In my experience, it is more nuanced than even that. Just take computer science. There are schools that teach languages. You'll spend a semester with C, then a semester with C++, then one with Java. And then there are colleges that teach concepts. Let's look at memory management (and pointers), then let's look at data structures, then let's look at networks. Personally, the latter seem to be a far better education even if the overall experience leads to less initial skill at any given language.

Or take a look even with the same college between degrees. Some science tracks requires statistics for business majors where they will spend a day learning how to sum numbers. Other science tracks require statistics for science and engineering, where multi-variable calculus is a prerequisite. Now imagine if the degree requiring the simplified statistics was switched to requiring the harder version.

(All this being said, I agree connections are a bigger deal. I think what you learn does differ between colleges, but at the end of the day it isn't what you know but who you know.)

I attended undergrad at a big state school. My classmates were largely representative of the top 30% of my high school - people who are either gifted with raw intelligence, or who do well by working hard. My school had good sports teams, and the student body spent a lot of time and effort cheering for the teams, partying, and generally having a good time. I certainly enjoyed myself, though the academic standards were so lax that I was able to pass an entire semester where I attended no classes other than the exams. There are a lot of people who just aren't interested in the academic side of school.

Some years later, I went to a much more prestigious school for my MBA. This school didn't really have an athletic department (as a Division III school they were not allowed to issue athletic scholarships) and the student body as a whole was both smart and hard-working. I mean, sure, they drank their share too -- but learning was considered cool and group projects (while drinking, of course!) were a perfectly acceptable way to spend a Friday or Saturday night.

That attitude is infectious and it sticks with you. Once there is positive peer pressure to learn, suddenly everyone becomes invested in everyone else's success. You go from "I heard that class was an easy A so I'm gonna take it" to "I think that class looks really interesting. Want to take it with me?" Extrapolate that from school to life and you start to see why graduates of these elite schools on the whole tend to be more successful.

And yet what this research and other studies like it are showing is that, for STEM majors, the kind of people you are talking about are equally successful regardless of where they go to school. The school itself doesn't add anything to their success; it's just that those who are going to be more successful anyway, regardless of school, are better at getting into harder-to-get-into schools.

And as for the connections, these comments keep talking about how the better schools give you better connections. If so, this research showing no mid-career earnings advantage suggests that if those "better" connections are worth anything at all, it isn't money or things that show up as more money such as better jobs, more access to jobs, more job stability, etc. My interpretation, though, and my own experience, is that the connections ARE worth money, but that birds of a feather soon flock together after graduation, regardless of where they went to school. Stanford and MIT engineers don't go to the same school, and if you have as much in common with them out in the working world as they have with each other, you will soon have similar connections and similar lives.

I'm at a community college right now, doing gen-eds, and I absolutely dread all group work because the vast majority of my classmates are a) completely unprepared for the class or b) completely indifferent to actually working. Some of it is immaturity, but a lot of it is the fact that kids at a community college tend to be lower-caliber students. There are some who are doing the exact same thing as me - saving money, saving the commute - but they're outnumbered by the "Welp, I couldn't get into Yale, but Mommy and Daddy want me to go to college, so here I am."

As a result, I'm a try-hard in classes that I'm paying for. I mostly grin and bear it, as I'm saving several thousand dollars per year by taking gen-eds at the CC, but there are times that I think, "You know, if I were in class with people who actually gave a shit, I'd probably get more out of it."

It's unfortunate, as discussions are not nearly as engaging as they could be.

Make the wrong assumption that this article illustrates. I think the only difference you really observed was between undergrad and grad school and had little to do with the prestige of the school.

Contrast with the undergrads at my grad school (I did a bunch of hackathons and pitch competitions with the undergrads, so I worked with quite a few of them), nearly all of whom were the smartest kid in their high school. Some were pricks, some were more humble, but god damn, every single one of those kids was ambitious.

In Australia we have a clear distinction between Universities, which typically teach the underlying theories and ideas of things like engineering, biochem, etc (the why) and TAFE (Technical and Further Education), which typically teach how to do stuff like welding and being a lab technician (the doing).

It's vary rare that a graduating mechanical engineer can weld, for example, because the University doesn't teach them that.

