Finance is the last reason in the article, but likely the most influential factor. The hoops required aren't worth jumping through to go to a "selective" school anyhow, unless you want to take the opinion of people who work for the most selective school in the country. That'd be pretty naive, wouldn't it?
The article is specifically about the widespread myth (which you're repeating) that elite schools are too expensive for low income students.
If you'd actually bothered to read the article, you'd note that most elite universities actually provide extensive financial aid to low income students. In fact, probably the easiest way to afford an Ivy is not to have oodles of money—it's to have very little money, as families making under $60,000 annually typically receive a full ride.
> And I don't put much credence in something said by someone who's on the payroll of an institution poised to benefit from them saying selective schools benefit people long-term.
I don't even understand what you're trying to imply there. Why do you think that an NPR reporter would benefit from (accurately) reporting that elite universities are affordable? If anything, she'd probably get more pageviews from repeating the tired myth that elite universities are unaffordable.
Not to mention that financial aid isn't something universities can lie about. It's pretty easy to demonstrate the elite universities do in fact give fantastic aid packages. I know this anecdotally from the packages I received (including a full ride), but you could also note that the average Princeton graduate has a total of only $5,000 in loans.
Why would people want to necessarily go to a selective school? The evidence supplied that selective schools make a difference was Caroline Hoxby of Stanford-- the most selective school in the country. She might have just a little bias.
When you're ultra-selective you're not picking losers or incapable people; those people had a high chance of success before they even went to college. So saying people who graduated from selective colleges do better is really a hard thing to measure unless it's a formal study, which isn't mentioned.
All of the evidence supporting any reason you'd want to go in the first place is either empirical and provided without data, and/or from someone with strong bias. Can you explain why smart people would want to pursue this kind of thing anyhow?
Most people of limited means are reasonable and don't "need" things like a fancy name on their diploma. Maybe it's just me, but I think selective schools are overrated so the premise of the article is a little ridiculous.
For underprivileged students, it's pretty clear that attending an elite university materially increases economic outcomes—even after controlling for the students themselves (a poor student who gets into both Yale and their local state university will do better if they go to Yale).
Not that I expect you to actually listen to reason, since you're basically insinuating that tenured professors are making up evidence to boost undergraduate applications (if you think that's something professors would actually do, you clearly haven't spoken to many). If you're going to discount any research with a connection to a major university, it will indeed be hard to find any research.
That definitely makes it more meaningful since it provides a tangible benefit to low-income graduates (also latino, black, and those whose parents did not graduate college), which was not made clear by the original article. That's the distinction not made in common discussion.
This other NPR story is very fitting to your comment: http://www.npr.org/2014/04/01/297690717/why-doesnt-america-r...