Your Education Means Nothing

by Mike Bechek | July 9, 2008 at 12:00 pm

Bloomberg News columnist Amity Shlaes has a monster scoop this morning: Ivy League networking is dead.

A new paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, Shlaes points out, recently tried to quantify the strength of what the authors call the “connection premium” of attending an elite college or business school. Focusing on Wall Street analysts, the economists looked at whether the financial advice they gave was better when they had the same alma mater as a senior officer at the company they were recommending. It was, obviously — by 8.16 percent.

This all changed, apparently, with a 2000 Securities and Exchange Commision rule called “Fair Disclosure” that prohibited, it seems, chatting over drinks at the Harvard Club. After that, the “connection premium” disappeared. Fair, indeed, I guess.

No one will suffer more from the new rule than Harvard kids, who once made up 19 percent of all networking, according to the killjoys.

After the jump, what schools used to have the most connections. Read the rest of this entry »

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