Yeah, absolutely. Your major, internships, the projects you build, and your network matter far more than your school's name. Employers increasingly care about what you can actually do. Thousands of successful people graduated from schools nobody's heard of, and research shows the prestige gap shrinks significantly — and often disappears — by mid-career.
A 2023 Federal Reserve Bank of New York study tracked over 29,000 college graduates and found something most people don't expect: graduating from a prestigious school bumped early earnings up about 4 to 7 percent. By mid-career? That gap was gone. Your major mattered far more than your school. Engineering graduates earned roughly 80% more than humanities majors on average. But here's what really moved the needle: students who grabbed internships, built real portfolios, and networked actively landed better jobs regardless of where they went to school. Google, Amazon, and Salesforce have stopped requiring degrees altogether. They hire people who can code, solve problems, and show their work. The prestige advantage erodes fast once you're actually in the workforce and people can see what you deliver.
Prestige does matter in a few specific corners. Investment banking, management consulting, some law firms — they'll filter resumes by school rank early in the process. Their recruiting pipelines are built that way. If you're targeting those industries, a top school's alumni network genuinely helps you get a foot in the door. But shift to software development and the equation changes entirely. Nearly everything comes down to your portfolio, coding challenges, and how you perform in interviews. A state university student with three solid GitHub projects will regularly beat an Ivy League grad with nothing to show. Marketing, design, sales, entrepreneurship — school rank barely registers in those fields. Hiring managers look at your actual work and the results you've driven. That's what gets you the offer. And most careers aren't investment banking.
People believe three things that aren't true. First: "Harvard = automatic success." Nope. Harvard produces billionaires and people earning exactly median wages. Success needs real effort, constant skill-building, and smart choices you make long after graduation. Second: "Non-elite degrees don't count." False. University of Texas, University of Illinois, Penn State—these schools produce extraordinary talent that companies actively recruit. Regional universities churn out exceptional professionals in every single field. Third: "Your college choice sets your ceiling for life." Not even remotely. You spend four years in college but 40-plus years working. Graduate degrees, certifications, skills you develop on the side, projects you build—these reshape your whole trajectory. And people absolutely do it. That community college transfer who earned an MBA from a top program? Now leading companies.
Most won't — especially after your first job. Your resume fills up with real skills, projects, and measurable accomplishments. By year two or three, you're being hired based on what you've actually done, not where you studied. The school name fades into the background. What you've built takes center stage.
Take the scholarship. Student debt creates real financial pressure that limits your choices early in your career — which jobs you can afford to take, which risks you can afford to make. You can graduate with the same opportunities but without that weight hanging over you. Plenty of wildly successful people chose affordability over prestige and built incredible careers because of it, not in spite of it.
Four things that compound over time. Pick a strong major that aligns with your field. Lock in two or three internships while you're still in school. Build a portfolio or real projects you're genuinely proud of. And network actively with people already doing work that interests you. These four things close the prestige gap faster than most people realize, because they show employers exactly what you can do — no name-dropping required.