I don't have the book with me because I'm vacationing in Hilton Head for the week, but here's what the inside flap copy says:
Quote:
What Matters in College? presents a study of how students change and develop in college and reveals how colleges can enhance that development. The book shows how a range of variables--including academic programs, faculty, student peer groups, and much more--affect students' college experiences. It examines more than 190 environmental characteristics of institutions and details how these factors can have an impact on students' personality and self-concept, patterns of behavior, values and beliefs, academic and cognitive development, career development, and satisfaction with the college environment.
It's widely regarded as the definitive study of how college affects students. (More so than the aptly named: How College Affects Students)
Nice article from Fortune on this. Basically says the reason college grads make more is because they are smarter. This is true regardless of school so get your degree on the cheap.
Bah, this article implies that spending four years on liberal arts courses really means spending four years eating bon-bons. By contrast, goes this argument, spending the same four years at Microsoft is Unabashedly Good?.
Education is more like a marinade than a commodity. The numbers-are-everything folks at Fortune oughta learn that.
Nice article from Fortune on this. Basically says the reason college grads make more is because they are smarter. This is true regardless of school so get your degree on the cheap.
Every school, every program, will have its stars. For those people, it probably doesn't matter as much in terms of what they're getting out of it. It probably makes a bigger difference with everyone else.
College is supposed to be a sort of shortcut where the wisdom and knowledge of your professors is passed on to you, rather than you having to "reinvent the wheel" and go through all that experience (time) yourself. Architects used to have two career choices: work in on office for 12-15 years, or go to college for 5-6 years and apprentice for 3 before being able to apply for a license. I think it's silly that the former path is being eliminated by the states, to protect the university system of course. Granted, few actually took this path when they started to eliminate it, but people should be able to choose between the "easy way" and the "hard way" to their goals.
Is an expensive education at a tip-top-tier college worth it? Yes.
Having a degree from one of the half-dozen top colleges opens doors for you in the real world. It's a combination of almuni networking, assumed intelligence and competence, and general benefit-of-the-doubt. What you do once your foot is in the door is entirely up to you. But having that name-brand degree (and being the product of such a educational program) will help you get the opportunities to begin with. People do look at you differently, and you look at yourself differently. This isn't intended to sound elitist, but there's a reason why half of the declared presidential candidates for 2004 (Lieberman, Kerry, Dean, and [gulp] Dubya) are products of Yale College.
The value, IMO, falls off rapidly from the top. If you can't go to one of the very best colleges for your field, the next-best level is very, very broad - and the benefits from a $30,000 upper-tier private school vs. a $5,000 quality public school are very slim indeed.
Comments
I recommend What Matters in College: Four Critical Years Revisited by Alexander W. Astin.
I don't have the book with me because I'm vacationing in Hilton Head for the week, but here's what the inside flap copy says:
What Matters in College? presents a study of how students change and develop in college and reveals how colleges can enhance that development. The book shows how a range of variables--including academic programs, faculty, student peer groups, and much more--affect students' college experiences. It examines more than 190 environmental characteristics of institutions and details how these factors can have an impact on students' personality and self-concept, patterns of behavior, values and beliefs, academic and cognitive development, career development, and satisfaction with the college environment.
It's widely regarded as the definitive study of how college affects students. (More so than the aptly named: How College Affects Students)
It's an interesting read to say the least.
Is Yale worth it?
Nick
Originally posted by trumptman
Is Yale worth it?
Bah, this article implies that spending four years on liberal arts courses really means spending four years eating bon-bons. By contrast, goes this argument, spending the same four years at Microsoft is Unabashedly Good?.
Education is more like a marinade than a commodity. The numbers-are-everything folks at Fortune oughta learn that.
Originally posted by trumptman
Nice article from Fortune on this. Basically says the reason college grads make more is because they are smarter. This is true regardless of school so get your degree on the cheap.
Every school, every program, will have its stars. For those people, it probably doesn't matter as much in terms of what they're getting out of it. It probably makes a bigger difference with everyone else.
College is supposed to be a sort of shortcut where the wisdom and knowledge of your professors is passed on to you, rather than you having to "reinvent the wheel" and go through all that experience (time) yourself. Architects used to have two career choices: work in on office for 12-15 years, or go to college for 5-6 years and apprentice for 3 before being able to apply for a license. I think it's silly that the former path is being eliminated by the states, to protect the university system of course. Granted, few actually took this path when they started to eliminate it, but people should be able to choose between the "easy way" and the "hard way" to their goals.
Is an expensive education at a tip-top-tier college worth it? Yes.
Having a degree from one of the half-dozen top colleges opens doors for you in the real world. It's a combination of almuni networking, assumed intelligence and competence, and general benefit-of-the-doubt. What you do once your foot is in the door is entirely up to you. But having that name-brand degree (and being the product of such a educational program) will help you get the opportunities to begin with. People do look at you differently, and you look at yourself differently. This isn't intended to sound elitist, but there's a reason why half of the declared presidential candidates for 2004 (Lieberman, Kerry, Dean, and [gulp] Dubya) are products of Yale College.
The value, IMO, falls off rapidly from the top. If you can't go to one of the very best colleges for your field, the next-best level is very, very broad - and the benefits from a $30,000 upper-tier private school vs. a $5,000 quality public school are very slim indeed.