Debate - Elite Colleges

Will you have a better life if you graduate from an elite college or university? Why/why not?

Like Mr. Sutherland says, it is a tough question. What college or university you choose to attend or if you choose to attend a college at all will determine how the rest of your life will be spent. Whether the road you chose is what you wanted or not is based on YOU, not what college you go to. That's why I thought the article "What You Do vs. Where You Go" by  Martha (Marty) O'Connell, executive directer of a non-profit organization called Colleges That Changes Lives (not part of an university, which a lot of the articles have shown to show some bias) exemplified the strongest points. She begins her article with the scene of high school students participating in an activity dealing with college, which is the phase in our lives where we will most likely make our decision on what we want to major in and what college we apply for. That's when she begins to lead on to one of her main points:

"The key to success in college and beyond has more to do with what students do with their time during college than where they choose to attend. A long-term study of 6,335 college graduates published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that graduating from a college where entering students have higher SAT scores -- one marker of elite colleges -- didn't pay off in higher post-graduation income."

In other words, elite colleges do not contribute to a higher income or "better life" as it was once thought. Furthermore, elite colleges can likely make it harder for students to learn properly. There will certainly be a number of high profile professors at these elite colleges who have won awards, discovered cures, won noble peace prizes, etc. At first glance, you assume that these professors are amazing to be taught by. But the truth is that these professors will end up giving students less attention and focus more on their own work and finding the next cure. Same goes for these so called "elite colleges". They are attracting students to enroll and pay tuition that they forget that what they should be working on is the material they teach.