At what point is it worth it to go to a state school instead of a expensive private?

<p>Yeah Delaware in a way is sort of an engineering capital. We’ve got DuPont headquarters and Gore so that’s probably why CE at Delaware is considered to be so good. I’m actually not considering engineering AT ALL, but I’ve got a very smart friend who is making the decision between Delaware (probably with a scholarship) and several other top schools (assuming she gets in). I’ve been telling her what a good deal Delaware is, especially in light of the fact that her parents won’t pay a dime for college.</p>

<p>wow, looks like some people were just as interested in this as me!</p>

<p>I think one of the underexplored aspects of choice in this regard is the mismatch some high need/big scholarship kids will feel at campuses that have a high percentage of full freight students. The social factors - particularly for girls (because staying in fashion can be so expensive, and being out of the loop is so easily recognized by one’s peers) - can make quite a difference in the experience. It’s always good to be around the smartest people - not always so good to be surrounded by the wealthiest if you can’t come close to fitting in.</p>

<p>ivies/UVA/UNC or UF for me</p>

<p>If you are looking for engineering it is a whole differnt ball game than most other majors IMO. Engineering Schools of similar rank can be worlds apart in style of instruction and other factors. You will find that some of the best programs are hardly known (Rose-Hulman, Cooper Union, Franklin Olin, ect.). Depending on what you want such as a big state school or small teaching based private will be the determining factor on where you go.</p>

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<p>If we’re talking about top ~20 private unversities, about 40%-60% of students receive need-based financial aid. Almost 60% of Harvard College students do. Even down to the top 40 or 50 universities and LACs, as many as 30% or more get need-based aid. Among the wealthiest of the rest, you’ll find kids who affect a thrift store grunge look, or who favor whatever is comfortable (like sweats), along with others who do dress in expensive, fashionable clothes. The proportion depends on the school.</p>

<p>Good point about differences among the style of teaching at Engineering Schools. a Columbia Engineering education may not be as hands on as the ones at excellent public colleges such as California Poly Pomona or Purdue or Virginia Tech. Even the excellent science education at privates like WPI and RIT and of course MIT differs vastly.</p>

<p>Some stories: </p>

<p>A relative is struggling with biomedical engineering at a highly regarded in state public getting no native English speaking instructors and unable to find any help or support when he needs it. Because of class scheduling it’s going to take him 5.5 years to graduate and his father laments that it actually would have been cheaper to attend a full pay private school at this point where he probably would have had the support he needed. His hopes for med school are also shot. </p>

<p>His sister went to a rather large private school and just did not fit in socially and is now happily back at the same in state public as her brother, the biomedical engineer, and is doing great. </p>

<p>Another relative is a freshman in a very highly regarded state school, OOS, planning to major in a foreign language. The school has an honors program with priority registration. He is not in the honors program though and so far has been unable to get any classes for his major this fall. However, because the school’s population is so big, they can offer each level every quarter, so it probably will be fine. He is finding his courses less demanding than he expected. He has a nice scholarship though so it’s much cheaper than his other option which was private. The jury is still out on this one. </p>

<p>A co worker who went to the same school who was in the honors program and told me that it was like a smorgasboard of academics and it was better for him than a private would have been. He went to graduate school at a top math program and is now an well respected mathematician. </p>

<p>Another co-worker who got his PhD from MIT said that went to an honors program at a state school because he wanted a social life and he wanted to study at a pace that would allow him to contemplate and digest the material. Having TA’d at MIT and saw pace at which the undergrads are taught, he doesn’t think he would have learned as much drinking from the firehose as an undergraduate because he wouldn’t have had that time to digest the material which he thought was critical for developing his intuition. </p>

<p>I met a guy on a plane reading a popular physics book for fun who told me that he was an actuary and got a scholarship to a small private midwest LAC where he was a math major got an education that far exceeded his expectations. When he went for his Masters at Wisconsin-Madison, he thought the standards there were a joke compared to those at his LAC. </p>

<p>There are winners and losers in all of these situations. I could go on, but what I learn from all of this is that it’s all about fit. There are small personal private schools support you and often don’t let you fail. Big schools are often less personal but could have honors programs that benefit those in them, sometimes at the expense of those who aren’t. The biomedical engineer above saved a lot of money by going to a public, but got an inferior education and is losing 1.5 years of post-graduation salary that he would have made if he was able to graduate in 4 years. My mathematician friend saved a fortune going to the public honors program and it was a life-changing experience for him. </p>

