I grew up in a different class than most of my peers. It’s interesting to see how many of them are willing to go all out for their kids when it comes to college. Touring many schools, application prep, savings accounts, meal plans, etc.
It sometimes seems as this support comes out of nowhere after years of not being involved in their child’s life.
So my question is what motivates this? Are they right? Is it really important for their kids future to go to a top 70 instead of 130? (I believe top 5 is worth almost any amount of money)
Is this based on college being a good time in their life and they are projecting that experience? Do they feel obligated to “finish strong” in regards to parenting?
The attitude of my parents is to make sure the degree will lead to a job, and then find a local and cheap school to get that credential. I believe there may be taboo class issues around this topic that are not vocalized.
> Is it really important for their kids future to go to a top 70 instead of 130?
There are definitely rough cutoffs. Using your ballpark thresholds, yes, there can be a big difference in 70ish and 130ish in terms of opportunities. The big issue is whether the student will avail themselves of these opportunities.
> (I believe top 5 is worth almost any amount of money)
Oh, definitely not true unless the student avails themselves of the available opportunities.
At top 5, it’s only worth the money (assuming that you’re price sensitive) if the student does one or more things like uses the school alumni network, develops a robust network in school, works with top tier researchers, accesses unique learning opportunities, goes into fields that only pull from these schools (e.g., investment banking, consulting, etc.), tapping into the varsity athlete network, and other things like that.
If they just go and get a degree and then do whatever they were going to do if they had gone to State U, then it’s wasted money.
The classroom education at the top 5 universities is largely not that good. Smaller liberal arts colleges do a better job of classroom education, imho, if thats what someone is looking for.
> Is this based on college being a good time in their life and they are projecting that experience?
Maybe.
There’s probably a lot of intuitively knowing that it’s better to go to a good school without necessarily knowing what about going to a good school makes it matter.
> The attitude of my parents is to make sure the degree will lead to a job, and then find a local and cheap school to get that credential.
Smart, but very limiting if you have ambitions beyond being a middle manager.
> I believe there may be taboo class issues around this topic that are not vocalized.
> unless the student avails themselves of the available opportunities.
I was imagining it in personal terms. I would have paid any amount of money for myself because I believe it would have worked for the reasons you mentioned.
> knowing that it’s better to go to a good school without…
That’s likely.
> but very limiting if you have ambitions beyond being a middle manager.
Say more. That kind of thing sounds worth paying for.
> Taboo
For example, someone might secretly think state school education was a waste of time, but not want to talk bad about their peer’s schooling. Or want their child to socialize with other well-to-do families.
> Say more. That kind of thing sounds worth paying for.
I’m not sure what you have in mind.
I’m assuming “get a local and cheap degree that gets you a job” means going to a community college and a directional school (at best).
The whole mentality behind this thinking is “I’m going to be the best worker bee I can be”. Worker bees cap out at middle management. When you go to schools like this, you are surrounded by future worker bees, that will probably be your mentality, and that will almost certainly be your social circle. It’s hard to escape worker bee status in that context — possible, just hard and not probable.
Note that there isn’t anything wrong with being a worker bee. The world needs a lot of them.
Upper management, owners of big businesses, politicians, etc. are thinking about how to utilize worker bees to accomplish goals grander than “getting a good job”. It’s a very different way of thinking. It’s not particularly difficult, but it’s foreign to most people who aren’t surrounded by it.
Note that I am not referring to a flagship state school, which usually produces the majority of your local and state leaders (see below).
As a side note, this worker bee phenomenon is in play at elite schools as well. The worker bees get “good jobs” as analysts at investment banks, entry level positions at consulting firms, or (later) associate positions at good law firms. They do their worker bee thing, make the principals a lot of money, and then plateau / wash-out mid-career when they realize that they don’t have the social capital it takes to be a rainmaker. Some folks adjust and do well for themselves, but others don’t.
So to address your comment about being “worth paying for”, it really boils down to a few things. Does the student already have a lot of social capital that they will be able to build on top of? If not, are they socially capable enough to do the things they need to do (mostly build social networks that will let facilitate them being rain makers and/or power brokers later in life)? This is a lot to ask of a kid who is not already part of the upper-middle class or higher (e.g., the capital class).
If a student is just going to go to college, play video games in their dorm room, maybe roll in the hay a bit, and be an average student with a mediocre degree, then paying for a top 5 school (or even a flagship state school) largely is not worth it, imho.
