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[伊斯特布鲁克]干嘛非上哈佛不可?

[伊斯特布鲁克]干嘛非上哈佛不可?

The pressure on smart kids to get into top schools has never been higher. But the differences between these schools and the next tier down have never been smaller...

by Gregg Easterbrook

Who Needs Harvard?

Today almost everyone seems to assume that the critical moment in young people's lives is finding out which colleges have accepted them. Winning admission to an elite school is imagined to be a golden passport to success; for bright students, failing to do so is seen as a major life setback. As a result, the fixation on getting into a super-selective college or university has never been greater. Parents' expectations that their children will attend top schools have "risen substantially" in the past decade, says Jim Conroy, the head of college counseling at New Trier High School, in Winnetka, Illinois. He adds, "Parents regularly tell me, 'I want whatever is highest-ranked.'" Shirley Levin, of Rockville, Maryland, who has worked as a college-admissions consultant for twenty-three years, concurs: "Never have stress levels for high school students been so high about where they get in, or about the idea that if you don't get into a glamour college, your life is somehow ruined."

Admissions mania focuses most intensely on what might be called the Gotta-Get-Ins, the colleges with maximum allure. The twenty-five Gotta-Get-Ins of the moment, according to admissions officers, are the Ivies (Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, and Yale), plus Amherst, Berkeley, Caltech, Chicago, Duke, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Northwestern, Pomona, Smith, Stanford, Swarthmore, Vassar, Washington University in St. Louis, Wellesley, and Williams. Some students and their parents have always been obsessed with getting into the best colleges, of course. But as a result of rising population, rising affluence, and rising awareness of the value of education, millions of families are now in a state of nervous collapse regarding college admissions. Moreover, although the total number of college applicants keeps increasing, the number of freshman slots at the elite colleges has changed little. Thus competition for elite-college admission has grown ever more cutthroat. Each year more and more bright, qualified high school seniors don't receive the coveted thick envelope from a Gotta-Get-In.

But what if the basis for all this stress and disappointment—the idea that getting into an elite college makes a big difference in life—is wrong? What if it turns out that going to the "highest ranked" school hardly matters at all?

The researchers Alan Krueger and Stacy Berg Dale began investigating this question, and in 1999 produced a study that dropped a bomb on the notion of elite-college attendance as essential to success later in life. Krueger, a Princeton economist, and Dale, affiliated with the Andrew Mellon Foundation, began by comparing students who entered Ivy League and similar schools in 1976 with students who entered less prestigious colleges the same year. They found, for instance, that by 1995 Yale graduates were earning 30 percent more than Tulane graduates, which seemed to support the assumption that attending an elite college smoothes one's path in life.

But maybe the kids who got into Yale were simply more talented or hardworking than those who got into Tulane. To adjust for this, Krueger and Dale studied what happened to students who were accepted at an Ivy or a similar institution, but chose instead to attend a less sexy, "moderately selective" school. It turned out that such students had, on average, the same income twenty years later as graduates of the elite colleges. Krueger and Dale found that for students bright enough to win admission to a top school, later income "varied little, no matter which type of college they attended." In other words, the student, not the school, was responsible for the success.

Research does find an unmistakable advantage to getting a bachelor's degree. In 2002, according to Census Bureau figures, the mean income of college graduates was almost double that of those holding only high school diplomas. Trends in the knowledge-based economy suggest that college gets more valuable every year. For those graduating from high school today and in the near future, failure to attend at least some college may mean a McJobs existence for all but the most talented or unconventional.

But, as Krueger has written, "that you go to college is more important than where you go." The advantages conferred by the most selective schools may be overstated. Consider how many schools are not in the top twenty-five, yet may be only slightly less good than the elites: Bard, Barnard, Bates, Bowdoin, Brandeis, Bryn Mawr, Bucknell, Carleton, Carnegie Mellon, Claremont McKenna, Colby, Colgate, Colorado College, Davidson, Denison, Dickinson, Emory, George Washington, Grinnell, Hamilton, Harvey Mudd, Haverford, Holy Cross, Kenyon, Lafayette, Macalester, Middlebury, Mount Holyoke, Notre Dame, Oberlin, Occidental, Reed, Rice, Sarah Lawrence, Skidmore, Spelman, St. John's of Annapolis, Trinity of Connecticut, Union, Vanderbilt, Washington and Lee, Wesleyan, Whitman, William and Mary, and the universities of Michigan and Virginia. Then consider the many other schools that may lack the je ne sais quoi of the top destinations but are nonetheless estimable, such as Boston College, Case Western, Georgia Tech, Rochester, SUNY-Binghamton, Texas Christian, Tufts, the University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Washington, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and the University of California campuses at Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, and San Diego. (These lists are meant not to be exhaustive but merely to make the point that there are many, many good schools in America.) "Any family ought to be thrilled to have a child admitted to Madison, but parents obsessed with prestige would not consider Madison a win," says David Adamany, the president of Temple University. "The child who is rejected at Harvard will probably go on to receive a superior education and have an outstanding college experience at any of dozens of other places, but start off feeling inadequate and burdened by the sense of disappointing his or her parents. Many parents now set their children up to consider themselves failures if they don't get the acceptance letter from a super-selective school."

