Laura Rowley Money & Happiness

A few weeks back I wrote about the record number of students receiving rejections from Ivy League schools this year (see "Success Doesn't Care Which College You Went To").

Research shows that 20 years into their careers, highly motivated students who don't attend the most selective schools earn roughly the same salaries as those who do. I asked readers if persistence and motivation can get someone as far as a prestigious degree. Hundreds of readers shared their views:

Degrees of Difference

I agree it doesn't matter where you went to school to be successful. I always joke around with my wife about this, and then she gets mad at me. She went to Cornell and earned her Bachelor's and Master's in four years, then went to University of Pennsylvania Law School, and today is a partner in one of the largest global law firms.

I spent five years at Towson State to earn my Bachelor's degree, and today I'm a top salesperson for a large asset-management firm. I joke with her that she married a DTG (dumb Towson guy) who makes more money than his Ivy-educated-attorney-wife. It's about earning your degree and then working harder than everyone else.
-- Matt

GPA is the most important thing on your resume, closely followed by which university provided the education. In my interviewing experience for some of the top financial positions, these two factors are the first questions in every interview.

Another thing I believe you failed to mention was the importance of the network developed in college, with the top university offering a network that's much more likely to be successful as a whole.
-- Reginald Hayes

No Link vs. a Huge Difference

My son and daughter both were denied admission at selective universities and ended up graduating from second-tier private universities. However, both received great educations, great academic scholarships, and mentoring from professors who made a difference in their lives. Moreover, they were admitted to the most "prestigious" graduate schools and are now pursuing their doctorates at the top schools in their field.

Thirty years ago, I worked for Shell Oil Company as a geoscientist. Because Shell recruited only the best graduates from a variety of universities, the company did a study of their hundreds of geoscientists to determine if there was any link to the geoscientist's success at Shell and the university he/she graduated from. The results were that there was no link whatsoever.
-- Brad Magill

Even though I believe that determination and focus are the keys to success, it does matter where you go to school. If you go to an Ivy [for your undergrad degree], you end up getting a better first job. If you do decently well at this job, you'll go up the ladder of success easily.

A better job after college means more chances of getting into a better graduate program. In a good economy, an Ivy degree makes a small difference. In a bad economy, the Ivy makes a huge difference.
-- Dimitrios Mantoulidis

Competitive Edge?

I was accepted at Yale and offered some financial aid, but couldn't afford the remaining costs. I was the first person from either side of my family to attend college, and my parents had no idea about college costs or ways to finance it.

So I attended a state college in Alabama, Jacksonville State University, which at the time was waiving out-of-state tuition for students from northern Georgia. Total cost was less than one-fourth the amount I would've paid for the remainder of Yale's fees. I'm now running my third biotech company, having previously worked for two of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.
-- Jim Schoeneck

I disagree with your assessment. Students that get into top schools are generally top notch, in terms of persistence and motivation. When they graduate from top schools, they become almost invincible. Students that don't have such privileged life (i.e. didn't attend Ivy League schools and great private schools for high school) have already lost in my opinion.

Education that's offered in America (except in top Ivy League schools) can be easily matched by any other random university in India/China (with millions of graduates) and America will lose its competitive edge. The only way out is an Ivy League education.
-- Naga Gollakota

Making the Best of It

You get out what you put in, like anything in life. I myself work for a Fortune 500 company, and many of my fellow co-workers have gone to the state university right here in town -- for both their undergraduate and graduate degrees. As a matter of fact, the two most recent CEOs of my company received their undergraduate degrees from state institutions.

We don't have schwanky jobs in Manhattan, Chicago, or Boston, but we have carved out comfortable lives for ourselves in northern New England while only mortgaging a small portion of our futures with student loans. I think you could argue that a prestigious degree in no way guarantees that you're any more intelligent that the average Joe on the street. Dare I use our current President as an example?
-- Tim

I read your article with particular interest because my son was recently admitted to The Jerome Fisher Program (dual degrees at Wharton and the School of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania). His sister is a freshman at Harvard. Unlike them, I grew up in a lower-middle-class section of Brooklyn, was in the bottom half of my high school class, and was rejected by Brooklyn College.

I realized at that point that I was not headed in the right direction and became determined to set my life on the right course. So at Yeshiva University, I decided to work hard and was admitted to many medical schools, including NYU, which I attended. After med school, I completed a two-year surgical residency and was accepted to the Harvard Business School. Eighteen months after Harvard, I founded a health-care company serving the elderly, which grew to be the largest of its type in the U.S.

Therefore, I'm living proof that it doesn't matter which college you go to as long as you make the best of it. Now I only have to convince my kids not to rest on their laurels and keep working hard, so they will continue to have good choices ahead.
-- Dr. Steven S. Charlap, Chairman and CEO, HealthDrive Corporation

No Ivy Domination

It seems that having an Ivy League degree provides an easy path into the most competitive and selective of professions or positions. What about the uncanny prevalence of CEOs and other executives who have Ivy League degrees? Or the number of Ivy graduates in investment banking, top law firms, and top consulting firms?

I suppose it could be possible that in the long run, average salaries are equal. But at the extremes, it seems that there's certainly a sort of "Ivy ceiling."
-- Eric

Eric: Studies show the ranks of CEOs, at least, are not dominated by Ivy League grads. Spencer Stuart, the executive search firm, found 11 percent of CEOs at Fortune 500 firms had Ivy League degrees -- down from 16 percent in 1998. A survey by the Wharton School found that in 2001, 10 percent of CEOs received undergraduate degrees at one of the eight Ivies; 48 percent earned them from public colleges and universities.