In his post about undergraduate colleges in the U.S, Seth Godin discusses the marketing hype surrounding the admissions process.  Given the fact that today’s parents and their school-aged kids obsess for decades about the decision of where to go to college and if they’ll be able to get into the school of their dreams, it might surprise you to learn that according to  The Chosen, an exhaustive study of college admissions, there's no measurable difference between the outcomes of education with the most exclusive schools and the next few tiers. Graduates don't end up happier. They don't end up with better paying jobs. They don't end up richer or even healthier. 

The whole thing, says Seth, is a sham that costs a quarter of a million dollars a person at the top end.  There’s no question that a Harvard degree helps in a few fields and there's also no doubt that spending four years at Yale is a mind-changing experience.  The question isn't, "are they wonderful?" The question is, "Are they worth it?"

I’ve often asked myself the same thing.  I spent my sophomore and junior years of high school fixated on which private college to choose, and when I was accepted by Northwestern University, then ranked #13 among national universities, my father nearly bankrupted our family to send me there.  NU was a great place to go to school, don’t get me wrong, but I’d be lying if I said I’d never considered the quality of the education I received there, and whether it was truly any better than what I would have gotten at a less prestigious private university or even a state school.  I can’t really say that once I graduated, the NU mention on my resume opened any doors or greased the wheels PR-wise or professional writing-wise.  The school’s networking machine is stellar, that’s true, but I don’t know that other colleges can’t provide similar opportunities.

If you’re a parent of a high school student, or a twenty or thirty-something mulling over the idea of getting an undergraduate or graduate degree, you at least owe it to yourself to stop and think before sweating blood over your private school application and then incurring tens of thousands in debt.