I personally think programming falls into the category of doing (like welding), but in this case it's difficult to teach the why of computer theory without having done some programming, but it's perfectly easy to teach the physics and math of building a bridge without ever having used a welder.

Good programming skills are not necessary to teach CS, but that does not imply that teaching CS is a sufficient condition for having bad programming skills. (Propositional Logic 101, taught by someone who may or may not be good at programming).

Funnily enough, the software engineers from my university (U of Auckland) are all taught how to weld, because all engineering students are (were?) sent to the technical college across the road for a short machine-shop course.

I'd say it was useful for the mechanical engineers and related disciplines, maybe civil engineering, but for most of us it was a bit of a non sequitur (though interesting to some.)

When investors came visiting they would be introduced "this is Mike from MIT" where other people who were at least as qualified as the ivy leaguers would get ignored. The VCs seemed impressed. They didn't even need a network. The name of the school was enough to stand out.

Result is that the Stanford and MIT guys would often start their own VC funded companies.

Elite institutions are a very powerful brand. And their reputation gets amplified in the media with headlines "Yale researchers discover...", "MIT develops..."

I went to MIT and that's about the least impressive and least relevant thing I can think of to what I did/do for the company I work for. Yet, in investor/VC/pitch/roadshow decks, I usually see "this is how many MIT and how many Stanford grads we have"...

Trust me, it's not nearly as relevant as people think, but it must work.

VCs are risk-averse pattern matchers. Their training patterns include knowing that startups with a high percentage of MIT and Stanford grads do well. Despite the fact that correlation isn't causation, they live off of that fallacy, so they would rather invest in a bunch of MIT and Stanford grads than not.

It actually makes a lot of sense for a VC to do that. They have a huge incentive to have a lot of false negatives and avoid false positives, so it's much better for them to use criteria that will eliminate good companies than allow bad ones.

MIT and a few others are frequently confused as being members because of proximity and their own prestigious histories.

Not a huge fan of the US News rankings, but here is the list for top undergraduate engineering programs (at doctoral granting institutions)

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-gradu...

There is only one ivy, Cornell, in the top 10 (though Princeton does clock in at 11). Like I said, I'm not a huge fan of these rakings, and using them to the digit (4th place vs 6th place) is genuinely absurd. But overall, you'll see here that large public research universities, none of which crack the top 20 for US News undergraduate college rankings, are much more prominent where it comes to engineering.

There are reasons in the methodology for this as well - I think that the algorithm used to create the general rankings isn't similar to this one, which (like the ranking for grad programs) is more academic and research focused (not considering average SAT, admission rates, funding, and so forth).

But overall, the Ivies actually aren't highly notable where it comes to computer science and engineering. Large public research universities, as well as elite non-ivy privates, tend to predominate here.

This does make a certain amount of sense. If a STEM major is an "equalizer", where smart people who went to less prestigious schools can compete on (more) equal footing, it would make sense that students at highly selective undergraduate programs might eschew engineering or CS in favor of fields where their undergrad school might provide a stronger differentiator. And, conversely, if a super smart undergrad at San Jose state will have trouble overcoming the pedigree disadvantage in international relations, but can get a more equal crack through engineering, it would make more sense to study STEM.

I'm definitely guilty of some "just-so" reasoning here, but it does fit.

It's called MUST.[1]

[1] Well, all right, they prefer the term "Missouri S&T," which abbreviates "Missouri University of Science and Technology." Oddly, the Institute of Technology, one division of the University of Minnesota, is no longer called that, because in this part of the Midwest, "Institute of Technology" sounded too much like a for-profit vocational school, so now the same unit of Minnesota is called the College of Science and Engineering, or C.S.E. for short. When I heard about the name change proposal, I thought, "Hasn't anyone heard of the California Institute of Technology [now Caltech is the preferred name] or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [which is usually called MIT by anyone who knows of it]?"

Is this true? When I look at some of the prestigious universities that have some of their coursework online, some of the courses appear more rigorous and challenging than the large state school I went to. Perhaps this challenge does not amount to better education, but it certainly seems more challenging.

What matters even more though is the student body. Hanging out with a bunch of really smart and dedicated young people for 4+ years gives one a huge leg up intellectually.