> For example, someone might secretly think state school education was a waste of time,
As long as the “state school” is the flagship school or the A&M school, then this would not be a smart thing to think. Exceptions exist (e.g., UCLA), but these are largely known schools.
It all gets back to how the student utilizes the opportunities presented to them.
> but not want to talk bad about their peer’s schooling.
Probably a good idea in general.
> Or want their child to socialize with other well-to-do families.
Well, this is a smart move for building and/or maintaining social status.
That said, outside of the northeast corridor and California, the state flagship school probably produces waaaay more local and state leaders (business, political, etc.) than top 5 schools. I’ve definitely heard of people having limited access to their state power scene because they went to an Ivy instead of making the right connections at State U.
Edit:
Note that there are other scenarios that make elite schools good.
If you want to become an academic/researcher (I suggest not doing this unless you know someone who will give you the “inside baseball” version of being an academic), the elite schools give folks advantages that state schools don’t.
If you are in a STEM field and you want to meet other super smart and super motivated folks to work with in STEM later, then elite schools can be a good deal. But again, we are back to social networking.
If you want to go to an elite law school or certain grad schools, I actually recommend most people go to State U. For most majors, the effort required to be middle of the pack at an elite school will put you at the top of State U. A super high gpa and recs saying that you’re one of their 1%er students ever are worth way more than being merely above average (e.g., 70th percentile) in a pool of very motivated and intelligent people.
It’s rough listening to folks at Ivy graduations who busted their butt to get into an Ivy and do well (but not top of their class) moan about how they are ending up at the same good-but-not-great law school as their buddy who had zero stress before and during college. Note that the Ivy grad may be better prepared for law school (maybe), but one has to wonder if the stress, money, and effort were worth it.
Attitudes around college in the US are really fascinating to me, because I’ve found they vary a lot from region to region and I think really reinforce class divides. I grew up in an area/class where my parents and their friends believed:
- All universities and even community colleges are equally good, except for maybe the Ivey league schools they’ve heard about, but no one actually goes to those.
- All majors are equally good, except whatever makes you a doctor, which is the best.
- Colleges on the east and west coast are very bad because they are purely for liberal indoctrination
- The highest earning career path from college is becoming a doctor, and if you become a doctor you are very upper class.
- what is majoring in finance? Is that like being a bank teller?
- what is studying computer science? Is that like working at Best Buy?
Once I got to college and met what I now think of as “the American urban professional class” I found a completely different set of beliefs, where college rankings were do-or-die, everyone wants their kid to go into finance, consulting, or tech, or get an MBA, and everyone seems to inherit large corporate networks from their parents.
I’m sure this has all sorts of culture war implications. I know the politics of the community I grew up in has more to do with distrusting/disliking the urban professional class than any wholistic political ideology. Probably both groups should learn something from each other.
I just searched for "best predictor of career success" and found a bunch of conflicting results. Open networks, conscientiousness, grit, intelligence, class, etc. This is actually reassuring, since if there were a known path to success everyone would crowd into it. Curiously I didn't see any articles or studies saying "it's partially random" because no one wants to hear that.
I think academic prestige is best understood as a safety net. It won't guarantee success, because nothing can, but it can do a decent job preventing failure. In that respect the parents are right. Academic assistance is a way they can convert financial resources into something that can't be taken away from their children (and isn't subject to the gift tax limit).
That said it's easy to go overboard, and many do. Unless you want to work in a small number of careers that have target lists of schools they recruit from (which again is because the credential is a selling point to clients, not because the education is better), there is no difference between a public university and a prestigious one.
To the extent parents know that prestige is signalling all the way down, and does not imply being better at what you do or knowing more about your subject, they do have some inside perspective compared to the population at large.
> I just searched for "best predictor of career success" and found a bunch of conflicting results. Open networks, conscientiousness, grit, intelligence, class, etc. This is actually reassuring, since if there were a known path to success everyone would crowd into it. Curiously I didn't see any articles or studies saying "it's partially random" because no one wants to hear that.
I'm not sure which is the best for career success and it's incredibly difficult to quantify your parents network effect, but conscientiousness, intelligence and grit make for a very happy life. You'll naturally gravitate toward intellectually stimulating things, work hard at them, not care about meaningless things around you, and enjoy every minute of it.
> Academic assistance is a way they can convert financial resources into something that can't be taken away from their children (and isn't subject to the gift tax limit).
This is a really good summary. The end result is a permanent, non-transferable, protection with strong resistance to “inflation”.
> they do have some inside perspective compared to the population at large.
