Is the Ivy League worth the money?

I spent most of last week driving around the Midwest, visiting colleges with my 17-year-old daughter. On every campus tour, we ran into families who, just like us, were looking for "the right fit" and who had traveled hundreds of miles to investigate.

Of course, these days "the right fit" is often a nice way of saying "the most selective and well-known college my kid can possibly get into."  Surreptitiously, the parents on the campus tours compare stats: GPAs, test scores, how many AP classes did your child take?

The answer to all those questions may well be: Who cares? This morning, I  read an article in the Wall Street Journal that suggested we all just say "no" to the competitive craziness:

"High-achieving students are likely to thrive wherever they go. 'How College Affects Students,' a 2005 book that reviewed three decades of related research, found that a university's prestige and selectivity had little consistent impact on teaching quality, student learning and other factors." The book costs a whopping $55 on Amazon.com, but in the long run that may be a better investment than $50,000 a year for college

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Comments

[jd]

After over a decade in the investment business and constant contact with Wall Street, I would agree with the assessment that one can be successful in life no matter where they go to school. I do find though that folks that graduated from Ivy League schools have this annoying habit of working that fact into their conversations. Five to ten years out of college no one cares where you went to school, yet there are some Ivy Leaguers who seem to define their lives by the four years they spent on campus.