Elite universities fall short in cultivating tech skills

Evaluation data shows highly selective universities perform poorly in developing talent… [+] than their less selective peers.

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Two studies by companies heavily involved in evaluating tech talent suggest that elite universities are falling short in developing students' tech skills.

The first study comes from CodeSignal, a leading technical interviewing and assessment platform. Their 2024 College Rankings report examines how well college graduates demonstrate the technical skills employers are looking for. According to the report, when schools are ranked by objectively measuring students' technical skills, they find that talent comes from all over the place, not just from schools traditionally recognized as top engineering schools.

CodeSignal is well-positioned to analyze the capabilities of recent graduates, as they have spent years developing standards to assess skills as part of the hiring process for major technology companies. The study looks at how job seekers from a range of universities performed on a technical skills assessment using the General Coding Framework. It's safe to assume that job seekers take a skills assessment because they want to get the job, so their performance on the assessment will be an accurate representation of their current achievement.

The results are clear: the most selective schools in terms of inputs (admissions) are not the top in terms of outputs (human resource development). For example, universities that consistently top the most selective universities list are ranked lower (Stanford is 18th) or not ranked at all (Harvard). Within the University of California system, UCLA and UC San Diego rank higher than UC Berkeley. The globally acclaimed Indian Institute of Technology (Kanpur) would barely crack the top 50, ranking just below Santa Clara University. The competitiveness of these universities for admissions does not correlate closely with the academic performance of their graduates.

What makes these findings even more remarkable is that the CodeSignals assessment measures only current knowledge, not ability or a measure of long-term potential. This contrasts with traditional college admissions, which is thought to focus on selecting students on ability. More selective colleges have an implicit value proposition that they do a better job of nurturing student talent than their less selective rivals. The CodeSignals results call this into question. If college admissions committees are doing their job properly, students who enter more selective colleges should have higher ability and potential. If we think of the ensuing talent-nurturing process as a race, we would expect these students to start with a 10-yard lead. If colleges are doing an equal job of nurturing talent and realizing potential, we would expect students who start with a lead to finish ahead of their peers, rather than lagging behind. This suggests one of two conclusions: 1) the admissions process is poor at identifying talent, or 2) colleges are poor at nurturing talent. Either conclusion raises serious concerns.

Cutting-edge companies are the best sources of talent

A similar observation was made by Ilya Kirnos of SignalFire, a tech startup that ranks among the most innovative companies in data science. The article begins with a provocative observation: “A Harvard degree, a PhD, or experience working at Google are no longer the best indicators of top minds in artificial intelligence. In fact, only 20% of AI startup hires in 2023 have PhDs or come from top schools. Instead, the hiring focus is increasingly shifting to people with real-world experience at cutting-edge AI companies (what Kirnos amusingly calls the “AI-vy league”). Specifically, OpenAI, Anthropic, MosaicML (now part of DataBricks), Cohere, AI21 Labs, Hugging Face, Stability AI, Midjourney, and Inflection.” These companies have become the go-to places for recruiting AI talent. The article goes on to say that while graduating from Harvard, [Ivy League]

While school can certainly help you land a job at a top startup, engineers still have to pass rigorous technical interviews and prove themselves on the job to stay employed there.

When asked why he thinks this shift is happening, Kirnos cited two factors. The first is the difference between the amount of computing power available to engineers in companies and what's available at universities. The second is the difference in the amount of data available. Big companies have access to computing and data, but universities don't. So while the most abstract kinds of theoretical research may naturally happen in universities, anything that's fundamentally data-driven gets overtaken by industry.

What does this all mean?

Even if college admissions are not truly meritocratic, hiring for the most competitive jobs is. The fact that students who graduate from traditional elite schools do not perform best on objective performance measures should be a trigger for parents and students to question whether it is worth investing time and money in those schools. A degree from such a school may secure you an interview, but in fields where actual knowledge and skills matter, a degree is ultimately worth little without the skills to back it up. A school that develops talent is better than one that only builds resumes. Moreover, no matter how good a university is, there is a limit to how far it can take you if your goal is to develop cutting-edge technical expertise. You are better off securing a position and working at an innovative company than spending years at university preparing for an ever-changing situation. After all, if you get tired of working, you have plenty of time to transition to a university position later.

Sources 1/ https://Google.com/ 2/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/rayravaglia/2024/06/14/elite-universities-fall-short-in-developing-technical-skills/ The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article

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