Beyond the Krueger-Dale research, there is abundant anecdotal evidence that any of a wide range of colleges can equip its graduates for success. Consider the United States Senate. This most exclusive of clubs currently lists twenty-six members with undergraduate degrees from the Gotta-Get-Ins—a disproportionately good showing considering the small percentage of students who graduate from these schools. But the diversity of Senate backgrounds is even more striking. Fully half of U.S. senators are graduates of public universities, and many went to "states"—among them Chico State, Colorado State, Iowa State, Kansas State, Louisiana State, Michigan State, North Carolina State, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, Oregon State, Penn State, San Jose State, South Dakota State, Utah State, and Washington State. Or consider the CEOs of the top ten Fortune 500 corporations: only four went to elite schools. H. Lee Scott Jr., of Wal-Mart, the world's largest corporation, is a graduate of Pittsburg State, in Pittsburg, Kansas. Or consider Rhodes scholars: this year only sixteen of the thirty-two American recipients hailed from elite colleges; the others attended Hobart, Millsaps, Morehouse, St. Olaf, the University of the South, Utah State, and Wake Forest, among other non-elites. Steven Spielberg was rejected by the prestigious film schools at USC and UCLA; he attended Cal State Long Beach, and seems to have done all right for himself. Roger Straus, of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, one of the most influential people in postwar American letters, who died last spring at eighty-seven, was a graduate of the University of Missouri. "[Students] have been led to believe that if you go to X school, then Y will result, and this just isn't true," says Judith Shapiro, the president of Barnard. "It's good to attend a good college, but there are many good colleges. Getting into Princeton or Barnard just isn't a life-or-death matter."

That getting into Princeton isn't a life-or-death matter hit home years ago for Loren Pope, then the education editor of The New York Times. For his 1990 book, Looking Beyond the Ivy League, Pope scanned Who's Who entries of the 1980s, compiling figures on undergraduate degrees. (This was at a time when Who's Who was still the social directory of American distinction—before the marketing of Who's Who in Southeastern Middle School Girls' Tennis and innumerable other spinoffs.) Pope found that the schools that produced the most Who's Who entrants were Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Chicago, and Caltech; that much conformed to expectations. But other colleges near the top in Who's Who productivity included DePauw, Holy Cross, Wabash, Washington and Lee, and Wheaton of Illinois. Pope found that Bowdoin, Denison, Franklin & Marshall, Millsaps, and the University of the South were better at producing Who's Who entrants than Georgetown or the University of Virginia, and that Beloit bested Duke.

These findings helped persuade Pope that the glamour schools were losing their status as the gatekeepers of accomplishment. Today Pope campaigns for a group of forty colleges that he considers nearly the equals of the elite, but more personal, more pleasant, less stress-inducing, and—in some cases, at least—less expensive. Institutions like Hope, Rhodes, and Ursinus do not inspire the same kind of admissions lust as the Ivies, but they are places where parents should feel very good about sending their kids. (A list of the well-regarded non-elite colleges Pope champions can be found at www.ctcl.com.)

The Gotta-Get-Ins can no longer claim to be the more or less exclusive gatekeepers to graduate school. Once, it was assumed that an elite-college undergraduate degree was required for admission to a top law or medical program. No more: 61 percent of new students at Harvard Law School last year had received their bachelor's degrees outside the Ivy League. "Every year I have someone who went to Harvard College but can't get into Harvard Law, plus someone who went to the University of Maryland and does get into Harvard Law," Shirley Levin says. For Looking Beyond the Ivy League, Pope analyzed eight consecutive sets of scores on the medical-school aptitude test. Caltech produced the highest-scoring students, but Carleton outdid Harvard, Muhlenberg topped Dartmouth, and Ohio Wesleyan finished ahead of Berkeley.

The elites still lead in producing undergraduates who go on for doctorates (Caltech had the highest percentage during the 1990s), but Earlham, Grinnell, Kalamazoo, Kenyon, Knox, Lawrence, Macalester, Oberlin, and Wooster do better on this scale than many higher-status schools. In the 1990s little Earlham, with just 1,200 students, produced a higher percentage of graduates who have since received doctorates than did Brown, Dartmouth, Duke, Northwestern, Penn, or Vassar.

That non-elite schools do well in Who's Who and in sending students on to graduate school or to the Senate suggests that many overestimate the impact of the Gotta-Get-Ins not only on future earnings but on interesting career paths as well. For example, I graduated from Colorado College, a small liberal arts institution that is admired but, needless to say, is no Stanford. While I was there, in the mid-1970s, wandering around the campus were disheveled kids whose names have since become linked with an array of achievements: Neal Baer, M.D., an executive producer for the NBC show ER; Frank Bowman, a former federal prosecutor often quoted as the leading specialist on federal sentencing guidelines; Katharine DeShaw, the director of fundraising for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; David Hendrickson, the chairman of the political-science department at Colorado College; Richard Kilbride, the managing director of ING Asset Management, which administers about $450 billion; Robert Krimmer, a television actor; Margaret Liu, M.D., a senior adviser to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and one of the world's foremost authorities on vaccines; David Malpass, the chief economist for Bear Stearns; Mark McConnell, an animator who has won Emmys for television graphics; Jim McDowell, the vice-president of marketing for BMW North America; Marcia McNutt, the CEO of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute; Michael Nava, the author of the Henry Rios detective novels; Peter Neupert, the CEO of Drugstore.com; Anne Reifenberg, the deputy business editor of the Los Angeles Times; Deborah Caulfield Rybak, a co-author of an acclaimed book about tobacco litigation; Ken Salazar, the attorney general of Colorado and a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2004; Thom Shanker, the Pentagon correspondent for The New York Times; Joe Simitian, named to the 2003 Scientific American list of the fifty most influential people in technology; and Eric Sondermann, the founder of one of Denver's top public-relations firms.

In terms of students who went on to interesting or prominent lives, Colorado College may have done just as well in this period as Columbia or Cornell or any other Gotta-Get-In destination. Doubtless other colleges could make the same claim for themselves for this or other periods; I'm simply citing the example I know personally. The point is that for some time the center of gravity for achievement has been shifting away from the topmost colleges.

