Educational Pedigree and Prestige: Does where Head Executives Earn Degrees Matter?

Dr. Emmett Lombard

Citation: Dr. Emmett Lombard, "Educational Pedigree and Prestige: Does where Head Executives Earn Degrees Matter?", Universal Library of Multidisciplinary, Volume 01, Issue 01.

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

The Introduction explains the purpose of this study--identify and describe educational pedigrees of head executives of so-called prestigious colleges and universities in the United States. It also illuminates why such a study is important not only to the higher education sector but overall society. The Literature Review attempts to connect the study with others on the same topic; although impressive work was found onrelationships between having degrees from prestigious colleges or universities and career success, little ironically examined educational pedigrees of head executives of the actual institutionsin question. The Materials, Methods, Results section identifies“prestigious” institutions (i.e., those often highly positioned in popular source rankings) and educational pedigrees of their head executives (found on institutional Websites); results showed that most head executives employed byso-called prestigious schools also earned degrees from thosevery same schools. The Limitations section reminds readers that this is a descriptive study, not one that infers reasons for results described. The Discussion section considers the study’s results from a wider societal standpoint and suggests reasons why they are important, not least of whichinclude equity and inclusion concerns. A Future Research section follows, and the Conclusion includes suggestions for action along with opportunities concerning the situation of higher education executive pedigree as described.


Keywords: College and University Executives; Educational Pedigree; Equity; Inclusion

Download doi https://doi.org/10.70315/uloap.ulmdi.2024.0101005