Why are we so in love with Ivy League Colleges?

If you follow certain stories, you would think that all of America takes place on an Ivy League campus. Each scandal, which would barely make the local news at other colleges, eventually graces the front pages of major magazines and newspapers.

Every arrested imposter and controversial protest spawns teams of camera crews, causing the incidents to become a supernova that captures the world’s attention.

And it raises a strange question: Why are we so enamored with Ivy League institutions? It is admittedly a newer trend that I came across in adulthood. This whole power student mentality was always foreign to me. In fact, I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t know the University of Chicago was an elite school until I was twenty. I thought it was just a college for a city, like San Diego City College.

I know much better now. It’s hard not to.

Still, it feels strange now that you’re forty, as the wife of a professor at the University of South Florida, where so many interesting things, research and student activities, fly very much under the radar.

All media oxygen, collective interests and academic hegemony have been established and transferred to a handful of elite institutions. So what gives? What’s with all the shine?

The origins of Ivy League popularity

Part of our infatuation is because America’s most powerful institutions are often led and staffed by alumni of those institutions. Harvard, for example, is the most common alma mater of members of Congress, as well as those in the Senate.

But even that is misleading — because if you step back and examine the data, only 53 of 553 members of Congress went to an Ivy League school. Many more people attended mainstream state schools and also attended non-elite law schools.

There is also the complicity of the media in this. Countless films portray protagonists as tortured geniuses and lost lovers on the grounds of Ivy League campuses. It is only natural that their prestige has attracted even more attention from students and families.

Yet there is a statistical problem that plays a key role in these persistent headlines.

Understanding the numbers

And over the past few decades, the U.S. population has been growing quite rapidly. Demand for these institutions has skyrocketed, but they have kept their admissions relatively stable. Harvard has remained steady at about 2,000 admissions per year (give or take). Others, like Yale and Brown, have grown their student populations by 15 to 20% since the 1980s, which isn’t much considering their enrollment has increased by multiples.

This has resulted in a dramatic drop in admission prices. For example, Cornell admitted 18% of students in 2015, and only 11% in 2023. Columbia dropped from 10.5% in 2012 to 5% in 2023.

As a result, the elitist aura of each institution expands and their prestige emblems become even more desirable.

What is often forgotten is that these universities have become extremely expensive, so much so that even some wealthier families struggle to pay the bill. For example, Harvard has a base tuition of $56,550, but estimates you’ll spend closer to $82,866 per year once you add in housing and other costs. That’s more than $330,000 in student loans.

And unfortunately, this leaves many lower-income students with a huge burden to bear as many don’t get full rides. By extension, about two-thirds of Ivy League students come from high-income families, which is somewhat surprising but problematic because it highlights how money benefits some students and not others. So perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that these institutions receive so much media attention. The inequality is real.

One of the most troubling aspects of all the frenzy and attention surrounding Ivy League institutions is that so much attention is focused on admissions. A slew of lawsuits against the university over its admissions process, media coverage of who gets in and who doesn’t, all seem to imply that the act of admission to college is the seal of success.

What bothers me is that this is not a good message in a country where only 49% of students graduate within four years. We have created a system where virtually anyone can go to college anywhere, but we have not given nearly the attention to graduation that society needs.

It’s also unfortunate that in some corners we have created the idea that attending an Ivy League is the only path to success. Some of this blame lies with overbearing parents, who are either unreasonable or living vicariously through their child.

In America, many Ivy League students are children of immigrant families who came from countries where education was the only way out of poverty, and where taking exams is of enormous importance and pedigree. In 2019, Slate conducted a study and found that the handful of students admitted to all eight Ivy League universities were all children of immigrants. Much of this parental pressure is well-intentioned and based on love, with parents wanting the best for their children. Many fear that children will achieve a middle-class or better life.

Unfortunately, there is an entire multi-billion dollar industry in the college admissions process that exploits these very fears to great effect, and with eye-watering revenues.

Some of the blame goes to the media, which glorifies the lives of billionaires and releases endless statistics about how many billionaires and executives attended Ivy League schools.

And finally, the remaining blame goes to us for believing this story.

Why we should take the focus away from these institutions?

The point is, there are so many paths to success, if that’s your goal.

In my years in the financial industry, which, more than most industries, is obsessed with elite colleges, I still met a lot of smart and highly successful professionals – VPs, COOs and CEOs – who attended relatively ‘normal’ state schools. Some even attended fairly non-competitive institutions. One I worked with wasn’t even a high school dropout. He skipped college altogether and didn’t get any credits – not that this is advisable.

What I’ve discovered is that where you studied generally doesn’t matter anymore on your first day on the job. From then on, you are defined by your ability to do your job well. Your professionalism, competence, teamwork, diligence, empathy and communication all determine how high you fly. Even today, I only think about these Ivy League universities when news stories and movies choose to bring them up.

Going to Harvard is great for your resume. It will open doors. But going to Purdue instead of an Ivy League university won’t ruin your life.

I encourage every young person reading this to work hard and do well in school. But don’t forget to enjoy life too. You don’t want to look back on your high school years and think of it as this pressure-cooked, miserable experience where you missed out on so much.