OT - Stanford Football Recruiting Flyer

Submitted by Space Coyote on

This is a flyer that Stanford sends out to their football recruits.  Personally, I think it's pretty awesome.  This, in my mind, isn't negative recruiting, it is only showing the power of a Stanford degree.  Now I know that this isn't for the average football player with a degree or anything like that, but I still think it is impressive and is a very valid way to recruit and can bring up some interesting discussion at least.

 

Link: http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/9378/screenshot20110524at103.png

EDIT: Tried to fix to fit screen, but that doesn't seem to be working, sorry.

FYI: The top part says:

Stanford Graduates' Mid-Career* Annual Salary Advantage Over 2010 Final Top 25

Salary $$ Less than Stanford

1. Auburn: -$31,600;

2. TCU: -$41,000;

3. Oregon:-$42,800;

4. Stanford: -$0

5. Ohio State: -$39,600

Blazefire

May 24th, 2011 at 10:34 PM ^

A degree that will earn you more is usually harder to obtain. I would be interested to see their breakdown for salaries based on degree earned. I mean, it's not terribly surprising that kids from UCF with a degree in sports management or kinesthology don't earn as much.

The concept is clever enough, but there are plenty of schools outside of last year's top 25 that cna claim as much or more student athlete income, post graduation.

Space Coyote

May 24th, 2011 at 10:38 PM ^

I think the point they are making is that you can go to a football power, have a chance to be very successful in football in college and after college, and if after college doesn't work you will still be making a lot more money than at most places.

Zone Left

May 24th, 2011 at 10:50 PM ^

You're right about the last part, but I'd guess that none of those schools play FBS football. Northwestern may be close, but that's probably it. Truth is that the graduates of super elite schools like Harvard, Stanford, and Yale have much higher salaries immediately after finishing college and that the higher salaries continue throughout their careers. Furthermore, people like to hire intelligent, well-educated athletes as they aren't strangers to hard work, teams, or competition.

This is an excellent way to display Stanford's strengths.

Edit: Duke and Notre Dame are close. Touche, sir.

http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/top-us-colleges-graduate-salary-s…

jackw8542

May 25th, 2011 at 12:42 PM ^

An old adage is numbers don't lie but liars use numbers.  That seems to be at work here, at least to some extent, as there does not seem to be enough evidence to make any rational conclusion from the numbers provided. 

Having a degree from Michigan has always helped me in a great many ways but not so much with respect to salary, since that has always had more to do with my performance and my chosen field.  In my field (law), you can and probably should make a lot more than the median of any school listed - even Harvey Mudd - if you have a degree from a good school and are generally competent, but Michigan pumps out a large number of graduates who have social work or teaching or philosophy or English degrees, and these degrees do not necessarily lead to professions that make nearly as much money as the legal profession or investment banking or computer sciences.  I suspect that Stanford does not pump out a lot of school teachers who tend to move its median down.  I suspect it does pump out a lot of people who went to work in Silicon Valley.  I suspect it has its median pushed up by the fact that many of its graduates live in higher cost of living areas than Michigan, including Silicon Valley.  Having left Michigan for Washington, DC many years ago, my knowledge of the local economy is not what it would have been had I stayed, but I also suspect the fact that a number of Michigan grads stay in Michigan might also tend to make our median lower than it might otherwise be.

Real Tackles Wear 77

May 24th, 2011 at 10:51 PM ^

No one would ever doubt the value of a Stanford degree, but amongst the other schools in that top 25, most are not very selective or well known for academics, so this is a bit skewed. Wisc, VT are a couple exceptions.

Space Coyote

May 24th, 2011 at 11:12 PM ^

Michigan is $90,200, which is about $19,000 less according to the same link.

I think a big difference, as someone above may have been hinting at, that many of these schools that are higher on this list are predominantly engineering and medical schools (Stanford, VT, Wisc).  Michigan has a lot broader spectrum which probably brings that number down a bit.  Nothing against the other schools, which are highly respected in their own right, just trying to look a little further in to it.

Needs

May 25th, 2011 at 8:38 AM ^

Maybe that's true for Virginia Tech, but Stanford and Wisconsin offer basically the same variety of majors and range of courses that Michigan does. Stanford's proximity to Silicon Valley likely has something to do with the earnings differential, as does its status as the most prestigious private institution west of Chicago (without much competition), and, I would imagine, the fact that the preponderance of its graduates end up living in places with higher costs of living and thus higher salaries. The earnings differential has almost nothing to do with the breadth of the educational options offered at Stanford.

