, Harvard is free. Public school won't be cheaper than that. If your family is making $100k you'll pay very little; is public college going to wave most of the tuition for a family making $100k? I doubt it.
26   Shaman   2019 Sep 17, 5:07am  

SunnyvaleCA says
If your "family income" is $65k or less, Harvard is free.


Wow! Everyone should go to Harvard!
Yep all 4 million graduates!
27   Shaman   2019 Sep 17, 7:11am  

Not if we can help it.
Re-elect Trump!
28   NuttBoxer   2019 Sep 17, 8:14am  

I have a BA in "Interdisciplinary Studies" from a small college that has since been renamed. So, no.
29   Shaman   2019 Sep 17, 9:19am  

nybiker says
Wake up. Think. Spread the word. Dark times are coming.


I know you’d like to think so, but I’m not so sure. People won’t want to give up these creature comforts for a little liberty and some anarchy. Remember, anarchy is only ever a very temporary condition. It’s soon replaced with some form of government, usually monarchy or totalitarianism because any government at all is better than anarchy.
30   Rin   2019 Sep 17, 10:06am  

SunnyvaleCA says
is public college going to wave most of the tuition for a family making $100k? I doubt it.


Then let me assuage your doubts.

I have right now in my circle of acquaintances, through their parents, two persons, both of whom graduated in the top 1% of their high schools and will attend two of the UMass campuses, 100% free of charge (no added loans for CoL calculations). Both of them got into at least one Ivy college and none of them were offered a full scholarship (no loan components) over there.

In other words, their free rides were merit based. If they got into UMass among the bottom tier of applicants then it would be purely need based with loans, etc.

Sure, if a person is a dirt poor valedictorian then attend HU because that's probably that kid's only chance of a Morgan & Stanley internship in life. Otherwise, look at other options because I know we tried to desperately hire a guy at the distance program at Univ of London but because he already had experience on his own accord, he had other options.
31   Al_Sharpton_for_President   2019 Sep 17, 10:18am  

I have an MBA from a top (non-Ivy) school. The MBA program is for networking and lining up a career path. So the higher caliber, well-connected fellow students, profs and the school itself, the better you can do.

But irrespective of any degree, it’s hard to keep a good man down (cameo by S. Daniels). Hard work, risk taking and creativity can still succeed in the USA.
32   Rin   2019 Sep 17, 10:21am  

willywonka says
I have an MBA from a top (non-Ivy) school. The MBA program is for networking and lining up a career path. So the higher caliber, well-connected fellow students, profs and the school itself, the better you can do.


What's not clearly stated is that many of these ppl were already junior analyst/consultant for Morgan & Stanley, Bain, BCG, etc, before even applying for B-school. So that's in effect, a clubhouse effect and not one based around education.
33   Al_Sharpton_for_President   2019 Sep 18, 11:19am  

Rin says
willywonka says
I have an MBA from a top (non-Ivy) school. The MBA program is for networking and lining up a career path. So the higher caliber, well-connected fellow students, profs and the school itself, the better you can do.


What's not clearly stated is that many of these ppl were already junior analyst/consultant for Morgan & Stanley, Bain, BCG, etc, before even applying for B-school. So that's in effect, a clubhouse effect and not one based around education.
Huzzah! Add to that grade inflation, and an Ivy league MBA is a finishing school for the lazy, clueless and not intelligent scions of the upper class. What you get is brand credentialed imposters, fucking up and getting paid substantial sums, and jumping to the next disaster or just retiring with multi-millions.
34   Al_Sharpton_for_President   2019 Sep 18, 11:40am  

texastina says
If you lived in a peaceful free country with a balanced budget and took out a student loan to go to medical school and then found out when you graduated that your country had turned into a bankrupt warmongering police state, would you work to pay back the debt and taxes?

https://finalchan.net/sp/
That depends on the individual. Do you agree to do what you promised to do? And is a political view a rationale for not paying for other reasons?
35   Shaman   2019 Sep 18, 12:06pm  

willywonka says
That depends on the individual. Do you agree to do what you promised to do? And is a political view a rationale for not paying for other reasons?


The nation making the loan didn’t have to. And you got a medical degree out of it, good for a great career. An honest person would pay her debts, and do what she promised to do.

I never used my degree, and it cost me $50k in loans.

I paid it all back with interest in four years of busting my ass.
36   Bd6r   2019 Sep 18, 12:14pm  

texastina says
The elites have turned everyone into criminals, liars, hypocrites, and cowards.

The only good thing about living in a police state is that no one can take the moral high ground on anything.

@Patrick,
BOT ALERT!!!
37   Patrick   2019 Sep 18, 2:34pm  

Thanks @6rdB

Bot dead now.

Got to automate this somehow. Maybe I can use tensorflow to categorize comments as all belonging to a certain type.
38   Ceffer   2019 Sep 18, 3:12pm  

I need a degree from an Elite University because I'm a loser who wants to slum it through a lucrative career after faking my way in.
40   mell   2019 Nov 1, 6:44pm  

No.

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