Does an Elite College Really Pay?

Business and financial considerations aside, what about the social prestige that attaches as a result of a degree from one of the high prestige universities?

Whether there is direct financial value in a Harvard or Yale (for example) degree, there is a certain social standing prestige that comes with being able to say "I studied at Oxford."

There are certain generalized assumptions made about the individual when considering the source of his degree. We see this in DL when considering the schools such as Ashworth and EdDirect when compared to say The Big Three, then compared to say B&M State U.

There is a class association assigned to each of these and while it may or may not be a correct assignment, it does exist.

Even outside of DL -- there are certain class associations assigned to which B&M little Suzie attends. Start with local tech college, local campus of State U, local private college, main campus of State U, Tier I/II, and Ivy.

 

Re: Prestige=pay

You know, people who say they are not motivated by money just crack me up. Money is like sex. And food. And air. You don't really think about it too much. So you don't really think you're motivated by it. Until you're not getting any.

 

TH,

To a certain, initial extent, I think you are right. Virtually everyone IS motivated by money to a certain point and the one that says, "It's not about the money.", well, that's a dead giveaway that it IS about the money.

But money is not the primary motivator for people past a point of reasonable comfort. I don't think that most lawyers are in it for the money, certainly the dozens of public defender employees and contractors I've known weren't in it for the money.

If money is YOUR motivation, then go for it; there are lots of honest ways to get rich in America, though, unless you're born to it, the cost in other ways will be high.

Higher than I was ever willing to pay, anyway.

 

I understand that some people feel that money should play such a small role. But our ability to be able to debate is based on the fact that we have enought money to secure ourselves, our food supply, our energy and such. We have the time to disagree because we are financially able to maintain the supports we use that provide us with excess time/resources. There are alot of people here in the USA that would love to tell us what they think, and because of various reasons, one being education, they do not have the financial ability to do it.

There is a reason that Doctors make the big bucks and others dont. There are job that do not require any special skill or talent, and unless they are unionized they pay poorly. That because of expectations of the ability of the employee is very low. Most importantly the qualifications for "skilless" jobs are basicly nothing as apposed to a VP for a Bank that requires a MBA. You fastly approach socialism if that disappears, and that has a proven track record of failure.

IMHO people loose sight of how important a component that the "mean green" is. Now there is no debat that money causes alot of ill will, but NOTHING in this world happen unless you got the bucks to back it up. You cant finance a family or business on good will and fairy dust. But I will conced that Money isnt everything, BUT its difficult to accomplish other goals without it. You have the best advantage to achieve what is truely important to you by being financially secure. You becaues financially secure by having a solid foundation, and nothing is better than a education from an elite school. Ive meet total morons with degree from "good schools' that dont know their *ss from a hat and they do very well. Only because of their education and where it came from.

Ted is right....Money is like air...

 

Re: Re: Prestige=pay

You bust me up Tedmeister!



Abner

 

I think when we say "not so motivated by money," we usually mean our primary goal is not to maximize money using our available means, to use the old utilitarian economic terms. Maximizing money is often a good thing, because money can maximize lots of other things. But with our available means (typically the job or profession we have chosen), we would rather maximize:

1. time[/list=1]
   • independence[/list=2]
     • intellectual satisfaction[/list=3]
       • sense of achievement[/list=4]
         
         and so forth. "Not motivated by money" in short means "motivated to avoid the horrible side effects of what I think I would have to do to get money."

 

While the post was very valid, I have to point out that far too many bank employees hold VP titles. Banks seem to be very loose and liberal in handing out inflated titles to anyone that is above a teller. If find this to be even more true in southern banks....where just about everyone is a VP...

 

Not the take away from the original post, to the Bank VP's comment:

Quite true. Most all salaried and many non-salaried employess carry the title "VP". The most common is "Assitant VP" or variations, usually those are front-line supervisors.

However, the title "Sr VP" or "Executive VP" are the head leaders of banks, generally a door or two away from the board. Variations like Sr. AVP is still salaried employee only. Sr. VP and above are the leaders.

Generally.

That's based on my prior career where my company serviced 150 regional and local banks. Only the Sr. VP's and above could sign RFP's.