[hedgie]

not sure that's the case.

"Here, however, is what was explosive: Dale and Krueger concluded that students, who were accepted into elite schools, but went to less selective institutions, earned salaries just as high as Ivy League grads. For instance, if a teenager gained entry to Harvard, but ended up attending Penn State, his or her salary prospects would be the same.

In the pair's newest study, the findings are even more amazing. Applicants, who shared similar high SAT scores with Ivy League applicants could have been rejected from the elite schools that they applied to and yet they still enjoyed similar average salaries as the graduates from elite schools. In the study, the better predictor of earnings was the average SAT scores of the most selective school a teenager applied to and not the typical scores of the institution the student attended."

there's a guy at work with a phd in math from princeton. there are plenty of people with his job title that didn't spend all that money to get there. most of them went to the great in state engineering school and spent far less money for the same result.

http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/the-college-solution/2...

[gammarator]

Interesting, although the authors note a caveat:

"As with the earlier study, there were some students who did fare better financially if they attended elite schools. The students who fell into this category were Latino, black, and low-income students, as well as those whose parents did not graduate from college."

Its worth noting, though, that the Ivys provide much smoother entry into jobs in high finance than less selective schools, so if one's only goal is maximizing salary it does make a difference.

[hedgie]

maximizing salary is exactly what the study looked it. the approximation of finance = top salary is less accurate than the data they used.

i'm not sure that's true either. remember the study is comparing people who could have entered an ivy but didn't with people who did get into an ivy. since state schools admit more people with lower rankings who's to say that the smooth entry in high finance is due to the degree? it could be the ability of the person who got accepted to the ivy that makes the difference.

it may be more difficult at first, but an terrible ivy educated quant isn't gonna stick around very long. and a good state school educated quant may take longer to get in but eventually get there anyways. which is what the study actually suggests.

this is odd in finance since the real measure of someone in that field is revenue generated. no one cares you went to podunk state if you outperform everyone else. i know someone who's absolutely brilliant with a math phd from a state school that is working as a quant now. now that he's in his career is gonna be determined by revenue generated, not the degree on his wall.

you can't really control for a financial job salary either. they're heavily based on bonuses and hence performance of the trader. if they are making bank it's likely related to the natural ability that got him into the ivy in the first place. which is the same level as those people who went to a state school that were followed in the study.

like most fields, the people at the top of finance make disproportionately more than those in the trenches, who are not rich by any reasonable definition. if you worm your way up in a traditional company/create a successful product the same imbalance in pay exists. but for finance, we judge salaries based on the top performers, where as for engineers we tend to think of the average.