At my small school there were very few smart people to talk to, it was very lonely and insular. By comparison, time I spent hanging out around Berkeley and PENN were very exciting intellectually.

At the state school, if you were really, really good at your coursework or were taking advanced classes earlier than normal, you stood out so much that there was actually a sense of isolation. It made me feel fairly uncomfortable in a few cases, which is one of the things that led me to transfer away.

Also, UCB outranks most of the ivyleague in the sciences, engineering and computer science on most measures --

http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-uni...

http://www.shanghairanking.com/FieldSCI2015.html

http://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/ran...

I can't say I know for sure but I imagine if this were MIT or Caltech, the students would not be complaining and instead study harder to make sure they could keep up. On the other hand, they probably wouldn't have trouble keeping up.

I didn't go to a top 10 school but a top 15 CS program for what it's worth.

Presumably the tutors discuss this, and if everyone is having trouble it's raised with the lecturer. I think it happened once, and a couple if extra lectures / whole class tutorials were set.

It's quite rare for a course anywhere to get through all of the textbook - regardless of where you go, there will still be material left unlearned. (This is why one of my favorite learning strategies is to buy the textbook and then self-teach my way through it at my own pace.)

It's quite hard to get a sense for what a course is truly like just from glancing at the syllabus.

Though I disagree with the "better education" part. There were some courses that were unique only to Georgia Tech or taught by professors who were well known in their field.

Amazingly the Georgia Tech degree did not prevent a layoff

Partial layoffs (20% of your job "family") are usually about the employee. Wholesale layoffs (all of a job type, all of a product team, all of a location) are generally completely independent of the specific employee, skills, capabilities, or performance.

Good programmers from elite schools are in high demand and can ask for relatively high salaries. When I have been working in companies with big budgets, I can get good programmers from elite schools. When I have been working in companies with smaller budgets, I can't.

However, as you infer, I don't find a big difference in the quality of new graduates based on the school that they went to. Overall they seem to have a very similar gradient of ability. The schools can differ on what they concentrate on, but I have found that good quality programmers suck up everything around them anyway. Whatever they missed at school they have either independently worked on, or are keen to learn after school.

From a hiring point of view, I actually target people from lesser known schools simply because there seems to be a higher percentage of good people available. Obviously from a getting hired perspective, you will have a greater chance of working on a team with a big budget right out of school if you go to an elite school.

One thing I learned when I worked as a teacher: good students need very little in the way of instruction. Point them in a direction and give them freedom to learn. That will give you the best results. In fact I have been fortunate to work with several really marvellous programmers who were self-taught (though I don't recommend that approach for most people -- it's hard to focus and to know what is best to concentrate on).

From my perspective, an elite school is ideal if you are hoping to make contacts and to go to a big famous company right out of school. If your goal is to learn, then you can save a HUGE amount of money by choosing a less prestigious school. I graduated with no debt (admittedly I worked programming for various professors all through school). It takes a pretty big difference in starting salary to offset that kind of advantage.

Still, the cost of any college is absolutely stifling unless you're willing to take on a lot of debt or have parents willing to support you - unless you have absolutely top grades. Too many very intelligent people I know growing up had social or parental problems - passed all their tests but couldn't do the homework due to trouble at home.

I think the major downside to skipping school is that it makes it nearly impossible to immigrate to another country sometime in your life. A degree in a related field is worth its weight in gold in that case.

I attended Caltech. In my later work experience, I clearly received a more thorough education than my peers who went to other colleges, particularly in math. And yes, it did give me a leg up.

It's not just diploma mills (unless every uni outside of the top ~10 is a diploma mill for you). In my opinion you are completely wrong. Quoting myself from a similar thread:

> I'm at a mediocre university and watching MIT lectures has made me realize I'm missing out on literally mountains of knowledge. Never mind the qualification process, spending several years with intelligent people (both students and faculty) [also] makes a huge difference.

That's not to be undervalued:

Based on years of experience I would estimate that the "good" jobs, often regardless of the field, are landed as follows:

Networking (60% of my "gigs":) Nepotism (10%, maybe more, much less in my case) Proven Ability to Deliver (20%) Good Luck (10%)

Having said that, I believe it's very possible to leverage network contacts from a smaller school, especially if you're a member of on-campus groups that have a nation-wide presence...

