Definitive List Of Colleges That Matter

Higher education is ALWAYS at the top of political issues these days. It'll be on all of the debate shows. It's been argued in the Supreme Court. Discussed in congress. The one constant theme is that nobody knows exactly what to do about it, but we do know that it is completely FUCKED right now. 

There are a growing number of people that say college doesn't matter at all and people shouldn't do it. I don't think that is true. I just think the cost-benefit is way out of whack at the moment. When you go off to college you basically agree to pay half a million dollars for an extended adolescence. A four-year experience that churns out kids seemingly more helpless and stupid than when they entered is a modern problem that needs to get reverted somehow. I don't know what the answer is, but while I do think there is value in an adult halfway house where you get to be young and dumb and tell yourself you're independent, the real world benefits simply aren't there for 99% of colleges now. And I mean that number literally. 

Ed asked an interesting question: which colleges actually matter to employers on a resume. When you're 17 or 18 and you're a normal kid who is desperately trying to figure out if you should go to ASU, DePaul, Boston College, or like Drake you have to remember that by the time you're graduating at 22 virtually NOBODY cares which of those schools you attended. And by the time your 25 and going for that first promotion or job at a different company literally nobody cares. 

In my head there are schools that do actually carry weight. I have done ZERO research on this take. This isn't a princeton review or US News and World Report rankings. This is the Barstool Chief gut instincts rankings. The type of schools where I say in my head "oh okay, I know for sure this person is smart and likely competent".

U.S. Military Academy

Naval Academy

Air Force Academy

I forgot to list these in my video above. That was an oversight. There's a stat that which says there are more CEOs of Fortune 500 from the academies than all of the Ivy's combined. Like I said, I am not going to do research on this so that stat may not be exactly true, but it's directionally correct. One of those stats that is both surprising at first glance but feels true once you think about it. I wish I didn't have to include these because that loudmouth Cons is going to walk around with his chest puffed out further than normal, but a fact is a fact even if it's only directionally correct. 

The Ivy League

Not all of the Ivys are created equal in my eyes. Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Penn are the elites. Dartmouth is slightly behind them. Columbia and Cornell are the Ivy League safety schools. Brown is the school that you go to if you need a safe space, want to have pink hair, and scream about how free speech is a danger to democracy. 

Stanford

In my head Stanford can hang with those four elite Ivys. Stanford is their cooler cousin who moved out West. They get a ton of sun in Palo Alto, but they're just as pale as the kids who go to dreary Ivy League schools because they're nerds. Great at like everything. Even good at football sometimes. 

Specialty Elites: MIT, Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, Cal Tech

If you're gifted and know what you want to do for the rest of your life at age 18 then you might want to go to one of these schools. I feel like you rarely even meet kids that go to these schools because once that graduate they just hunker down in labs and don't come up for air until they land on Mars or cure cancer. 

Regional Elites: Amherst, Williams, Tufts, U Chicago, Rice, Emory, Washington University (St Louis)

These are the schools that in my head are truly elite, but might not have the national brand of the others listed. I am sure there are some in California that fit this description but I honestly don't know much about the West Coast. 

Power Five Elites: Notre Dame, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Duke, Cal Berkeley, Michigan, Virginia

Part of the appeal of these is the alumni network and the brand. Grads of these schools talk about their colleges as if they are Ivys. They're not, but if you say it enough then it sort of becomes true. 

That's it. That's my list off the top of my head. If you go somewhere else, enjoy yourself, but just know that...nobody cares. And if you're 18 and sweating out which school to go to just take a deep breath and realize that it does not matter. 

Full podcast about dumb shit like the Barbie Movie, what do to at a restaurant if your card is declined, and social media bots, by three guys who could never get into any of the schools listed above