Fundamental to that shift has been a steady improvement in the educational quality of non-elite schools. Many college officials I interviewed said approximately the same thing: that a generation or two ago it really was a setback if a top student didn't get admitted to an Ivy or one of a few other elite destinations, because only a small number of places were offering a truly first-rate education. But since then the non-elites have improved dramatically. "Illinois Wesleyan is a significantly better college than it was in the 1950s," says Janet McNew, the school's provost, "whereas Harvard has probably changed much less dramatically in the past half century." That statement could apply to many other colleges. Pretty good schools of the past have gotten much better, while the great schools have remained more or less the same. The result is that numerous colleges have narrowed the gap with the elites.

How many colleges now provide an excellent education? Possibly a hundred, suggests Jim Conroy, of New Trier; probably more than two hundred, Shirley Levin says. The improvement is especially noteworthy at large public universities. Michigan and Virginia have become "public Ivies," and numerous state-run universities now offer a top-flight education. Whether or not students take a public university up on its offer of a good education is another matter: large, chaotic campuses may create an environment in which it's possible to slide by with four years of drinking beer and playing video games, whereas small private colleges usually notice students who try this. Yet the rising quality of public universities is important, because these schools provide substantial numbers of slots, often with discounted in-state tuition. Many families who cannot afford private colleges now have appealing alternatives at public universities.

One reason so many colleges have improved is the profusion of able faculty members. The education wave fostered by the GI Bill drew many talented people into academia. Because tenured openings at the glamour schools are subject to slow turnover, this legion of new teachers fanned out to other colleges, raising the quality of instruction at non-elite schools. While this was happening, the country became more prosperous, and giving to colleges—including those below the glamour level—shot up. When the first GI Bill cohort began to die, big gifts started flowing to the non-elites. (Earlier this year one graduate bequeathed Pitt's law school $4.25 million.) Today many non-elite schools have significant financial resources: Emory has an endowment of $4.5 billion, Case Western an endowment of $1.4 billion, and even little Colby an endowment of $323 million—an amount that a few decades ago would have seemed unimaginable for a small liberal arts school without a national profile.

As colleges below the top were improving, the old WASP insider system was losing its grip on business and other institutions. There was a time when an Ivy League diploma was vital to career advancement in many places, because an Ivy grad could be assumed to be from the correct upper-middle-class Protestant background. Today an Ivy diploma reveals nothing about a person's background, and favoritism in hiring and promotion is on the decline; most businesses would rather have a Lehigh graduate who performs at a high level than a Brown graduate who doesn't. Law firms do remain exceptionally status-conscious—some college counselors believe that law firms still hire associates based partly on where they were undergraduates. But the majority of employers aren't looking for status degrees, and some may even avoid candidates from the top schools, on the theory that such aspirants have unrealistic expectations of quick promotion.

Relationships labeled ironic are often merely coincidental. But it is genuinely ironic that as non-elite colleges have improved in educational quality and financial resources, and favoritism toward top-school degrees has faded, getting into an elite school has nonetheless become more of a national obsession.

W hich brings us back to the Krueger-Dale thesis. Can we really be sure Hamilton is nearly as good as Harvard?

Some analysts maintain that there are indeed significant advantages to the most selective schools. For instance, a study by Caroline Hoxby, a Harvard economist who has researched college outcomes, suggests that graduates of elite schools do earn more than those of comparable ability who attended other colleges. Hoxby studied male students who entered college in 1982, and adjusted for aptitude, though she used criteria different from those employed by Krueger and Dale. She projected that among students of similar aptitude, those who attended the most selective colleges would earn an average of $2.9 million during their careers; those who attended the next most selective colleges would earn $2.8 million; and those who attended all other colleges would average $2.5 million. This helped convince Hoxby that top applicants should, in fact, lust after the most exclusive possibilities.

"There's a clear benefit to the top fifty or so colleges," she says. "Connections made at the top schools matter. It's not so much that you meet the son of a wealthy banker and his father offers you a job, but that you meet specialists and experts who are on campus for conferences and speeches. The conference networking scene is much better at the elite universities." Hoxby estimates that about three quarters of the educational benefit a student receives is determined by his or her effort and abilities, and should be more or less the same at any good college. The remaining quarter, she thinks, is determined by the status of the school—higher-status schools have more resources and better networking opportunities, and surround top students with other top students.

"Today there are large numbers of colleges with good faculty, so faculty probably isn't the explanation for the advantage at the top," Hoxby says. "Probably there is not much difference between the quality of the faculty at Princeton and at Rutgers. But there's a lot of difference between the students at those places, and some of every person's education comes from interaction with other students." Being in a super-competitive environment may cause a few students to have nervous breakdowns, but many do their best work under pressure, and the contest is keenest at the Gotta-Get-Ins. Hoxby notes that some medium-rated public universities have established internal "honors colleges" to attract top performers who might qualify for the best destinations. "Students at honors colleges in the public universities do okay, but not as well as they would do at the elite schools," Hoxby argues. The reason, she feels, is that they're not surrounded by other top-performing students.

There is one group of students that even Krueger and Dale found benefited significantly from attending elite schools: those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Kids from poor families seem to profit from exposure to Amherst or Northwestern much more than kids from well-off families. Why? One possible answer is that they learn sociological cues and customs to which they have not been exposed before. In his 2003 book, Limbo, Alfred Lubrano, the son of a bricklayer, analyzed what happens when people from working-class backgrounds enter the white-collar culture. Part of their socialization, Lubrano wrote, is learning to act dispassionate and outwardly composed at all times, regardless of how they might feel inside. Students from well-off communities generally arrive at college already trained to masquerade as calm. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds may benefit from exposure to this way of carrying oneself—a trait that may be particularly in evidence at the top colleges.

