I tend to wish this were true, because it would be better for the world even if neutral-to-negative for me. In truth, though: pedigree shouldn't matter, but it does.
Among the top 100 offerings or so, the differences in quality of education are very small. The differences in quality of students are pretty small. But connections matter, and even if Harvard student's aren't all shockingly brilliant, the dumb ones are connected.
If you go the #147 private college and pay $50k per year, you'd be better served by a state school. If you're talking about Harvard, though... no, it's not a waste of money.
Perhaps surprisingly, the influence of pedigree increases later in one's career. These numbers are estimates, but an MIT CS grad might make $100k out of college while the state-school grad makes $85k-- not a huge difference. Ten years out, those numbers look more like $250k and $150k. Why? Connections tend to get stronger with time, even when not formally kept up. So much of the business world is run by nostalgia. That's why prep school connections are more powerful than college, and college connections are more powerful than grad-school connections... even though the elite high schools are less selective and meritocratic. Old connections suggest predestination ("born to lead") and, because of that, have a cachet that new connections (though carrying more signal) don't. The future may be (and most hope it will be) rich and abundant but the past is a scarce and eternally limited commodity; there will never be more pedigree.
Where you went to school matters not at all, ten years out, if you're in the top or bottom 10%, relative to where you might be expected to go with your training, career-wise. If you do really well, no one cares where you went to school. Or if you make terrible choices and fail catastrophically, the Harvard degree just makes it more pathetic. For that middle 80%, those connections made early on are going to start throwing "Get Out Of Jail Free" cards and that's a major asset if you want to break the ceiling and become a player.
I'd say that it generally works like this. From 22-25, pedigree matters a lot in an evaluative sense. (Make that 22-29 if you get a PhD.) From 25-30, it doesn't matter all that much because people have more recent data, when it comes to evaluation. From 30-40, it starts to matter again, not because people judge you based on it-- your record speaks for itself-- but because you're vying for leadership or coveted creative/architectural roles and that means politics, and you need "Get Out Of Jail Free" cards (which come from having connections) for when your risks blow up. After 40, it seems to stop mattering because that's an age at which you shouldn't need "Get Out Of Jail Free" cards at all.
What a cute little story you've told. It sounds nice, but it just rings hollow with common experience. I consider myself a fairly social person, I went to one of the best Universities in the world. At least at this point, none of the people I still keep in touch with from my school (a fairly large group) would be helpful to my career in any way. I highly doubt they will be in the future. If, by some chance, in my 40s, a fellow alumni is helpful to my career by virtue of an arbitrary connection we have I would consider it remarkable, and a little bit of a personal failure.
I would never make a favorable business decision for the person sitting across the table from just because we happen to share an alma mater. If anything, I would be guarded against it being an issue.
I imagine the average person feels the same way that I do. I'm not saying there aren't politics as you make your way to a senior position, but don't count on any help to get there.
The examples you cite are highly selective elite universities where all the students are cream of the crop.
That's not what the article is about. It's about state schools versus private schools with presumably comparable admission rates and SAT scores. That's the choice 90% of students at state schools are making.
Some state schools, like UCB compete with elite private universities. If you want to make a comparison with MIT, you might want to ask if UCB grads make any less.
>Ten years out, those numbers look more like $250k and $150k.
If there are managers willing to pay an employee 40% more based on an education received a decade prior, there's a huge economic advantage to be had hiring those of "lower pedigree".
No one consciously cares, at that age, where people went to school. What happens is that the ones with pedigree are more likely to be selected for leadership positions early on, and appear "on merit" to be worth more, after several years of higher-quality work experience. In reality, they were just able to get themselves promoted faster. After ten years, though, they legitimately have a higher quality of work experience than those without the pedigree advantage.
So you wouldn't be necessarily able to save $100k by hiring people without the pedigree, because even though many are just as talented, they're not going to have the highest quality of work experience. There are plenty of people who'd do just fine, even with the lack of good experience, but you have to be able to find them.
I agree that you've basically nailed the dynamic in the career-development market, but I'll point out that there are a number of career resets you can use to escape it. Grad school. Founding a startup. Independent projects. Moving into a different field entirely.
These often aren't objectively worth it under the value system of your old career, but they essentially throw a monkey wrench into your career and make anyone reading it go "Huh? Why did they do that, and what does it mean for me and my company if I hire them?" And that, in turn, gives you an ability to reframe your story on your own terms. If you're behind in somebody else's value system, it makes no sense to continue molding your career to their value system. Instead, pick your value system and then seek out positions that play to your strengths.
Although it sounds reasonable, I'm not sure whether this way of contacts/pedigree is needed everywhere. For example in (continental) Europe people are treated more equally, probably because majority of good universities are public.
The public universities in the U.S. are quite good as well. It's not about quality of education.
When a society is expanding, pre-existing social class matters little, because the focus is on the future rather than the past. When it's stagnant or contracting, like Silicon Valley, you see the importance of pedigree start to grow rapidly.
Among the top 100 offerings or so, the differences in quality of education are very small. The differences in quality of students are pretty small. But connections matter, and even if Harvard student's aren't all shockingly brilliant, the dumb ones are connected.
If you go the #147 private college and pay $50k per year, you'd be better served by a state school. If you're talking about Harvard, though... no, it's not a waste of money.
Perhaps surprisingly, the influence of pedigree increases later in one's career. These numbers are estimates, but an MIT CS grad might make $100k out of college while the state-school grad makes $85k-- not a huge difference. Ten years out, those numbers look more like $250k and $150k. Why? Connections tend to get stronger with time, even when not formally kept up. So much of the business world is run by nostalgia. That's why prep school connections are more powerful than college, and college connections are more powerful than grad-school connections... even though the elite high schools are less selective and meritocratic. Old connections suggest predestination ("born to lead") and, because of that, have a cachet that new connections (though carrying more signal) don't. The future may be (and most hope it will be) rich and abundant but the past is a scarce and eternally limited commodity; there will never be more pedigree.
Where you went to school matters not at all, ten years out, if you're in the top or bottom 10%, relative to where you might be expected to go with your training, career-wise. If you do really well, no one cares where you went to school. Or if you make terrible choices and fail catastrophically, the Harvard degree just makes it more pathetic. For that middle 80%, those connections made early on are going to start throwing "Get Out Of Jail Free" cards and that's a major asset if you want to break the ceiling and become a player.
I'd say that it generally works like this. From 22-25, pedigree matters a lot in an evaluative sense. (Make that 22-29 if you get a PhD.) From 25-30, it doesn't matter all that much because people have more recent data, when it comes to evaluation. From 30-40, it starts to matter again, not because people judge you based on it-- your record speaks for itself-- but because you're vying for leadership or coveted creative/architectural roles and that means politics, and you need "Get Out Of Jail Free" cards (which come from having connections) for when your risks blow up. After 40, it seems to stop mattering because that's an age at which you shouldn't need "Get Out Of Jail Free" cards at all.