What Exactly Do You Study in College?

Traditional universities don’t actually sell employment—they sell connections.

There are three types of traditional universities. First, national-level influence: your alumni hold leadership positions at client companies nationwide and executive roles at vendor firms. Second, regional influence: your alumni dominate as leaders and executives in a specific locality. Third, no influence: your alumni hold no meaningful resources at all.

The first two types are what we call prestigious universities. If a student is savvy with networking, the degree isn’t wasted—even if they learn nothing academic. Once they step into the real world, they’ll find leaders and executives everywhere who are their fellow alumni, and if they know how to navigate those relationships, they can climb the ladder.

If a student lacks that networking instinct, attending a prestigious university offers little practical benefit.

Conversely, if a student is well-connected but attends a non-prestigious university, they won’t have access to influential alumni to leverage.

New-type universities clearly lack this resource advantage—being relatively young, their alumni haven’t yet accumulated significant power or influence.

Since there’s no network to sell, they have to sell employability. Otherwise, who would enroll?

So it comes down to the individual. Students with scores high enough for prestigious universities who are also skilled at networking won’t necessarily choose new-type universities—especially since admission scores aren’t exactly low.

There’s no universal “good” or “bad.” Everyone is different, and everyone wants different things.