Thursday, December 17, 2009
What's a college education really worth?
Apparently what you make of it...
... a long-term study of 6,335 college grads published in 1999 by the National Bureau of Economic Research found graduating from a college where entering students have higher SAT scores -— a sign of exclusivity -— didn't pay off in higher post-graduation income.
What matters more, it seems, is graduates' personal drive.
In a surprising twist, a stronger predictor of income is the caliber of the schools that reject you. Researchers found students who applied to several elite schools but didn't attend them -— presumably because many were rejected —- are more likely to earn high incomes later than students who actually attended elite schools.
In a summary of the findings, the Bureau says that "evidently, students' motivation, ambition and desire to learn have a much stronger effect on their subsequent success than average academic ability of their classmates."... [WSJ]
