Does your academic pedigree matter?

I've been following the various colleges and universities that are boycotting the U.S. News and World Report rankings with great interest.  By report, the USNWR has ranked the nation's top colleges, universities, and graduate schools (the magazine has ranked hospitals too, but I want to focus on the education rankings today) for at least the past 40 years.  These rankings are used by the organizations as marketing tools, and by prospective students to help select where to apply.  One of the most frequently asked questions is whether these rankings have anything to do with the quality of the education.  More importantly, does graduating from a top-ranked institution predict long-term performance in the workplace?

It is with this exact question in mind that I read the study ("The predictive power of university pedigree on the graduate's performance in global virtual teams") by Vas Taras and colleagues with great interest.  These investigators used the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities and studied undergraduate and graduate students who were participating in the X-Culture project, a global business competition in which about 4,000 students from over 140 universities in 40 countries participate every year.  Students are randomly assigned to teams, and they are asked to solve real-world problems submitted by usually 10-12 corporations, who then also serve as judges.  The winning teams receive travel stipends to present their projects at an annual meeting, and the students who show the best performance may receive internships or offers of employment.

The investigators collected and analyzed data from the 2013-2016 academic year competitions, resulting in a sample of 28,339 students from 294 universities in 79 countries.  University rank was the independent variable, while performance, based upon both subjective assessment by the judges and by peers, was the dependent variable.  In general, students from higher-ranked universities performed only slightly better than their peers, at least on some measures.  However, a more prestigious university pedigree was also associated with a greater level of arrogance, excessive focus on the task at the expense of relationships, and envy, all of which could negatively impact the ability of these graduates to work well in teams.  

It's an interesting study, but I am not sure that we can say that the question of whether graduating from a top-ranked institution predicts better performance in the workplace has been answered.  Notably, most of the studies that have tried to answer this question have equated job performance and success with factors such as employability or pay.  Given that the current study is one of the few that has tried to link academic pedigree with actual performance, the results are certainly compelling.  I will look forward to seeing more studies like this one in the future - perhaps a future study will finally answer the question, "Does your academic pedigree matter?"