(09-13-2016 08:40 AM)jumpinmullet Wrote:  I get it but I am going on what happens more often for most students. The Harvard student has a much easier path to a high paying job that others. I am not picking on a Maryland or any other school but its just a fact. I would say focus is a huge factor but all thing being equal the Harvard grad would have a leg up on all most all other grads in landing that big job. Maryland might be a top 100 school,I have no idea but they are not in the conversation as a whole. No state school that I can think of would be in the top 25 .

We're in full agreement with this. A Harvard/Ivy League degree carries a ton of weight and always has. From a career perspective it's second to none in terms of impact.

Where we differ is that I'd prefer to be a top performing student doing what I'm best at at a weaker school than majoring in something I'm not passionate about at Harvard. What you get out of your studies is far more important than WHERE you do your studies when all is said and done.

In other words, a future career isn't the ONLY or even the MAIN goal of higher education. I'll let Albert Einstein explain my views more succinctly:

"It is not so very important for a person to learn facts. For that he does not really need a college. He can learn them from books. The value of an education in a liberal arts college is not the learning of many facts, but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks."

I think he would also agree that training the mind to think also trumps what kind of job you can get with your degree. College is about becoming a more well-rounded person, not just getting a good job.