Space Coyote

May 25th, 2011 at 10:18 AM ^

My point was that those schools are still highly based on medicine and engineering, Stanford included being a private school, they don't need as many students for their womens study program to exist.  Michigan isn't much different, they have a huge medical and engineering portion of the population.  So does Wisc, so does A&M and VT and to a degree MSU.  This is why they are higher than others on that list.  Cost of living has something to do with it as well, yes, but there are other reasons.

Maximinus Thrax

May 25th, 2011 at 12:20 AM ^

But what is the average salary for your kinesiology (or whatever your fotball team's favorite course of study) graduates?  How about for your sociology or criminal justice graduates?

Mojave Gold

May 25th, 2011 at 2:01 AM ^

That flyer is pretty friggin awesome.  Michigan would do VERY well in such a comparison.  The challenge we have against Stanford, is that we have so many more programs and students than they do.  Therefore they will have higher average salaries.

JamesBondHerpesMeds

May 25th, 2011 at 2:52 AM ^

Two things:
<br>
<br>1. What, no cost of living adjustment? Stanford kids are known to stay closer to the west coast after graduation.
<br>
<br>2. Is this only for undergrads? If so, they're conveniently ignoring the fact that their graduates may have pursued masters studies at other institutions (such as, oh, Michigan) that would invoke a more positive impact on increased salaries than a Stanford undergraduate degree would.
<br>

vegasjeff

May 25th, 2011 at 5:22 AM ^

That's one of Stanford's few advantages.

On the other hand they can't keep their coach, their stadium is small and not always full and they only field a winner every now and then.

JamesBondHerpesMeds

May 25th, 2011 at 10:42 AM ^

But they consistently excel at Olympic sports mainly because a large sum of their students are feeders from ultra-pricey private schools with the means to field competitive teams in those events.
<br>
<br>Plus, Stanford is the self-proclaimed "Home of Champions". They even have BILLBOARDS touting that -- CHAMPEENS, I say!

Sambojangles

May 25th, 2011 at 9:06 AM ^

It's convenient that Michigan, Northwestern and Notre Dame aren't in the top 25, since they would bring down the average delta a lot, I think.

SMALLEST DELTA: Texas A&M, Virginia Tech (~$25,000)

BIGGEST DELTA: Boise State (~$52,000), Nebraska (!) and South Carolina (~$49,000)

bluebyyou

May 25th, 2011 at 9:40 AM ^

Michigan, Northwestern and ND may change the average, but not by much.

As much as I like Michigan, there are certain realities that one must face, particularly with state schools. Undergraduate admission standards are often not the same as with the top private schools. There are host of reasons you can give to explain the differences between Michigan and Stanford or perhaps, they simply have better academics.  What they don't have is the Big House.

Here are some 2011 US News rankings:

Undergrad   Stanford 5, Michigan 29

Grad Business  Stanford 1, Michigan 14

Grad Law  Stanford 3, Michigan 7

Grad Medicine Stanford 5, Michigan 10

Grad Engineering  Stanford 2, Michigan 9

bluebyyou

May 25th, 2011 at 12:23 PM ^

So what objective standards would you employ?  You don't like USNWR, then come up with something else.

When I looked up the stats for the various programs, I also noticed that standardized tests were typically higher for Stanford than for Michigan.

What matters initially is what recruiters think and will pay and then the level of success of the graduates over the course of their careers.

Stanford, at one third the size of Michigan had almost a $14 billion endowment in 2010 compared to Michigan's 6.5 Billion. 

My whole family are Michigan alums, but stop with this elitism already and recognize that in academia there are many other programs out there, including some that may actually be better in a few selected fields than Michigan, as hard as that is to believe.

JamesBondHerpesMeds

May 25th, 2011 at 2:39 PM ^

Here's a few factors I'd like to see them employ: per capita household income of the families of incoming students, and relative percentage of students graduating from public high schools.

It's quite interesting that you accuse the previous poster of elitism when he's essentially attempting to dilute that very concept.  I am under the impression that Stanford and the Ivy League programs are no more or less elite than Michigan, rather their classrooms are fillled with students that come from, at the median, more privileged and elite families and therefore already have a higher-than-average set of opportunities available to them.

That's why I bring up the idea of including the above data points.  A school's merit should be based on the opportunities it creates for a diverse range of students, not just those that already have an above-average lifestyle before graduating high school. 

