The Quality of Education at a Good School versus a Bad School

By: David Diaz

For decades it has been a common belief that a college with a great reputation provides one with a better education than that of a college with a lesser reputation. Perhaps this theory held true at one time, but that is no longer the case. The only difference between a school with a good reputation and a school with a lesser reputation are the opportunities that the school offers.

A school with a better reputation generally has more money and better qualified faculty. Although the classes that the students are in may not be any different between schools, the opportunities presented by a school with a better reputation will be better and more in number. One must remember that college isn't so much a place of learning anymore as it is a stepping stone for a specialized career. For that reason, a school with a better reputation attracts better companies and more companies than a school with a lesser reputation does. These companies can provide the students with a co-op or an internship using the most cutting edge technology available. This creates an experience that is priceless for the student, and will serve to benefit them for the rest of their lives. A school without a great reputation may not offer its students that opportunity.

In an attempt to illustrate this idea, I'd like to create a hypothetical situation. First, let's use two colleges: Georgia Tech, and UGA. Georgia Tech is a well known school of engineering with resources and oppurtunities unrivaled by any except perhaps MIT. UGA is a large state college that does have an engineering program, although it isn't well known, and probably not commonly acknowledged. Say that Georgia Tech, with it's phenomenal Aerospace program, uses its resources to put an advanced spacecraft into an alien planet as part of a class lab, as seen in the image below. Meanwhile, UGA students are taking the exact same class, receive the same knowledge, the same homework, and take the same lab. However, since they don't have the resources that Tech has acquired by means of a good reputation, they aren't able to build an advanced spacecraft, they can only build a strange hot dog like contraption that is falling apart, as seen below. Even though the students have taken the same course and are likely equally as intelligent and equally as capable, the school with the better reputation provides more for it's students by means of its resources.

On a final note, a school may provide the opportunity, but it is up to the individual to take advantage of it. I would like to close with a quote from my Connect With Tech host Will who said, "You get out of Tech exactly what you put into it." Truer words have never been spoken, a school with a better reputation most likely has more resources, but it is entirely up to the student to partake in those resources and reap the benefit of receiving a "better education."