Is there a significant difference in the returns to education for those who get schooling in top ranked programs? I thought I remember a Newsweek a couple years back that had a story about SAT scores of successful people (two profiles were G.W. Bush and Gore so I guess it was around 2000), and the point they were trying to make was that those who make the most money generally have SATs in the 1200 and 1300s- good students, but not top students. In addition, the book "The Millionaire Next Door" describes those that accumulate the most wealth as not necessarily being the top students or having degrees from prestigious universities- and, I believe the authors said that if you make $100,000 per year or more, then years of education is negatively correlated with wealth.
Also, the argument that opportunity cost is the largest cost of college, is often used to encourage people to not worry about student loans and and look at more prestigious universities, but is this the case for those who are choosing a top school? With tuitions at $35K + per year, do you make back your investment with a higher expected salary as compared to a school on a lower tier? Jason DeBacker
