Your degree matters. But does where you earned it?

We love labels.

Harvard. Howard. Stanford. State university. Regional university. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Ivy League. Online. Community college.

Before we ask what someone studied, what they learned, what they produced, or how effectively they lead, too often we ask a different question:

Where did you go to school?

And embedded in that seemingly innocent question is an uncomfortable hierarchy of human and intellectual worth. 

We have created a culture in which the name printed across the top of a diploma can sometimes command more attention than the knowledge represented underneath it.

That should trouble higher education.

To be clear, institutions matter. Academic rigor matters. Accreditation matters. Faculty quality, research opportunities, alumni networks, institutional resources, and student experiences matter. Pretending otherwise would be intellectually dishonest.

But prestige and quality are not synonyms. 

At the same time, arguing that institutional prestige should matter less does not mean that academic rigor should matter less. We should be willing to question the growing marketplace of accelerated degrees, compressed credentials, and programs promising completion in a matter of months. Speed and innovation have their place in higher education, but there is a legitimate difference between removing unnecessary barriers and removing the time necessary for meaningful learning. 

Can students realistically develop disciplinary expertise, practice complex skills, receive substantive feedback, engage deeply with scholarship, and demonstrate industry-ready competencies when an entire credential is compressed into an extraordinarily short period? Employers should not have to wonder whether a degree represents demonstrated competence or simply completed coursework. The future of higher education cannot become a race to award credentials faster; it must remain committed to ensuring that those credentials actually mean something. 

Rigor should not be confused with reputation. The true measure of a degree should be the quality of the education, competencies developed, and standards met, not simply the prestige of the institution awarding it.

A graduate of a nationally recognized university is not automatically more capable than a graduate of a regional institution. A degree from an expensive private university does not inherently demonstrate greater intelligence than one earned at a public institution. And graduating from an institution without household-name recognition does not make someone's scholarship, leadership, or potential less consequential.

The uncomfortable reality is that institutional prestige often functions as a shortcut.

Employers use it. 

Professional organizations use it. 

Search committees use it.

Even universities use it while simultaneously preaching equity, access, and opportunity.

We should ask ourselves whether we are evaluating education—or branding. 

Consider two candidates. One attended an elite institution with extraordinary resources and powerful networks. Another attended a smaller or less recognizable institution, worked while completing the degree, conducted meaningful research, demonstrated leadership, served the community, and developed exceptional professional competencies. 

Who is more educated? 

The institutional name alone cannot answer that question.

Perhaps our fixation on where degrees come from also causes us to overlook one of higher education's greatest responsibilities: developing talent wherever talent exists.

This conversation becomes especially consequential for HBCUs, regional universities, minority-serving institutions, community colleges, and institutions serving significant populations of first-generation and working students. Their graduates should not have to continually prove that their education deserves to occupy the same room as someone else's pedigree.

A diploma should open a conversation, not end one. Ask graduates what they know. Ask them what they have created. Ask what problems they have solved. Ask whom they have served.

Ask whether they can think critically, communicate effectively, lead ethically, analyze evidence, adapt to change, and translate knowledge into action.

Then ask where they earned the degree. Maybe we have had the order backward.

Where you earn your degree can matter. What should matter more is what you did with the opportunity once you got there, and what you are capable of doing after you leave. 

Higher education should be one of society's greatest engines of mobility. 

It should never become merely its most sophisticated ranking system.

Dr. Shed Jackson is a marketing and communication professional with experience in economic development, higher education and business science. He is a 1997 graduate of Selma High.