Does going to a harder school pay off in the end?

Sami Ahmed

Picking a hard but well reputable school such as Georgia Tech has its pros and cons. It is harder to get an “A” in GT then in other easier less reputable schools such as UGA. A student would have to spend more time studying in harder tier schools then easier schools.

Assume a student who represents the average student body went to both Georgia Tech and UGA and took similar classes. The average GPA in Georgia Tech in 2007 was 3.04, while the average GPA from UGA was 3.20, according to gradeinflation.com. Students from GT have to put in more time in their work then students in UGA due to classes in GT are known to be more demanding. For example, according to Dr. Cox, a Chemistry professor at Georgia Tech, by midterm students in the class Chemistry 1310 in Georgia Tech covered all the material a student from UGA would cover in the whole semester. This means the classes in Georgia Tech go by much faster and students have to spend more time in their work in order to keep up with the pace. That same student who represented the average student body of Georgia Tech with a 3.04 GPA could probably get a GPA higher than 3.20 in UGA if the student spent the same amount of time in his work in GT and UGA. Does this mean the student should go to UGA and graduate with a much higher GPA then the GPA he would have obtained by putting the same work in GT? Not Necessarily. When looking at data online about the average starting salary of graduates from different colleges, it would show that graduates from harder more reputable schools would have a higher salary then those from easier schools.

According to the data, the average starting salary for a graduate from GT is around $58,900 while the average starting salary from a graduate from UGA is $43,900. The average mid-career salary of a graduate from GT is $105,000, which is $23,500 higher than the average mid-career salary of a graduate from UGA of $81,500!

This proves that going to a harder school such as Georgia Tech will on average give a graduate a higher paying job even if his GPA is lower than a graduate from an easier school such as UGA.
So in conclusion, going to a hard school pays off in the end, literally.