Career experts are convinced Ivy League degrees are worth it –despite the eye-watering price tag

In April the path of millions of U.S. teens’ futures will be decided, and among them will be droves hoping to secure a spot at the summit—an Ivy League School.

However, they’ll need to be prepared to fork out for one of the eight institutions, with many of the schools now closing in on a budget of $90,000 a year for tuition, board and non-negotiable fees. A number of universities have put up their prices for the next academic year, following a trend of increments being added since the 1960s.

The eight schools which make up the Ivy League—Brown, Columbia, Cornell. Dartmouth, Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton and Yale—are now charging between $76,000 and near-$85,000 a year. Thankfully for prospective alumni, they all have various financial aid schemes such as grants, scholarships and work-study jobs.

Among the pricier options is Cornell University, which comes to just over $84,500 and Brown University, which has approved a 4.75% increase on last year bringing the estimated total to $84,728. Larry Larson, current University Resources Committee chair, said the institution has strived to keep its costs down but added the funds are instrumental in Brown’s ability to sustain investments in research, teaching, student support, financial aid and other priorities.

Dartmouth College revealed this month it too will be increasing its tuition fees by 4.9%, bringing the total to $84,300. It is unclear whether this sum includes a $4,163 bill for a Group Health Insurance Plan that students must pay unless they have comparable cover.

The University of Pennsylvania has upped its fees by 4%, bringing the cost to $84,600: including $58,620 for tuition, $7,484 for fees, $12,166 for housing, and $6,330 for dining. Yale’s tuition fees have increased by $2,450 from $62,250 to $64,700, bringing the total of essential spend to $83,880.

Columbia is yet to confirm whether it raised its fees, but an estimation of costs for the school year of 2022 to 2023 (excluding costs such as books, equipment and personal spending) came to $82,295.

Harvard and Princeton are among the more affordable schools. In 2022 to 2023, Harvard charged its students $76,763. Meanwhile at Princeton, which markets itself as “affordable” university, students were charged $76,040—though it points out that the average grant for financial aid handed out to the Class of ’26 was $62,635.

Are they worth it?

According to experts, yes.

Lewis Maleh is the founder of global executive recruitment firm Bentley Lewis, and said a simple scroll through LinkedIn tells a story about Ivy League graduates. He explained: “With Ivy League or prestigious school degrees you have a good chance of landing a top job—without it it’s pretty tough. For something like a lawyer, if you check the profiles of the partners at the top U.S. law firms, they’ve all been to the best schools.”

There is a “whole lot of bias” when top firms are searching for talent, Maleh added, and having the right alumni is one of them.

Speaking of bias, pupil’s parents may also want to weigh in on the topic. In its 2023 College Hopes and Worries survey, The Princeton Review found that MIT is the ultimate “dream” college for American high school students. Meanwhile their parents favored Princeton, with Harvard and Stanford coming in second and third place respectively.

“It would be amiss of me to say that an Ivy League School does not jump out to a hiring manager when on a CV,” said Pete Milne, managing director of global recruiters Robert Walters’ North America division, “Not so much in the case of favoritism, but such schools are rarely seen and continue to have fantastic reputation for producing some of the country’s brightest minds.

“However, by far it is the degree and more so the experience that a candidate has that counts the most these days—even if that is internships or side-jobs.”

He added that the dial is being pushed by big firms like Apple, Google, EY, IBM and Bank of America to rebalance diversity in their workplaces by hiring people with no college degrees. A “welcomed change”, he added: “Campaigns such Black Lives Matter and Me Too not only raised awareness of issues concerning women or those from different ethnicities in the workplace—but also those from marginalized socio-economic groups who in many instances may not have been able to afford a college education.”

Those without a degree have never had a better chance of landing top roles he added, with total graduate enrollment dropping year-on-year since the pandemic began in 2020. Inflation fears that have put prospective students off and a talent shortage have exacerbated a labor supply issue. The ultimate result, he explained is “employers are hard-pressed to change their hiring criteria with a degree, let alone type of school, being pushed further down the ‘core requirements’ list”. 

Does going to an Ivy League school get you a better salary?

According to the most recent data from PayScale, Ivy League graduates earn 46% more straight out of college and 59% more by their mid-careers. A survey of 1,500 schools found that non-Ivy League graduates had an average beginners salary of $58,643 whereas their Ivy League counterparts earned $86,025.

By their mid-careers the Ivy contingency were earning $161,888 while their peers who attended other schools were still in the six-figure bracket, but at $101,777.

Yale, Harvard and Princeton are also “no loan” universities, pledging to meet students’ full financial needs without requiring them to take out any loans—at Princeton, for example, 83% of recent seniors graduated without any debt at all.