The frustrating thing to me is that the federal gov’t has built a data base that combines information from the student loan files and IRS (also Social Security) files.
I should be able to see the report you describe for all schools and all majors with a couple clicks, but I haven’t figured out how to do it.
I think it’s a mistake to imagine that work should seem closely linked to an undergraduate “liberal arts” major. It is not that they are useless. It’s that none of these majors are focused on practice.
This does not mean that having a degree is not better than not having one.
I don’t think that class choices in law school or med school determines what is practiced by lawyers and doctors.
This is true even of academic research. When i was in college, i was told a math major was better than an economics major for somebody wanting to get a phd in economics.
Switching to research in the natural sciences: there is a lot of work between and undergraduate degree and research. It takes an additional two years of practice, 4 or 5 years of apprenticeship as a student, then often another 2 to 4 years of learning as a post doc. Against all that, a few particular undergraduate classes do not mean a whole lot. For example, advanced chemistry classes helps get you ready to take advanced biology or physics classes, even if the material is not directly related.
This is happening as well in the UK with plan 2 student loans.
As they are based on RPI + 3%, many graduates never even manage to pay back the interest.
She go to Paris working as a professional mime, which she learned in college?
Just asking questions.
Mime is money
Bump:
https://www.npr.org/2026/04/13/nx-s1-5777582/many-private-colleges-at-risk-of-closing
First, I wonder why kids pay to go to college to learn how to work on a farm, when there are farms that will pay them to work on the farm. This particular college seems to add nothing and take away a lot, and can’t even make money doing it.
They go to study agriculture. The use of land changes over time due to climate, disease or changing markets. They can become consultants/ experts who can guide the farmers on efficient sustainable land use.
It sounds like they’ve technically been doing “environmental studies”:
I’ll admit that it’s not immediately obvious to me how the cost-benefit math works of going to a private college dedicated to that field of study.
There are two and four year farming programs here, and they are well populated. Farming is high tech and big business these days. There’s a lot to learn and know.
Lots of folks from my farming community went to the University of Guelph which is where I would have gone to get my farming smarts if I had stayed on the farm. High quality programs.
Moo u lol.
Because of the rather pronounced grade inflation seen in undergraduate degrees over the last 20Y, Harvard is now capping A’s to only 20% of the class.
More schools are likely to follow I would imagine.
If Harvard only admits the best and brightest students, shouldn’t most of them naturally receive A’s?
If the grading standards are the same between Harvard and random state school, then arguably yes, but it is still helpful to differentiate between students within Harvard and extra grade inflation prevents that. At the risk of admitting that I’m old, in my day Harvard didn’t have an A+ available as a grade, As were given out sparingly, and I don’t see a problem returning to that as a standard.
I also don’t understand the fuss. I have never listed my college GPA on my resume, although the fact that it was good is implied because I assume it said that I graduated magna. And even applying to grad schools, they only wanted grades in math classes and didn’t care about overall GPA.
When I took honours courses in high school we were being asked to perform at a higher level and do more advanced things.
I could see that argument making sense if they had to complete the same curriculum as the easier to get into colleges. Where you’ve supposedly got the best and the brightest attending, would you expect them to be performing on a higher level?
I kind of look at it from a sports perspective. You can be an all-star player in your local league. However, you can look pretty average or even lousy when playing against only all star players.
I can definitely see both arguments.
Harvard graduates are competing with non-Ivy’s post-graduation for jobs and graduate school, not only with each other. So there does need to be a way to compare them.
Is every employer or graduate school admissions going to agree that a Harvard graduate with a 3.0 GPA is the same caliber as a state school graduate with a 4.0?
Is a Harvard graduate with any GPA better than any state school graduate? If so, then who cares?
For graduate school, GRE and MCAT and LSAT exist, so that helps.
I suppose for jobs, the fact you went to Harvard means you have an alumni network (which is the real value of the education anyway), so I guess that doesn’t really matter either, you’re getting the job over the average person by nature of having gotten into Harvard in the first place.
I guess I don’t really have an opinion on this.
Harvard should just make their A’s worth 5 points, B’s worth 3.5 points, C’s worth 1.1 points, D’s and F’s worth zero points.
That should help them stand out relative to other Ivies . . .
You jest, but Harvard used to have 15 points for an A and 11 for a B
The study states that those who are accepted to Harvard are better than those that didn’t.
In at least one perspective, the Ivy degree is demonstrable better: the connections you make. The phrase “it’s not what ya know, it’s who ya know” has some truth to it.
Curiously, the only university rings you see being worn on a regular basis are from West Point and Annapolis. It’s all about the networking.