Would that advantage manifest as playing into the system - looking for opportunities for signaling? Or discounting - finding good education with less signaling value.
> Would that advantage manifest as playing into the system - looking for opportunities for signaling? Or discounting - finding good education with less signaling value.
Good question! I think that can play out both ways, ultimately based on how wealthy the parents are. If money is no object, play the prestige game. If you are middle class and know the rules of the game, maximize value.
For example, I am acquainted with parents who are teachers at a prestigious private school. Their child attended said school because of subsidized tuition, and then attended college in an honors program at a state university in the middle of the country. He was paid to attend! The parents are fully abreast of all the studies on the effects of education, both being teachers and being in the middle of the college admissions frenzy that goes on in these schools. So they know how the game works, and they are playing it to the max for value.
On the other hand, at this school are children from generational wealth who play obscure sports from an early age to give them an edge in admissions. The children never need to actually earn a living, and the target school admission is seen as a defense of a family legacy and bragging rights for the parents - pure prestige.
> children from generational wealth who play obscure sports from an early age to give them an edge in admissions
This sounds like a cut scene from Wes Anderson's 1998 film Rushmore. Can you name some of the sports? This sounds like fun. In my mind, the #1 prestige sport is rowing. It makes golf look like a sport for poor people. Also: Dressage (show jumping with horses). To be clear: I still respect people who are very good at rowing or dressage, but they are almost always from uber wealthy families.
Interesting. Field hockey is big in many public schools in the US Midwest. I would hardly call it a great signal. Also, water polo is popular anywhere that swimming is popular -- California, Florida, etc. Again, not a strong signal in my mind. However, fencing and squash: Yep, strong signals.
> I believe top 5 is worth almost any amount of money
Is it, though? Of course people who go to Harvard et al. do well afterwards, but many of them came from wealthy families and were bound to do well no matter what. If you’re poor, Harvard [1] is less likely to make you rich than UC Riverside [2].
Which measure are you going off there? Because I see the "Chance a poor student has to become a rich adult" metric at 41% for UC Riverside and 58% for Harvard.
There is the "overall mobility" metric that favors UC Riverside, but the way that's being measured would seem to skew in favor of whichever college has students in lower quintiles (a top quintile kid can't move up 2 quintiles).
Ah, you're right, I misread. But 41% vs 58% isn't a big enough difference to pay "any amount" for IMO - and the gap is much smaller with other public universities like Irvine (55%) and SUNY Binghampton (54%).
Quintiles is a poor measure given the extremes of inequality. The Pareto distribution of income and wealth has folks in the top 10/1/.1/.01 percentiles with vastly different lifestyles compared to the other percentiles.
"Any amount of money" when the statistics are still a coin toss sounds like a gambling addict. That's insanely bad odds for "life savings" amounts of money...
Money is not the same as status, and opens different job opportunities like key government officials . I would be more interested in a survey that includes whether the participant was satisfied with their career trajectory
I wonder how many of those peers that can evaluate the quality of the teaching itself.
I'm guessing a lot of people (especially those without an university education) look at how impressive the buildings and facilities are because those are the status signals they understand. I don't think many check how large percentage of lessons are run by assistants.
So too many US colleges end up being 80% overly expensive hotel and 20% education.
Because the 80% overly expensive hotel is precisely what you're paying for. Quality of education is a bare minimum requirement. The rest is the people you'll meet. Be that your neighbors in the expensive hotel or the professors you'll work with, or the activities that will bond you with those people.
Well, I think that's half right, in that "how large percentage of lessons are run by assistants" isn't necessarily a great measure of "quality of teaching" either. In some cases the TAs may be better teachers than the professors.
I know someone who is a guidance counselor at an ultra elite high school. He globetrots every year to a plethora of institutions that are desperate to attract those students. All presumably because they want the alumni bucks when they have their own children. For a certain class, higher education serves an entirely different purpose.
Lack of involvement can come from multiple issues. I don’t spend as much time with my kids as I’d like. Partly so that we can have good education, a decent home, activities, and college without stress.
The push into college is kinda the last hurrah for parents to set their kids up. Taking it seriously helps the (soon to be adult) kids take it seriously, finding a good fit can have an outsized impact on what they do next.
I do wish we lived in a world where we could be both involved and supportive of future endeavors. I grew up in a lower middle class home. College involved atrocious debt while my parents were uninvolved as … they were still busy working.
I think this a poor justification for uninvolvement. All families need resources - so satisfying that can justify all your time. But for many people on this forum that does not occupy all their time and attention, except for brief exceptions. What differentiates quality of upbringing is not resources. So working harder at your white collar job does not make you a better parent.
