College choice is too dependent on prestige

“What’s in a name?” asks fair Juliet of Romeo’s curséd last name. “That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet.”

Ask the same question to a student about a college, and, apparently, a name means much more. In fact, students may be focusing too much on going to a college that is prestigious instead of trying to find a school that is best for them.

The biggest factor behind many a student’s college decision is the notion that attending a name-school will increase their success after they graduate.

However, a 1999 study by Princeton economists Alan Krueger and Stacy Dale proved this notion wrong. The study showed that students who declined Ivy League schools for less prestigious schools had, on average, the same incomes as graduates of elite schools. In essence, elite colleges did not equate to an earnings boost.

Furthermore, the quality of many “non-elite” schools has improved significantly in recent generations.

The Atlantic reported that 61 percent of new students at Harvard Law School in 2003 had received their bachelor’s degrees outside of the Ivy League; in the 1990s, Earlham College, a small school in Richmond, Indiana, with just 1,200 students, produced more graduates who have since received doctorates than did Brown University, Dartmouth University, Duke University, Northwestern University, University of Pennsylvania or Vassar College.

Prestige does not necessarily mean a superior education than that which dozens of other good colleges can provide.

Additionally, it is imperative for a student to consider a college’s programs in the field of his or her major or interests, rather than just attending for the name.

Take, for example, a student preparing to major in Computer Science. According to the college rankings by US News, Carnegie Mellon University, a school that is not very well known and ranked No. 23 in the nation overall, has the second best Computer Science program in the nation, right behind that of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The student should then strongly consider attending Carnegie Mellon rather than Yale, for instance, which has the glory in name but is not ranked in the Top 10 Computer Science schools.

Furthermore, the environment of elite schools may not be compatible with certain students. As the competition to get into these schools is huge, the environment of the school will also be very competitive.

As the writer Malcolm Gladwell puts it in his new book: “It may be better to be a big fish swimming in a little pond than a little fish in a big pond.” Being in an environment with an abundance of bright peers will not allow a student to stand out as much, putting him or her a disadvantage for jobs, internships or research opportunities.

Lastly, students must acknowledge the affordability of these prestigious schools. The colleges in the Ivy League are extremely expensive, with yearly tuitions ranging from approximately $55,000 to $61,000, while schools like the UCs cost around $30,000. As studies have shown, going to a highly prestigious college might not even correlate to a higher salary. So what, then, are the benefits of going into debt for a “name” college?

In short: students should strongly contemplate many other factors — like the quality of “non-elite” schools, programs in the field the student is likely to major in, environment, and affordability — when choosing a college rather than just focusing on prestige alone.