<p>My vote is for fit.</p>

<p>Expensive, selective private schools offer small classes, talented students drawn from all over the country and the world, and (typically) a focus on the liberal arts and sciences (not on specific career training). They educate thought-leaders for systemic problems in a global community. They encourage intense discussion of big issues by bright students, who are mentored by professors who don’t suffer off-topic comments by the unprepared. They encourage students to explore new ideas or start interesting projects without being too stymied by bureaucratic rules or a lack of resources. </p>

<p>All the top 20 schools share most of these charcteristics. So do many other universities and LACs in the top 50-75 or so, including public honors programs. The difference as you march down the rankings is one of scope and degree in the awesome powers they cultivate. Harvard grads become Masters of the Universe, Wellesley grads get to be Queens of F***ing Everything (QFEs). Naval Academy graduates are Masters of the Seas. An Occidental alum might remain a leading community organizer in a major metropolitan area (unless he transfers to Columbia :slight_smile: ).</p>

<p>If that’s what you want, and if you can afford one of these schools without crushing debt, then it’s worth it. If you’d be content to pursue specific career goals, working for someone else in a local firm (or starting your own small business), then it’s probably not. That’s my take from an “ambition” perspective, though I agree that a “fit” perspective is also important.</p>

<p>When people get old and have to go to nursing homes, do any of them say, “I wish I’d gone to a cheaper school”? Doubt it. I vote for fit as long as there are not huge loans.</p>

<p>*When people get old and have to go to nursing homes, do any of them say, “I wish I’d gone to a cheaper school”? Doubt it. I vote for fit as long as there are not huge loans. *</p>

<p>I think that last part is important and should include whether going expensive drains your parents savings or caused them to take out huge loans (more no no’s). </p>

<p>The point really isn’t what you’re feeling in a nursing home, but what you’re feeling during the 40 years before. Did your parents have to struggle because of lack of savings or debt? Did younger siblings have less choices because your parents spent too much on you? Did you struggle because your adult years were burdened by debt (even if it wasn’t huge debt, debt has an impact).</p>

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<p>Uh, really? </p>

<p>Out of all of the chemical engineers that I know, almost certainly no more than 10% of them have ever passed any licensing exams, or would even care to. Nor does ABET accreditation seem to matter. The vast majority of chemical engineers work in industries such as, well, the chemical industry, that are exempt from PE licensing requirements. </p>

<p>To give you a specific example, MIT has the #1 ranked chemical engineering program in the country according to USNews and other publications. Yet you’d be hard-pressed to find many MIT chemical engineering alumni who have taken the licensing exams, or care to, or, even know that such exams exist at all. It is far from obvious as to how to even find the department’s track record for preparing its students for those exams simply because of the paucity of students who ever take them. I would therefore also not be surprised that some lower-ranked schools’ chemical engineering departments might actually do a better job of preparing its students for those exams than does MIT, perhaps because they teach to the test. But does that mean that all aspiring chemical engineers should automatically decline MIT?</p>

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<p>The major confounding factor when analyzing schools for the strength of their engineering programs is the (sad) fact that a strong majority of students who start engineering programs will not actually complete them, something that anybody who has ever endured the trauma and stress of an engineering program knows all too painfully well. Engineering programs are infamous for high attrition rates where boatloads of students are deterred from completing the program. Certain engineering weeder courses in particular are notorious for ‘cleansing’ more than half of the class: fewer than half of the students who started the weeder course will take the subsequent course in the following term. Many students are forced to leave the program because of failing grades. Others may (barely) pass but still choose to drop out because they know that if they stay, they will be forced to endure painful workloads, mediocre grades, and poor job prospects. {Let’s face it: if you earn less than a 2.5 GPA, you’re not going to have strong job prospects.} </p>

<p>But those students who are weeded out nevertheless still have to study something. But that then begs the question: what if you turn down some top schools for Delaware for its chemical engineering program…only to be weeded out? You probably would have been better off if you had chosen one of those top schools instead. You also can’t exactly transfer to any other respectable school because of your poor engineering grades. {Sadly, other schools don’t care that your grades are poor because of the engineering weeders; all they’ll see is that you have poor grades.} So now you’re stuck having to find another major at Delaware.</p>