I don’t think it makes me a better parent, apologies if that was how it was interpreted.
The point is that there is no other alternative. My observation, at least in tech - is that the expectation of greater than 40 hours of work per week is ever present. There is no choice to earn less, take it easy, and have more time for other pursuits. If both parents are under this expectation then there are fewer hours to be involved. A break of 1-2 years will be held against you in future interviews.
From talking with other parents, this is a common conundrum across industries. No one feels that they have enough time to be a good parent.
More concretely, what work arrangements do you have or are aware of which allow you to cap the hours worked while affording a livable home life?
Get out of the big names and startups - they are known for abuse for a reason (along with games which is perhaps worse). Find joy in boring things - a lot of finance jobs are 40 hours no more (and they force you to take a 2 week vacation with no work contact every year - in hopes that if you are committing fraud you can't hide in that long). I work for John Deere which is that way (at least in my division). There are many others out there, often they sound boring but they are at the forefront of innovation in their own little niche and they expect you to have a life outside of work.
There is no choice to go to your boss and say “hey I want to work 20 hours, can you cut my salary in half and keep my benefits”?
This misunderstands your value as an employee (linear function of time at the office) and signals you aren’t really interested in the project.
However there absolutely are companies, and roles within the company, where you can work much less than 40 hours - you just can’t explicitly ask for it.
Where your kid goes to school is a status symbol. And like most status symbols, it is a foolish and conspicuous waste.
Americans love to root for teams and build their identities around what teams they are on. In sports, in politics, in college selection, even which state or city they are from. College selection is just an easy way to buy yourself into a team.
Bragging about where your kid goes to school is extremely common. It signals not only what can you afford (like a car), but also lets you buy and display a bunch of gear. (University name) Dad is like a super common apparel and bumper sticker item. And having, e.g., Stanford Dad is more prestigious than eg New Mexico State Dad apparel.
while having paper from Stanford may open some doors for you if you network well while you are there the degree from New Mexico State can get you a lucrative career if you know wtf you are doing. business work on the bottom line and in my three decades in the industry I have found more gems from non-Ivy league schools than otherwise by a wide margin
Your second statement is accurate and contradicts your first statement. Going into the right school puts you on the right team which will make your future career easier, as your school affiliation will send the right signals to hiring managers/business partners/investors/customers/whoever you will need to work with.
Not in my industry (software engineering). Hiring managers barely care about what school you went to. It might afford you more career fair opportunities, but that's about it.
Now, some schools will give you more educational opportunities and better education, but honestly? The margins aren't that huge.
I do not think the very selective schools provide better education. I'm not an educator, but I've done my research and it's a general agreement.
They do give you a better start in your career. You have ability to participate in research/development activities alongside with your professors who are leading experts in the industry, you create connections in the real world through the projects you participate in, and therefore you will have much more opportunities for a better start.
Many good companies (FAANG or whatever did/will replace them) recruit out of these schools. The likes of Deloitte, Google, all the 3-letter agencies do not recruit out of Iowa state, they only do top 20.
As you progress in your career it starts to matter less where you went (you can still tap your college connections many years later though), but if you managed to have a good start, your ceiling will be higher, too.
Even if you managed to graduate without much career prospects despite all the opportunities the school provided, you will still have the brand name on the resume which will make the recruiters and hiring managers to give you extra consideration.
Is this worth extra $100K debt you got to put yourself through Harvard? Not necessarily. But it might be.
Test 1: If a resume showed up from Stanford CS, how likely would it be that you or your coworkers would completely ignore it without giving them a call?
Test 2: if you had an employee with Stanford CS how likely would it be that your coworkers would ever mention that individual having that degree?
#1 reasonably high? We turn down plenty of Stanford grads. What's their GitHub like?
#2 degree basically never comes up, except if someone is saying they had an atypical degree path. And institution? Never, unless it's a part of someone's identity and they are a big "I am a college team guy"
It sometimes seems as this support comes out of nowhere after years of not being involved in their child’s life.
So my question is what motivates this? Are they right? Is it really important for their kids future to go to a top 70 instead of 130? (I believe top 5 is worth almost any amount of money)
Is this based on college being a good time in their life and they are projecting that experience? Do they feel obligated to “finish strong” in regards to parenting?
The attitude of my parents is to make sure the degree will lead to a job, and then find a local and cheap school to get that credential. I believe there may be taboo class issues around this topic that are not vocalized.