You're still the one

But though Hoxby's conclusions depend on data 17 years old, today's college graduates say that, everywhere from a recruiter's callings to the staid halls of academia, dropping a high-prestige name has never been more important.

Carole S. Fungaroli, an English professor at Georgetown University and the author of Traditional Degrees for Non-Traditional Students, has personally experienced the effect of a big-name school--and it seems little to do with the actual education.

"If you want to get a degree, you need to get a high-prestige one. Harvard buys a lot," Fungaroli says.

"Once I started teaching at Georgetown, doors started opening. It is not P.C. to say this, but [a high-prestige degree] really matters in the real world."

Fungaroli, who attended George Mason University in Virginia, said that while she was pleased with her education, in the end she learned she needed the cache of a high-end degree.

"I was proud of [George Mason], but it did not open the same doors as Georgetown," she says.

And while sending her child to Harvard would be a steep cost, she would not hesitate for a second.

"If I could get my kid into Harvard, I would," she says. "If you have to go into debt, it is an acceptable debt."

Coke over Pepsi

While Hoxby's study does not differentiate between the top schools in the Ivy League, some students believe that Harvard really does offer more opportunities than Yale, its traditional rival.

Andrew M. Murphy '00, co-chair of the Harvard Student Agencies (HSA) Business Leadership Conference, says while some companies like Goldman Sachs and Boston Consulting Group focus mainly on the Ivy League, some are even more selective.

"I mean take the Walt Disney company...they recruit at Stanford, Princeton and Harvard and that's it," Murphy says. "If you go to another school other than those three, you can't get an interview there. Even if you go to Yale, they don't recruit there."

And while Murphy, a transfer student from Trinity College in Connecticut, says he does not necessarily believe Trinity students are of a lesser caliber, but rather that the opportunities Harvard students have sets them apart.

Murphy says he believes that people "brand" Harvard just as he says people choose Coke over Pepsi although Pepsi wins in taste tests.

"If you are in a restaurant even if they have Pepsi, you ask for Coke. You associate that with being the product. When you associate with it being top hires, you just think Harvard," he says.

The H-Bomb?

Ultimately, Hoxby wisely makes no attempt to try to explain why exactly a top-tiered education produces higher wages. The reasons could lie in selective admissions, network connections or the actual education itself, or in none of the above.

But she says she is sure the Harvard name, like other high-prestige universities, will get you far in the boardroom and the classroom alike.

But Wright-Swadel, who graduated from the University of Maine in 1972, says he is proof that a non-Ivy education does not preclude success later in life.

"See, you are taking advice from someone who did not go to Harvard. Did I have to go here to be here, to contribute here? No. Would I be different if I went here? Perhaps, I don't know. I might be an investment banker. Who knows?" he says.