Presumably, Dartmouth students pay $40,000 a year for an elite education because they expect to be compensated for it some day, likely with job opportunities after graduation.
But a recent study by two University of Pennsylvania professors suggests that public school graduates might be getting the sweeter and cheaper deal.
The study found that hiring trends among Fortune 100 companies are shifting against the Ivy League's favor. Penn professors Peter Cappelli and Monika Hamori compared the educational backgrounds of the top 10 executives at Fortune 100 companies from 1980 to today.
The results seem to indicate that public school graduates are becoming more attractive to employers than their Ivy League counterparts.
In 1980, an Ivy League degree increased chances of becoming a corporate chief executive by 42 percent, and 14 percent of top executives graduated from one of the eight Ivy League schools. Today, less than five percent of top executives represent the Ivy League.
The percentage of private, non-Ivy League graduates has also dropped significantly -- from 54 to 42 percent, a shift clearly in public schools' favor.
Fewer private school graduates translates into ever-increasing percentages of public school graduates. In 1980, only 32 percent of top Fortune 100 company executives attended public or state-sponsored schools; the number stands at 48 percent today.
Cappelli attributes this boost to the increased quality and reputation of many public schools.
He named the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor as one such school. Michael Billington '08 agrees. Billington is planning to transfer to Ann Arbor next year, where he expects to get more for his money.
"Your career comes down to your own initiative," Billington said. "I'm going where I can get the same for less."
Despite the study's findings, Cappelli said Ivy Leaguers shouldn't worry.
The statistics do not mean the Ivy League's influence is declining among employers but rather that Fortune 100 jobs are becoming less attractive to Ivy League graduates, Capelli said.
"These entry level jobs in big corporations are no longer plumb jobs. Would you rather work for General Motors or McKinsey?" Cappelli said. "If there is a slight decline in Ivy League kids going into big corporations, maybe they're just going to better jobs."
Monica Wilson, assistant director of career services, agreed. According to Wilson, Fortune 100 companies don't recruit as heavily and aren't as well known as investment banking and consulting firms.
"When Johnson and Johnson came on campus to recruit, they got far fewer applications than the Wall Street firms because students had only heard about this opportunity for the first time," Wilson said.
"There are some really great programs out there, and when students find out about them, they are really interested. But they just don't have the same visibility."
Even so, Cappelli said he feels that 10 percent of Fortune 100 executives being Ivy League graduates is still very significant.
"In some ways it is kind of a shift away from the Ivy League, but in some ways, it's surprising that it's still so big a percentage," he said.
He added that if anything, because of a more merit-based admissions policy, Ivy League graduates have more influence with employers today than they did 30 years ago.
