The Dubious Value of the Name Brand College
Well, we’ve made it to December.
It is hard to believe that nine months ago schools all around the country - the world actually - pivoted to remote learning. From preschools to colleges and universities, campuses shut down their in-person operations and opted for the safety of online learning. Of course two decades ago, this never would have been possible, but in 2020, it turns out that students - especially older students - can learn online with some success.
Even as elementary schools and some high schools have moved back in person, most colleges and universities have opted to stay online. So whether you are a student at Yale University, a student in the University of California system or studying at your local community college, you are likely taking your classes over a screen. Watching my own daughter go through her first semester of college with 100% asynchronous lecture classes and essentially teaching herself the material, I’m more skeptical than ever about the value of a traditional college education. Apparently my student can teach herself from her bedroom at home. So even when she returns to campus, what exactly will she get out of the experience that is worth the tuition? What exactly am I paying for?
And this brings us to this month’s Unspeakable topic and fodder for our conversation series next Friday: The Dubious Value of the Name Brand College.
Let’s break this topic down a bit so we all know exactly what we are talking about. First of all, when we talk about “name brand colleges” we are talking about a pretty specific list of schools - about 25 small colleges and 25 larger universities that make up the “best schools” list determined by US News and World Report - a defunct magazine that has continued to produce this widely read issue each fall. This particular college list is by no means the only set of college and university rankings. In fact, you might add a few more schools to this list, but you get the point.
Why not use the term “selective” in the place of “name brand”? After all, most of these schools have low admission rates and selectivity is a key factor in the ratings. We have intentionally chosen the term “name brand” because we believe that for some students and families, the name is exactly what makes the school so desirable. The ability to put that school’s sticker on the windshield of your car is part of the appeal. Also, knowing what we do about the way name brand colleges market themselves simply to increase the sheer number of applicants - from waiving application fees to making test scores optional, to mass mailing campaigns, calling some schools “selective” is giving them way too much credit. It’s amazing what a few million marketing dollars can do to increase applications.
Secondly, we are interested in the word value. What makes any college degree valuable in 2020 and who determines the value - is it the student, the family or the high school? Is an online college experience valuable? How does one quantify value? Is it about the college experience a student has or is it the paper certificate a student receives on graduation day? Is a school valued for the program and the journey a student takes or because of the status it affords? Is it about the earning potential a student might have at the end of four years? Is it about the relationships a student makes? The social capital? Is it just the satisfaction of being able to say “ I got in!” In some cases, it may be a little of all of these factors, but are the “name brand” colleges that much more valuable than those that aren’t in the top tier?
Thirdly, we chose the word “dubious” because for many students the difference between attending a name brand college and a school farther down the US News list is relatively insignificant in terms of social mobility and earning potential.. And yet, for a large number of high school students and their families, they will do whatever it takes to be accepted to one of these schools - in some cases crossing ethical and legal boundaries as recently demonstrated by the Varsity Blues ordeal.
To be clear, we do know that for a subset of students, attending a name brand college has great value. We know that for first generation college students as well students from lower-income households, graduating from one of these colleges may indeed be a life altering experience that includes career opportunities beyond school and a professional network that would have been otherwise unlikely. For these students, the value is anything but dubious.
Ultimately, at L+D we want to better understand the obsession with approximately 50 colleges and universities that has led to the college admissions industrial complex. Last year, families and institutions spent $1.9 billion dollars on educational consultants supporting college admissions, and much of that investment simply perpetuates the smoke and mirrors selectivity act. In the United states there are 1,626 public colleges and universities and 1,687 private nonprofit institutions. US News and World Report ranks approximately 1,400 of them. As Jeffrey Selingo writes in his new book Who Gets in and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions, he makes the point, “For all the anxiety, the money spent on extracurricular activities and test prep, the time and effort expended touring campuses and perfecting essays, a puzzling contradiction continues to exist in admissions: it’s actually never been easier to get into college.” And yet, each year high school seniors are led to believe that getting into college is nearly impossible. What college counselors mean, is that getting into a name brand school is indeed quite challenging.
What COVID-19 might be exposing - that we already knew - is that there may not be such a huge difference in the academic experience at Princeton versus the University of Arizona or Rhodes College or Emory or the University of New Hampshire. Remote learning has just made it a little more obvious. Will this year of online learning and the flattening of the college experience lessen our collective appetites for this small group of name brand colleges and universities? If so, what will become of the high school march that begins for many students sophomore year and includes hours of test prep for a sea of standardized tests, countless application fees, outside college counseling - even for students who attend prep schools and already have experienced and connected high school counselors (many of who have worked in college admissions - the resume padding with endless extra-curricular activities, and the immense pressure that many high school students feel to take the heaviest academic load and perform at the highest level.
This month, in just a few days actually, students in the high school class of 2021 will begin to hear back from colleges in the form of early decision acceptance, deferrals or denials. Many of these will be from this highly coveted list of schools. And here is the real Unspeakable: How are we, as school leaders, part of this game? Are selective high school schools willing to redefine themselves beyond the college list of their graduates, which we display proudly on our websites and our annual reports? How do we overtly or implicitly perpetuate the narrative that some schools are more valuable than others? And at what point might we be willing to tell a different story?