<p>To be clear, I’m not trying to pick on Delaware specifically. Rather, this is just a general feature of all engineering programs. Personally, I think that engineering programs ought to simply raise their admissions standards - why admit students who are unlikely to actually finish the program? - or to reform their grading schemes. For example, why don’t they simply wipe out engineering grades from the transcripts of students who leave the program because of poor grades. They’re not going to major in engineering anyway, so who cares what their engineering grades are? Let them walk away with a clean slate such that they may be able to transfer elsewhere. But as long as engineering programs refuse to do any of that, then it behooves prospective students to carefully consider what they might do if they are weeded out of engineering.</p>

<p>For someone paying full-freight this is the $100K (difference between public costs and private costs) question, isn’t it? It’s a tough choice, especially in a state with good public schools. What you would like to get for the extra money is small class sizes, ability to take whatever class you need so that you can graduate in 4 years, more administrative support, and a broadening experience by going out-of-state. Peer group is important as well. This is often the reason that parents choose to buy homes in particular neighborhoods or send their kids to private high schools. Peer group can mean anything from peers with similar academic credentials to peers with similar socio-economic characteristics to peers with similar religious interests - all reasons a student might choose a particular school.</p>

<p>I am a parent that received an undergrad engineering degree at the University of Kansas and a graduate degree from MIT. </p>

<p>Here is my view. There is NO difference in the quality of teaching between a good state school and the best private schools, at least as far as engineering goes. The reason is that research institutions put little emphasis on the quality of teaching. I would actually say that the University of Kansas program was actually more difficult for me. Getting straight A’s at MIT wasn’t hard, but very tough at Kansas. </p>

<p>There are two big differences between a good state school and the best private school. There is a large difference between the <em>average</em> student in each school. Kansas, by law, had to admit every high school graduate, and then weeded out those that weren’t fit. MIT only admitted academically strong students. However, I would say that the honors program at Kansas was perhaps stronger than the average MIT student.</p>

<p>The second difference is perhaps more important. The potential set of jobs after graduation can be very different. Perhaps Google interviews at Columbia but not at Delaware. Or if you want to get out of engineering, Columbia will likely give you a chance to get into investment management, or consulting, whereas you probably won’t at Delaware.</p>

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<p>MIT grad here for both undergrad and grad. Getting an A in an MIT graduate class is much much easier than getting one in an MIT undergraduate class. It’s not even close. Being an undergraduate at MIT was really really hard. With all due respect, in my EECS department, I doubt the expectations and the pace could have been comparable at Kansas. Furthermore, back in the early 80’s EECS was oversubscribed so rather than limiting people by lottery, they culled the ranks the “MIT way”. The intro classes were intentionally made more brutal than usual and Darwinism ruled the day. Lots of people switched to physics and materials science. </p>

<p>Furthermore, graduate students take one or two classes at a time of their own choosing and can find the necessary focus to do well. Undergraduates often have to figure out where a course is even going first without really having any perspective that would enable them to do so.</p>

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<p>ClassicRockerDad stole my thunder: MIT graduate grading is entirely incomparable to MIT undergraduate grading. Heck, I know many MIT grad students who recoiled from taking undergraduate-designated or even undergrad/grad-student-mixed courses simply because they feared the grading. Many (almost certainly most) MIT grad students who had been MIT undergrad themselves know intimately well how different the grading standards are, and many are not shy about saying so.</p>

<p>I agree about going into major debt. Having done it, I am 42 and am carrying a 50,000+ loan to my grave. Big mistake. I never thought about the interest, nor my future such as mortgages and family costs.</p>

<p>Saying that, I still believe students should take on the student loans themselves. If the student chooses a low-paying profession or isn’t able to find a job, they can take advantage of the new student loan repayment programs without burdening their family with the repayment of student loans. Also, no one is stopping the parents from making payments for the student after graduation even if the student can afford to repay the loans.</p>

<p>I live in California and we have the UC’s here… so I wouldn’t pay for a private unless it was top 25. Stanford, USC, or OOS Ivy’s.</p>

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<p>This seems to be a really popular opinion, but the only evidence I’ve ever seen is that Harvard has a much higher average GPA. I find this entirely unpersuasive. Every student at Harvard has earned nearly perfect grades for most of their life, demonstrating exceptional intellectual ability and study habits. State schools also have many of these top students, but there are also lots of above average students to bring the mean GPA down.</p>