I'll jump off my Karl Marx soapbox now. :)

jmblue

May 25th, 2011 at 12:42 PM ^

There is one factor in the USWR rankings that kills us every year: "Alumni Giving Rate."  As a rule, alumni of public universities do not donate as much as alumni of private schools, as many reason (with some justification) that they are already making a donation through their tax dollars.

We rarely rank in even the top 100 in that category, so it drops us like a stone.  Without it we'd be in the neighborhood of #15-20 in the rankings.

JamesBondHerpesMeds

May 25th, 2011 at 2:49 PM ^

It's only 5 percent of the total weighting.

What I find interesting is that USNWR only counts undergraduate giving as part of the total fundraising tally -- i.e., If your undergrad alma mater is Michigan, that's all that counts.  However, I know many Michigan alums that only received their graduate degrees in Ann Arbor yet contribute to the General Fund...why not count that as well?

oriental andrew

May 25th, 2011 at 12:48 PM ^

This flyer is based on the payscale.com data.

Stanford's mid-career salary is $119,000.

Notre Dame is $112,000 (-7,000)

Northwestern is $91,900 (-27,100)

Michigan is $90,200 (-28,800)

Supposing we replaced the 3 "most average" schools (osu, lsu, and alabama) with the 3 listed above, the overall average gap drops from $39,633 to $37,345.  Not particularly significant.  

Of course, Stanford also has the advantage of being a very small and very selective private school.  Their total undergraduate population is smaller than your averaging incoming freshman class at Michigan.  Also, per payscale, the mid-career numbers are figured for those with only a bachelor's degree, further narrowing the field for Stanford.  Doing some back-of-napkin math, you're probably only looking at about 7,000-10,000 Stanford alumni over 10 years who would fall into payscale's mid-career bucket.  Compare that to probably 25,000-30,000+ Michigan alumni over that same span.  

Also, median salaries sure have gone up a lot since i graduated 12 years ago.  Dang.

RoseBowlBound

May 25th, 2011 at 11:34 AM ^

They should be comparing mid-career salaries of varsity football graduates.  I would contend that the average South Carolina or Florida State football player will make significantly more than the average graduate from those esteemed institutions thanks to the football booster network that will lead them to careers in used car sales or another mid to upper class pay scale job that never required a college degree in the first place.

oriental andrew

May 25th, 2011 at 12:29 PM ^

For the vast majority of the football players on any school's roster, a 6-7 figure NFL salary is not in the cards.  For a school like Stanford, especially, which tends to get more kids who excel academically than the so-called "football factories," this is especially relevant.  The NFL kids are the exception rather than the rule.  

Taking your example of S Carolina, there are currently 23 players on NFL rosters from USC (NTUSC) compared to 20 from Stanford.  Assuming you have 20 players per class, over the last 10 seasons, you have probably close to 200 kids from each program.  Most have far fewer than 10% playing in the NFL.  Maybe some will get decent contracts in the CFL or other leagues, but you're looking at a majority who have to go out and get jobs in the real world.  Why not maximize your potential if you don't end up playing professionally?

RoseBowlBound

May 25th, 2011 at 1:14 PM ^

It had nothing to do with kids that make it to the NFL or play football professionally.  It had everything to do with the inherent advantages in job placement thanks to booster networks that kids at big schools get vs the general population.  South Carolina is a great example for that point that the average mid career salary for a football player (in a career other than football) could be significantly higher than the average S Carolina graduate.

Comparing the perfect SAT valedictorian (who has a shot a perfecting cold fusion by the time they are 25) vs. a 300lb offensive lineman (who can get 50% of the questions correct on any given episode of Jeopardy) in the Stanford freshman class and giving them equal weighting in a very small class size is the real fallacy of the letter.

readyourguard

May 25th, 2011 at 3:41 PM ^

  1. Stanford 119,000
  2. Boise St 52900
  3. SouthCarolina 49200
  4. Nebraska 49000
  5. UCF 48800
  6. FSU 45100
  7. Oregon 42800
  8. Nevada 42600
  9. Mississippi St 42300
  10. Arkansas 42100
  11. TCU 41000
  12. Misouri 40600
  13. Oklahoma St 40600
  14. Ohio St 39600
  15. LSU 39300
  16. Bama 38900
  17. MICHIGAN STATE 38000
  18. Utah 37300
  19. NC State 35500
  20. Auburn 31600
  21. Wisconsin 31600
  22. Maryland 30600
  23. Texas A&M 25700
  24. Va Tech 24300???   For a Technical Institute?