The Ivy League Brand Itself

The Ivy League brand commands a 40% tuition premium over top public universities, yet a 2019 study by economists Stacy Dale and Alan Krueger found that students who turned down an Ivy for a flagship state school earned statistically identical mid-career salaries. This data point directly undermines the brand's meritocratic mystique and proves its selectivity is mostly marketing. Compared to #9's legacy preference system, the brand as a whole is a broader, more insidious overvaluation that inflates every individual school's perceived worth. With return on investment no better than high-performing state institutions, the Ivy label becomes the list's most overrated asset.