Ending your High School career is a time filled with difficult decisions, ones that can impact you for the rest of your life. The top issue for most is choosing their university. Now, this can be based on many factors, but two consistent contenders happen to be name and money. The prestige of this school and how much they will have to pay to attend it. Does one outweigh the other, or is choosing one factor more obvious? Students tend to struggle as they want to make the best choice, especially because everyone’s version of success isn’t guaranteed.
Many refer to college as an investment for the future, but as tuition increases, students are led to question their priorities and decide if prestige is worth the long-term debt. Studies from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Brookings Institution describe that higher education can increase future earnings, but this is not guaranteed, especially with heavy loan repayments. For many students, scholarships are a more sustainable way to earn a degree, as they offer a way to maximize their investment on a degree without having to sacrifice financial resources and freedom in the future.
These top colleges and universities don’t just have their reputation for anything. Higher-ranked schools usually provide high-quality teaching with more resources and more research opportunities. Afterwards, this can lead to an overall well-educated adult ready to enter the workforce, and that school’s name attached to their resume can make a world of difference in the hiring process. Depending on the field one goes into, one decides the draw from particular schools. For majors in Finance and Computer Science, employers tend to pull from more prestigious/specific schools. This isn’t to say that you can’t secure a good/higher-paying job without a degree from a specific university, but it can definitely boost your chances at more prestigious companies.
When choosing a college, a lot of students want to choose a more prestigious school that an employer may be more likely to hire from, but not everybody can necessarily afford that. The students who may not end up at those super prestigious universities can work hard to learn skills that employers want to see, find internships, and do many other things to achieve very similar career opportunities and outcomes as those who may have gone to more prestigious schools. An article from CNBC explains how complementing your chosen field of study with skills you know employers want to see, such as industry-specific software or competence with artificial intelligence, can help boost your career just as well as the name of a prestigious college.
All in all, many prestigious schools have the top education in many sought-after majors. For many people, it can be worth it to attend these schools. We believe that choosing the name over the money has a higher success rate. College degrees are still needed, and if you’re ever in search of a job, having the name “Harvard” attached will almost always give you a leg up in the applicant pool. So, it is a personal choice, one that is the best fit, but many go the route that they hope brings more money in the future, as they have to give up what they have right now.
