Achievers with abilities and good minds are prone to greater success than their less mentally endowed peers -- regardless of which schools they attend -- according to research papers published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Among the findings in the NBER working papers:

• Children who do poorly in bad schools tend also to do poorly in schools with abundant resources -- so greater spending has done nothing to reduce income variation among workers.

• School dropouts with significant cognitive skills earn quite large returns in their careers compared to those of lesser intelligence -- whether they be male, female, white or nonwhite .

• Even modest differences in students' SAT scores are associated with measurably higher lifetime incomes -- regardless of whether they attended an elite Ivy League school or a less prestigious institution.

Source: Dan Seligman, "The Big Lie," Forbes, April 17, 2000; NBER Working Papers 7101, 7322 and 7450, National Bureau of Economic Research.

For NBER working paper abstracts
http://www.nber.org