It's understandable that so many high schoolers and their nervous parents are preoccupied with the idea of getting into an elite college. The teen years are a series of tests: of scholastic success, of fitting in, of prowess at throwing and catching balls, of skill at pleasing adults. These tests seem to culminate in a be-all-and-end-all judgment about the first eighteen years of a person's life, and that judgment is made by college admissions officers. The day college acceptance letters arrive is to teens the moment of truth: they learn what the adult world really thinks of them, and receive an omen of whether or not their lives will be successful. Of course, grown-up land is full of Yale graduates who are unhappy failures and Georgia Tech grads who run big organizations or have a great sense of well-being. But teens can't be expected to understand this. All they can be sure of is that colleges will accept or reject them, and it's like being accepted or rejected for a date—only much more intense, and their parents know all the details.

Surely it is impossible to do away with the trials of the college-application process altogether. But college admissions would be less nerve-racking, and hang less ominously over the high school years, if it were better understood that a large number of colleges and universities can now provide students with an excellent education, sending them onward to healthy incomes and appealing careers. Harvard is marvelous, but you don't have to go there to get your foot in the door of life.

Gregg Easterbrook is a contributing editor of The Atlantic, a senior editor of The New Republic, and a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution. His most recent book is The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse (2003).




Who Needs Harvard When You Can Blog?
from the withering-on-the-vine dept

Advances in technology have lowered the barriers to entry in many entrenched industries, and in turn have threatened incumbent industry leaders. One area, which isn't perceived to have seen much change is higher education, as the elite universities seem to be blessed with unlimited demand for admittance at almost any price. But while perception remains unchanged, technology may be eroding the advantages held by top universities. A new study suggests a professor's productivity (as defined by the amount of work published) used to be tied very closely to the professor's university, and that a professor moving from a second-tier school to Harvard could expect a major jump in productivity, simply by having access to the top minds in their field. But as the internet and other communication technologies have made it easier for academics to share information with others in their field (not just at one's own university), the relationship between one's output, and that of others at the same university has been eliminated. The rise of professors who write blogs on their subject is part of this trend, as more high-level discussion occurs outside the campus setting. Along the same lines, there's been a move to create high-quality, free academic journals, further eroding pockets of concentrated academic power. It may be too early to say the the notion of a university will undergo the same sort of spasms as other centrally controlled clusters, like TV networks, but the rise of peer-to-peer networking in academia should disrupt the dominance of a small group of elite institutions.

TOP

干嘛非上哈佛不可?  

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格雷格•伊斯特布鲁克/著 吴万伟/译

光明观察刊发时间: 2006-8-21 16:12:21





聪明的孩子要上名牌大学的压力越来越大,但是名牌大学和普通大学的区别从来没有像现在这样小。

如今几乎每个人都觉得年轻人最关键的时刻就是考上大学。拿到名牌大学的录取通知书被看作确保人生成功的金字招牌。学习好的孩子如果没有考上名牌大学就会被认为是个重大的人生挫折。结果,非名牌大学不上的偏执情况就越来越明显。伊利诺斯州文纳特卡的新特里尔中学(New Trier High School)的大学咨询主任吉姆•康罗里(Jim Conroy)说父母对孩子进入一流大学的期待在过去10年里“显著增加”。他还说“父母总是对我说,我只要顶尖的大学”。从事大学录取工作23年的来自马里兰州罗克维尔(Rockville)的列文(Shirley Levin)同意这个说法,他说“对大学层次的强调从来没有像现在这样强烈,高中毕业生常常被告知如果你进不了名牌大学,你的一生就毁掉了。”

考学疯狂主要集中在可以被称为“非上不可的大学”(the Gotta-Get-Ins)的那些诱惑力最大的学校。按照大学招生官员的说法,当今最受欢迎的25所大学是:常春藤大学(布朗,哥伦比亚,康乃尔,达特茅斯(Dartmouth),哈佛,宾夕法尼亚(Penn),普林斯顿,耶鲁),加上艾姆赫斯特学院(Amherst),伯克利,加州理工(Caltech),芝加哥, 杜克(Duke),乔治敦(Georgetown),约翰霍普金斯(Johns Hopkins),麻省理工(MIT),西北, 波莫那分校(Pomona),斯密斯(Smith), 斯坦福, 斯沃斯莫尔学院(Swarthmore),法萨尔大学(Vassar),圣路易斯华盛顿大学(Washington University in St. Louis),威斯理学院(Wellesley),以及威廉姆斯学院(Williams)。当然,有些学生和家长总是迷恋进入最好的大学。但是随着人口的增加,财富的充裕,对教育价值的清醒认识,成千上万的家庭对于大学录取神经紧张几乎近于崩溃。而且,尽管大学申请者总数不断增加,名牌大学新生座位并没有增加多少。因此进入名牌大学的竞争日趋白热化。每年越来越多的聪明,合格的高中毕业生得不到这些名牌大学的录取通知书。

但是如果这些疯狂和失望的基础---进入名牌大学改变你的生活---是错误的呢?如果进入名牌大学到后来对生活并没有多大差别呢?

研究人员克鲁格(Alan Krueger)和戴尔(Stacy Berg Dale)开始探索这个问题,在1999年发表了研究报告,给进入名牌大学保证后来生活成功的观念造成巨大的打击。普林斯顿经济学家克鲁格,在安德鲁梅隆基金会(Andrew Mellon Foundation)工作的戴尔开始比较1976年进入常春藤大学和类似名牌大学的学生以及同年考入非名牌大学的学生。比如他们发现,到了1995年耶鲁毕业生比杜伦大学(Tulane)毕业生收入高30%,好像支持进入名牌大学为你的生活成功铺平了道路的假设。

但是也许进入耶鲁的学生本来就比进入杜伦大学的学生聪明和勤奋。为了调整这点,克鲁格和戴尔研究了那些本来被常春藤学校录取但是却选择进入不那么热门的大学的学生。结果,总体上说这些学生20年后的收入水平和名牌学校出来的学生的收入基本一样。克鲁格和戴尔发现那些足够聪明达到名牌学校录取要求的学生不管上不上名牌大学收入水平没有区别。换句话说,是学生,而不是学校为个人的成功负责。