Comparing elite schools to flagship state public schools this essential true. But there are a lot of diploma mills that water down the curriculum so people who have no business being in college can pass.

Whether a better education will actually make you a better worker or person, I'm not sure sure about that.

Then again, I was a math major, and I've traditionally believed that math is one of the subjects where the school can make the biggest difference. There's a cultural aspect to math where being surrounded by a ton of extremely passionate and talented mathematicians is just impossibly valuable. At Mizzou, even the math majors didn't seem to care. I stood out like a sore thumb just for being truly passionate about the subject.

That makes certain professions unreachable from outside of a few colleges, like some top law firms, consultancy, banks, or even tech companies!

The caveat is that you at some point need to build personal relationships with these folks. Success in the network might be a minor influence at baseline ("ah, from my old alma mater, sure I'll take the interview...") but those choice positions come from friends offering friends' friends jobs.

To boot, I think this can be true even in skill-driven fields -- unless you're intended to be a pure engineer, money comes from managing people & projects (i.e. the more work you can generate for other people, the more valuable you are). These positions requires far less technical chops than we'd maybe like.

I've always found that my degree got my foot in the door, after that it was my research experience, internships and performance in interviews/code tests.

I went to a top-25 non-ivy.

In that case, college's apologists would still give the same rationalizations about "Pokemon dynamics teach you how to learn, and give you a broader view of the world, and the Pokemon evolution system helps you better structure your thoughts for clear communication, which is obviously why it improves your earnings and is a must-have for being a well-rounded individual who doesn't just fix toilets all day".

It sounds like you are concentrating on the classroom experience, but there is more to a good education than the classroom.

For instance, at schools like Caltech and MIT undergraduates have excellent opportunities to get involved with research, and have access to state of the art equipment. Such opportunities are a lot more limited at, say, a Cal State branch.

This is the main (and probably the only legitimate) reason to want to be educated in such an institution. They can provide an access to an early research material which is not even published yet, and will only get into textbooks decades later.

My wife started her degree at a community college. They had pretty decent humanities courses, kind of lousy biology courses, and downright embarrassing (or really non-existant) computer science ones. She transferred for the rest of her degree to a reasonably well known, selective, but not `elite` school (was accepted at an ivy but we turned it down due to not feeling the cost was worth it). Both the humanities courses and bio courses there were excellent. The CS courses (with the exception of one class/professor) were not great. Like in the professors teaching things that were wrong sense. =\

I attended a top 10 school and classes in every field I took were well done. Better than the Hum/Bio stuff at my wife's second school? No, not really. But I didn't experience anything anywhere near as bad as her CS classes.

The community college (and to a lesser extent the mid tier school) had a lot of issues with administration. At the CC you'd have to physically wait in hour long lines for basically anything (picking up IDs, seeing your advisor, fixing class registration issues, etc). The "quiet study area" signs were completely ignored. The mid tier school was much better, still, there were issues with getting into the right classes necessary to finish majors and minors as there simply weren't enough spots in the higher level classes. There was a stressful song and dance the first week of each term trying to get off of waitlists and into classes.

The elite school I attended had an absurd 3:1 student/faculty ratio. The only class I ever had trouble getting into was one video games that the entire school must have registered for. I could usually walk into my professor and advisor's offices without appointments. Does this make the education "better"? Eehhh not really, but it was way less stressful and I had more time and energy to devote to learning stuff and less to dealing with understaffed bureaucracy.

Finally, the elite school had a whole lot more instructors who were well known or well connected in their fields, won Nobel prizes, etc. We got many more famous and influential guest speakers. I learned C++ from a member of the C++ standardization committee. Networking from someone who worked on ARPANET. Professors that I had classes with were referenced in popular scifi tv shows. My wife jealously (but playfully) pokes me at least weekly pointing out yet another book or paper she's been asked to read in one of her classes authored by researchers from my school or they've been mentioned in a textbook as having discovered something particularly important about her field. Does this make an education "better" or worth the price of admission? I'm not entirely convinced on that, but I think I do have a better understanding of some of the inner workings of my field because of some of the stories and asides made by instructors who were there for it.