Comment by droithomme | Hacker News Reader

Comment by droithomme | Hacker News Reader

This is very interesting, thank you so much for posting. I must say that I cringe when I see "Low numbers were discarded because of X" in surveys. There is always a reason for X, but if possibilities for X are not determined and justified prior to examining the data, then we are cherry picking.* I am glad though that the elimination of numbers was at least disclosed.

* People graduating with a degree from Stanford can be presumed to look for full time work at a salary sufficient to pay off student loans and live in a reasonable shelter and buy food and health care. Earning less than a restaurant manager as an intern is not what people choose, it's what they take when there are no better options. Discarding it as invalid salary information is not well justified ex post facto. If we decide in advance of gathering data to discard people doing internships because these are unfavorable situations and not average ones, why not also discard all the favorable situations that are not average ones as well, such as high salaries received in offers where the student has a relative or friend who helped him find an especially favorable position. Or any other arbitrary criteria chosen after the fact upon examination of the data.

Let's say I was tasked with collecting and evaluating data about the selling price of homes in my community. Those interested in my findings likely are using the information to make financial decisions related to buying or selling a house. Now, let's say that one of the homes sold was not an arm's length sale -- a parent sold the house to a child for what appeared to be a very low price compared to other sales. Should this sale be included? Unlike the other sellers, maximizing the sale price was not a primary motivation. Including this data point would artificially lower average sale prices even though this individual seller's likely does not reflect his best financial option.

There are some graduates whose near-term primary motivation is not money. This is ok, but it is not correct to include those students in averages which will be used for the evaluation of the financial benefit of receiving an education from Stanford.

> People graduating with a degree from Stanford can be presumed to look for full time work at a salary sufficient to pay off student loans.

I just wanted to point out that Stanford has a no-loan policy. Most Stanford graduates owe either nothing or very little in student loans (anecdotal evidence so correct me if I'm wrong).

For bachelor's and Ph. D. degree programs, this is true. In programs that have master's degrees (like CS for example), there are loans and aid comes from CAships or RAships.

I don't know where this claim comes from, but as a Stanford CS grad (MS) I never heard of such a thing. Stanford definitely offers loans.

I believe this is only true for undergrads, and they started doing this in 06-07 or 07-08. I was undergrad '09 and definitely had loans for the first year or two, but not in subsequent years after they instated the "no required loans" policy.

Well as far as I remember from when applying (unsuccessfully) to Stanford, they have a need aware policy, which means that they do take into account the financials of the student. So a student in a well-off family would be more likely to get in than a student in a lower class family (all other things equal).

I'd assume that would be a reason for lower student debt.

This is untrue. From the left column of http://www.stanford.edu/admission/:

"Students are admitted on a need-blind basis, and the university ensures that no admitted student is unable to attend."

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