不过研究确实发现得到学士学位确定无疑的优势。根据人口普查局(Census Bureau)的数字,2002年,大学毕业生的平均收入几乎是只有高中毕业文凭的人的收入的两倍。知识经济的趋势说明大学的价值每年都在增加。对于当今或者最近的将来的高中毕业生来说,如果不能上大学可能意味着只能到麦当劳快餐店打工,除非有不凡的才华或技能。

但是正如克鲁格写的“上不上大学比上什么样的大学更重要。”名牌大学的优势被过分夸大了。想想有多少大学不是顶尖的25所大学,但是它们比顶尖学校差不了多少。比如Bard, Barnard, Bates, Bowdoin, Brandeis, Bryn Mawr, Bucknell, Carleton, Carnegie Mellon, Claremont McKenna, Colby, Colgate, Colorado College, Davidson, Denison, Dickinson, Emory, George Washington, Grinnell, Hamilton, Harvey Mudd, Haverford, Holy Cross, Kenyon, Lafayette, Macalester, Middlebury, Mount Holyoke, Notre Dame, Oberlin, Occidental, Reed, Rice, Sarah Lawrence, Skidmore, Spelman, St. John's of Annapolis, Trinity of Connecticut, Union, Vanderbilt, Washington and Lee, Wesleyan, Whitman, William and Mary,以及密执安大学和弗吉尼亚大学等。再想想许多别的大学缺少莫名其妙的(je ne sais quoi)顶尖大学地位,也是相当好的,比如Boston College, Case Western, Georgia Tech, Rochester, SUNY-Binghamton, Texas Christian, Tufts, the University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Washington, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and the University of California campuses at Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, and San Diego等等。(这样的名单并不是说包括了所有好的学校,只是想指出美国有很多很多好的学校。)坦普尔大学(Temple)的校长戴维•阿达曼尼(David Adamany) 说“任何家长如果孩子能考入威斯康星麦迪逊(Madison)大学都应该感到欣喜若狂,但是如果一心想上名牌大学的父母可能觉得进入麦迪逊是个失败。”被哈佛拒绝的孩子可能在许多别的大学仍然接受良好的教育,但是他仍然感到窝火,要承受父母失望带来的压力。许多父母现在让孩子觉得如果不能接到名牌学校的通知书就是个失败者。

除了克鲁格和戴尔研究外,有很多的证据显示很多大学都能让毕业生获得成功。想想美国参议院。这个最聪明的人的俱乐部里有26人本科毕业于25所名牌大学,考虑到这些学校毕业生的微小百分比,显然不成比例。但是参议院背景的多样性更是让人印象深刻。美国参议员中一半毕业于公立大学,许多上的是州立大学包括 Chico State, Colorado State, Iowa State, Kansas State, Louisiana State, Michigan State, North Carolina State, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, Oregon State, Penn State, San Jose State, South Dakota State, Utah State, and Washington State。或者考虑一下财富500强(Fortune 500)前10名的CEOs吧:只有4个出身于名牌大学。世界最大的公司沃尔玛(Wal-Mart)总裁 H. Lee Scott Jr.是匹兹堡州立大学(Pittsburg State)毕业生。或者想想罗德奖学金(Rhodes )学者:32名美国获得者中只有16人出身名牌大学。其他的人出身Hobart, Millsaps, Morehouse, St. Olaf, the University of the South, Utah State,和 Wake Forest等非名牌大学。被南加州大学电影学院和加州大学伯克利分校拒绝的大导演斯皮尔伯格(Steven Spielberg)进入加州大学长滩分校(Cal State Long Beach),好像感觉也不错。战后美国文学界最有影响的人物法劳•斯特劳斯和吉罗出版社(Farrar, Straus & Giroux)的罗杰•斯特劳斯(Roger Straus)去年春天87岁高龄去世,是密苏里大学(University of Missouri)毕业生。巴纳德(Barnard)大学校长夏竹丽(Judith Shapiro)说“学生们被宣传如果进入某个学校,就会发生某个结果,这是错误的。”“考上好学校当然好,但是好学校很多啊,进入普林斯顿或者进入巴纳德并不是生死攸关的大问题。”

考上普林斯顿不是生死攸关的问题几年前就让劳伦•珀普(Loren Pope)击中要害。当时他是纽约时报教育版编辑。在其1990年出版的著作《眼光越过常春藤》(Looking Beyond the Ivy League,)珀普浏览了1980年代的《名人传》(Who's Who )条目,制作了本科学位的数据,(这是《名人传》仍然是美国人社会地位指标的时代,在商业化操作的《东南部中学生网球赛名人传》(Who's Who in Southeastern Middle School Girls' Tennis)以及其他数不清的副产品出现以前)珀普发现出产名人传条目最多的学校是耶鲁,哈佛,普林斯顿,芝加哥,加州理工和人们的预料相一致。但是在名人传中数量之多接近顶端的学校包括迪堡学院(DePauw), 霍莉克罗斯学院(Holy Cross),沃伯什(Wabash),华盛顿和李大学(Washington and Lee),伊利诺斯惠顿学院(Wheaton of Illinois)。珀普发现Bowdoin, Denison, Franklin & Marshall, Millsaps以及南方大学(University of the South)在这方面好于乔治敦大学,弗吉尼亚大学,伯洛伊特学院(Beloit)超过杜克大学。

这些发现帮助说服珀普相信名牌大学已经失去成功保障者的地位(gatekeepers of accomplishment)。如今珀普鼓吹一批40所大学,认为它们和名牌大学一样好,而且更有人情味,更愉快,不那么让人产生压力,至少在某些方面比名牌大学便宜。诸如霍普(Hope),罗德(Rhodes),和宾州尤西纽斯学院(Ursinus)这样的大学虽然不像常春藤大学那样有名气,但是父母完全可以放心把孩子送到这里学习。(珀普宣传的非常好的非名牌大学名单可以在网站上找到www.ctcl.com.

