Introduction
Parents always want their children to get into good universities. It is generally expected that students who graduated from good universities will be guaranteed a high salary. When asking people which universities’ graduates are expected to get the highest salary, normally those commonly known and popular universities are the expected ones. Is it really the case? Or people are not objective in making this judgment?
Analysis (based on the United States as example)
University rankings by professional bodies are often used as an indicator for the level of quality of a University. University with higher rank is perceived as “better” than those with lower rank. Below is the University Rankings in the United States in 2015 by the U.S. News & World Report (“University Ranking”):
The ranking of actual income of the graduated students (“Salary Ranking”), in their early and mid-career, is:
From observations of the above statistics, there are only 4 out of the top 10 universities in the University Ranking which at the same time having its faculty or school ranked top 10 in the Salary Ranking. It indicates that students graduated from the high ranked universities do not necessarily getting the top high salary, for example:
The Princeton University ranked no.1 in University Ranking does not have any of its graduate school get into top 30 in Salary Ranking
The Yale University ranked no.3 in University Ranking but only ranked no. 33 in Salary Ranking, which is its School of Management with their early career income at USD122,500 and mid-career income at USD144,300.
The University of Chicago ranked no. 6 in University Ranking but only ranked no. 27 in Salary Ranking, which is its School of Business with their early career income at USD120,800 and mid-career income at USD150,500.
There are also universities within top ten in Salary Ranking but having a much lower position in the University Ranking. For example, the Emory University, UCLA...