The Economic Payoff of Attending an Ivy League Institution

By Philip J. Cook and Robert H. Frank

Many of our best and brightest high-school seniors know what most of our higher-education leaders have been reluctant to admit: An increasingly small number of colleges and universities have become the gatekeepers for society's top- paying jobs.

Look at the legal profession. Lawyers who deal with mergers and business acquisitions, for example, receive just a small percentage of the money involved in the transactions that they negotiate, but their fees can amount to millions of dollars