非上不可的大学(The Gotta-Get-Ins)已经不再能宣称是研究生院的保障者了。从前,人们普遍认为名牌大学学士学位是进入顶尖法律和医疗研究生院的必备条件,现在已经变了:去年哈佛法学院61%的新生的本科学位都是在非常春藤学校就读的。列文说“每年我都知道有些考上哈佛大学却进不了法学院的学生,也有些从马里兰大学毕业考上哈佛法学院的学生。”对于《眼光越过常春藤》(Looking Beyond the Ivy League,)来说,珀普分析了连续8次医学院研究生能力考试的成绩。加州理工的学生成绩最好,但是卡尔顿(Carleton)超过哈佛,穆冷博格学院(Muhlenberg)超过达特茅斯,俄亥俄威斯理(Ohio Wesleyan)领先伯克利。

名牌大学本科毕业生继续读博士的人最多,(加州理工在1990年代比例最高),但是Earlham, Grinnell, Kalamazoo, Kenyon, Knox, Lawrence, Macalester, Oberlin, and Wooster在这方面比许多名牌大学都好。1990年代小小的额拉姆(Earlham)大学只有1200名学生,考上研究生获得博士的比例比名牌大学如布郎,达特茅斯,杜克,西北,宾夕法尼亚,法萨尔等都高。

非名牌大学在《名人传》,在送学生上研究生,上参议院等方面成绩不俗说明许多人过分强调了名牌大学的影响,不仅在未来的收入上,而且在事业成功上。比如我毕业于科罗拉多学院(Colorado College),虽然受人羡慕的小小的人文学院,当然不是斯坦福。我70年代在那里求学的时候,在校园里游荡的是头发蓬乱的孩子,现在都成了取得巨大成就的人:全国广播公司NBC show ER节目的执行制片人尼尔(Neal Baer)博士;著作经常被联邦判决原则方面的知名专家引用前联邦检察官弗兰克•鲍曼(Frank Bowman),洛杉矶乡村艺术博物馆筹款负责人凯瑟琳•德萧(Katharine DeShaw),科罗拉多学院政治系主任大卫•亨德利克森(David Hendrickson), 拥有4500亿美元的ING资产管理公司执行总裁理查德•肯布里奇(Richard Kilbride),电视演员罗伯特•克里莫(Robert Krimmer)世界疫苗方面最具权威的基金会(ill and Melinda Gates Foundation)高级顾问玛格丽特刘(Margaret Liu)医学博士,投资银行贝尔斯登(Bear Stearns)首席经济学家大卫•马普斯(David Malpass),因为电视造型设计而赢得艾美奖(Emmys)的动画片绘制者马克•麦肯纳尔(Mark McConnell),宝马(BMW)北美市场部副总裁吉姆•麦克多维尔(Jim McDowell),蒙特里海洋生物研究所(the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute)所长马萨•麦库特(Marcia McNutt), Henry Rios侦探小说家麦克尔纳瓦(Michael Nava), Drugstore.com网站总裁彼得•纽波特(Peter Neupert),洛杉矶时报经济副编辑安尼•雷芬伯格(Anne Reifenberg),关于烟草诉讼的畅销书的合作者德伯拉(Deborah Caulfield Rybak),科罗拉多州检查总长和2004年美国参议院民主党候选人萨拉查(Ken Salazar),纽约时报五角大楼记者桑闪克(Thom Shanker),被2003年《科学美国人》提名为技术界最有影响的50名科学家之一的乔•史密提安(Joe Simitian),丹佛(Denver)顶尖的公共关系公司之一的创办人埃里克桑德曼(Eric Sondermann)。

从学生毕业后生活丰富多彩,事业成功的角度来说,科罗拉多学院在这个阶段的表现可以说决不逊色于哥伦比亚或者康乃尔或者任何一所名牌大学。毫无疑问,其他很多大学同样可以说它们在这个阶段或者别的阶段同样不比名牌学校差。我只是举出我自己知道的例子而已。问题是一段时间以来,取得成功的中心已经从顶尖学校转移走了。

这个转变最根本的原因是非精英学校教育质量的稳步提高。我采访过的许多大学领导说了差不多相同的话:一两代人之前如果好学生没有考上常春藤大学或者其他名校确实被看作挫折,因为只有少数地方提供真正一流的教育。但是自从非精英大学巨大地改善了教学质量后。“伊利诺斯威斯理大学(Illinois Wesleyan)比1950年的时候好多了。”学校的校长詹尼特(Janet McNew)说,“但是在过去的50年里哈佛的改变决没有这么大。”这个说法同样适用许多别的学校。非常好的学校比以前更好了,但是顶尖学校的变化就不明显。结果,相当数量的大学缩短了与精英学校的差距。

现在有多少大学能提供一流的大学教育?吉姆•康罗里说大概100所,列文(Shirley Levin)说可能超过200所。改善尤其明显的是大量公立大学。密执安和弗吉尼亚已经成为“公立大学的常春藤”(public Ivies)。数不清的州立大学现在提供一流的教育。学生是否认为公立大学提供一流教育是另外一个问题:庞大的嘈杂的校园或许创造了一个环境四年大学生活在喝酒和游戏中一晃而过。但是小的私立大学总是注意到这么做的学生。但是公立大学教学质量的提高非常重要,因为这些大学提供相当数量的学生座位,往往伴随本州学生的优惠。许多上不起私立大学的学生家庭现在把公立大学作为有吸引力的选择。

这么多大学质量提高的原因是高质量的教师的丰富。退伍军人法案(the GI Bill)推动的教育潮流吸引了大量有才华的人来到学术界。因为名牌大学的教授岗位空缺取决于缓慢的更替比例。多余出来的新教师只好到其他大学里来,提高了非名牌大学的教学质量。在这个过程中,国家越来越富裕,给大学包括二流的大学发展强烈的刺激。在第一批的退伍军人法案一群人开始死亡,大量的人才流向非名牌大学。(今年早些时候一个毕业生给匹兹堡大学的法学院遗赠$4.25百万美元)如今许多非名牌大学已经有相当的资金来源:艾摩雷大学(Emory)的捐赠是45亿美元,凯斯西储大学(Case Western)14亿美元,即使小规模的科尔比大学(Colby)的捐赠也达3亿2千3百万美元。这样的数量几十年前是根本无法想象的,小小的没有全国名气的人文学院能做到这点。

随着顶尖大学之外的大学质量的提高,传统的白人盎格鲁撒克逊新教徒WASP圈内人体制也在失去对企业和其他机构的控制。曾经有段时间常春藤学校的毕业证书对许多领域的职务升迁至关重要,因为这样的大学出身被看作来自合适的上层中产阶级新教徒家庭背景。但是今天,常春藤学校的文凭根本说明不了学生的家庭背景,在就业和提升方面的优势在消退中。多数企业更愿意水平高的利哈伊大学(Lehigh)毕业生而不是水平低的布郎大学毕业生。法律界确实还存在特别强烈的地位出身意识,有些大学顾问相信法律界招人部分根据学生的出身背景。但是大部分用人单位并不看重名校背景,有些甚至避免使用来自名校的学生,因为他们觉得这些人往往有强烈的不合实际的迅速提升的期待。

被贴上讽刺标签的关系往往是偶然性的。但是真正讽刺性的是非名牌大学教育质量和经济状况极大提高,与此同时社会对名牌大学的优惠却在逐渐消退。在这个背景下,人们仍然一门心思非名校不上就越来越成为全国性的强迫性神经官能症。

这让我们回到克鲁格戴尔的研究课题上来。我们真的相信汉密尔顿(Hamilton)和哈佛一样好吗?

有些分析家认为多数名校确实有相当的优势。比如,哈佛经济学家卡罗琳•霍克斯比(Caroline Hoxby)进行的研究表明名校毕业生的收入确实比考上其他学校的能力相当的学生的收入高很多。霍克斯比研究了1982年考上大学的男学生,根据才能做了调整,虽然她使用了区别于克鲁格戴尔的标准。她提出在能力相当的学生中,考上顶尖大学的人在他们的职业生涯中平均赚二百九十万美元,而进入一般名牌大学的人赚二百八十万美元。而考上其他大学的人平均收入是二百五十万美元。这个结果让相信聪明的学生应该争取上最名牌的大学。

她说“前50名左右的大学有明显的优势,在名校结识的人脉关系非常重要。这不是说你认识了富有的银行家的儿子,人家就给你一个工作,而是说你可以在校园里的学术会议和演讲里结识多个领域的专家,人才。名牌大学里这种会议非常好。”霍克斯比估计学生能够得到的教育上的优惠中四分之三由他的努力和才能决定,在任何好学校中都差不多。剩下的四分之一她认为是有学校的地位决定的。名牌学校拥有更多的资源,更好的机会,如果和非名牌高校的好学生比起来。

她还说“如今许多高校都有非常好的教师,教师不是名牌学校的优势所在,在教师水平方面,普林斯顿和罗格斯大学(Rutgers)也许没有多大的差别,但是这两所学校的学生的差别非常明显,每个人的教育部分来自与其他学生的相互交流。”在一个竞争激烈的环境中,有些学生可能导致神经紧张甚至崩溃,但是多数人确实在压力下表现更出色。在名牌大学中竞争最激烈。霍克斯比注意到某些中等水平的公立大学建立校内的“荣誉学院”(honors colleges)来吸引能够进入一流学校的优秀学生。但是公立学校的荣誉学院的学生虽然不错,但是仍然比不上名牌学校的学生。霍克斯比觉得其中的原因是他们没有被其他优秀学生所包围。

甚至克鲁格和戴尔也发现有一种学生上名牌大学能得到相当的好处。那些来自弱势背景家庭的学生。来自贫穷的家庭的学生从艾姆赫斯特学院或者西北大学中得到的好处远远大于来自富裕家庭的孩子。为什么?其中一个可能的答案是他们学到了以前从没有接触过的社会风俗和习惯。在他的书《地狱的边境》(Limbo)2003年中,阿尔弗雷德鲁布莱诺(Alfred Lubrano)这个砖瓦匠的儿子分析了劳动者家庭出身的孩子来到白领文化中的表现。他写到,他们的部分适应文化的过程就是学会不带感情的行为和随时随地注重外表,不管内心是如何想的。来自富裕家庭的学生在进入高校的时候已经接受过保持镇静外表的训练。来自弱势背景的学生面对这种自我表现的方式能学到很多。这点在顶尖高校中尤其明显。

完全可以理解这么多高中生和他们神经紧张的父母一门心思非名牌大学不上的心态。十多岁的孩子经过了一连串的考试,学业成功,与人融洽相处,投球和接秋的高超本领,讨好成年人的本领等。这些测验在好像决定前18年生活成功与失败的判断上达到顶峰,这个判断就是由大学招生官员做出的。大学录取通知书到来的那天对学生来说是动真格的时刻(the moment of truth)他们将知道成人世界是如何看待他们的,接受他们未来的生活是否成功的预兆。当然,成人世界里充满了出身耶鲁的不幸失败者,或者来自佐治亚理工学院(Georgia Tech)的毕业生经营大企业,或者生活幸福。但是没有人期待十多岁的年轻人明白这些。他们能肯定的是大学是否接受他们还是拒绝他们。就像谈恋爱时被人接受还是拒绝---只不过更加严重,他们的父母明白所有的细节。

当然,完全取消这个大学申请过程的折磨是不可能的。但是大学录取可以不必让人这么神经紧张,不必对高中学习影响这么大,如果我们明白大量高校能够提供一流的教育,让学生获得体面的收入和吸引人的职业。哈佛确实了不起,但是你不必要非得踏入哈佛之门才能开始人生之路。

译自:WHO NEEDS HARVARD? BY GREGG EASTERBROOK

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200410/easterbrook




干嘛非上哈佛不可?

南希吉布斯 内森桑伯格 著 吴万伟 译

常春藤学校之外的选择从来没有像现在这么好。

常春藤学校的竞争还像往常一样激烈,但是眼睛不再盯着名校的学生可能是最聪明的申请者。

大学招生简章摊开在桌子上,连同旅行指南,SAT评价材料,网站上下载的网页等。把学校过去5年的每个申请大学的高中毕业生的分数和成绩制成表格,绘出曲线,看他们是否被录取等。

你在申请一个主要的双簧管演奏员,或者足球队守门员即将毕业的学校,以便像具备你的特长的人能够被录取。你能成为普林斯顿大学的第五代人,或者你家中第一个申请该大学的人。这是你一生中最重要,最让人困惑的决定。

作为父母对自己的孩子又骄傲,又焦虑。邻居家的孩子是国家级运动员,成绩全优,表现也不错,品德优秀。他的前三个志愿都被拒绝了,在等待两个候补志愿。这些日子是哪些人上了耶鲁大学呢?莫非他们应该夏天派他到非洲马里去打井,去与疟疾斗争,好让他在文章中有可以写的东西。

你是位于有钱人社区的公立中学的大学咨询员,你希望通过拍肩膀和握手能抓住学生,抓住父母。为大学顾问支付2万美元?家长花钱购买帮助以便进入为孩子可能不合适的学校。

他们真的相信美国只有10所好大学吗?公立大学中有几十所,甚至几百所学院以公立大学的价格提供常春藤教育,小的人文学院鼓励本科生经历在巨大的学校里根本无法比美的学校生活。

那如果他们大学毕业想继续读研究生怎么办?在小规模的大学得到好成绩比在名牌大学挣扎更好。想象一下需要利用老同学关系才能找到工作。可能的情况是,孩子在做根本不存在的工作,所以关系网并没有多大用处。规则已经改变了,世界已经改变了。你的办公室门口的牌子上写着:大学是个合适的选择,不是要获得的奖励。

哈佛大学招生部主任比尔(Bill Fitzsimmons)说“在我们这代人中,美国浪费了很多人才。”申请大学不是很残酷主要是因为“美国人口中的四分之三被排除在这些学校之外。”现在要上大学的学生超过比尔上大学的60年代多62%以上。尽管许多学生申请州立大学或者社区大学,名牌学校决心消除障碍,让最聪明的学生进入成为可能。

哈佛,耶鲁,斯坦福的招生官员到城市低收入社区和偏僻农村招收新生,寻找有才华和前途的候选人,并许诺减免学费。

和2008极的学生相比,哈佛的2009级包括22%以上的学生来自家庭收入低于6万美元。像许多别的大学一样,哈佛也优先考虑关系密切的申请者(哈佛校友的子弟),但是比尔说哈佛明确声明招生范围广泛。“我们已经放出话来,如果你优秀,只有天空是界限。”他说“如果我们不能利用这个能量,美国就会失去活力”。

数学很简单。当这么多学生申请的时候,录取的比例自然就降低了,造成每年关于大学录取疯狂的大肆报道。

普林斯顿去年每五个申请者中就有四个被拒绝。达特茅斯本来能够使所有新生都在至少一门课程获得全优。

但与此同时,部分作为结果,部分作为对所有这些社会和经济趋势的反应,剩下的大学也发生了改变。

父母可能是最后到来的。但是和中学老师和志愿指导和顾问的交谈,尤其是和学生本身的交谈,你会发现在谈到大学的时候,表现出的新精神,简直就是一场革命。

伊利诺斯州文纳特卡的新特里尔中学(New Trier High School, in Winnetka)的大学咨询主任吉姆•康罗里(Jim Conroy)说“有时候我看到带着老二或者老三的家庭,他们已经从老大的经历中吸取了教训。”

他们的教训:尽管你可能考不上哈佛,但是这根本不算什么。只需问一下已经决定走不同道路的孩子。

译自:“Who needs Harvard?” Nancy Gibbs, Nathan Thornburgh

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/US/08/13/time.cover.tm/index.html

能上博客的时代,谁还上哈佛?

常春藤枯萎系  吴万伟 译

技术上的进步已经降低了进入许多壁垒森严的行业的门槛,因而威胁到现行的行业领袖。但是,一个看来没有发生多少变化的领域是大学教育,因为名牌大学好像仍然享受这样的优势:每年都有数不清的申请者愿意付出任何代价来求学。不过,尽管观念仍然没有变化,技术进步正在吞噬名牌大学具备的优势。

新的研究表明教授的创造性(以发表的论文数量来评定)往往和教授的大学密切相关。一个教授从二流的大学调入哈佛肯定要在创造性上有个飞跃,有机会认识本领域的顶尖人物。但是因为互联网和其他信息技术让学者非常容易的和本领域其他同行交流(不仅仅是本校的教授),教授的创造性所依赖的与本校其他教授之联系已经逐渐消除。

教授开办自己的专业博客也是这个趋势的一部分,高层次的交流可以在校园外的环境下进行。同样的,创造高质量的,免费的学术杂志的趋势进一步削弱了垄断在少数精英手中学术权力。虽然现在说大学将会像其他垄断行业如电视网那样经历同样的痉挛和变革还早,学术界升起的高级对等网络(peer-to-peer networking)肯定摧毁一小撮精英学校垄断学术界的局面。

译自:“Who Needs Harvard When You Can Blog?”from the withering-on-the-vine dept

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060808/1050216.shtml

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