<p>Right now, I am a junior in high school and plan to apply to MIT and to UW Madison next year. I also plan on going to graduate school, ideally at MIT. </p>
<p>How can someone justify spending 55,000 a dollars a year to go to MIT for an undergraduate education when they plan on going to graduate school? Particularly, when where you go to graduate school is far more important than where you did your undergraduate work and when you can go to another good school almost for free.</p>
<p>I guess I would like to know what specifically sets the elite level schools apart from other very good schools.</p>
<p>I am going to MIT for about $5,000. It was cheaper than my 2 instate schools. One of which had promised me that I would go there for free basically, and ended up only giving me $1,500. So eh, that is why, MIT isn’t $55,000 for everyone.</p>
<p>It obviously depends on the situation but going to MIT is likely to increase your earnings potential or allow you to get into a better graduate school, which is vitally important in getting an academic job. Many people will also enjoy their time at MIT much more and make more lasting friendships and connections which are also important.</p>
<p>Depends on your situation. The top schools have the most progressive financial aid and are frequently cheaper than state schools, especially for low income students.</p>
<p>1) MIT doesn’t cost $55k a year for everyone. It costs that if you are paying full freight. Well, actually, MIT costs ~$80k a year, but we only price “full freight” at ~$55k a year. And if you are paying full freight, it is because you can afford to do so, because of our full need tuition. </p>
<p>2) Depending on your graduate program and competitiveness as an applicant, you may not need to pay for grad school. Outside of Sloan, almost all graduate students at MIT, for example, are fully funded. </p>
<p>3) If you are not a good match at a school, it doesn’t matter if you will be paying less, you will not enjoy it. Here I speak from experience at my alma mater, which was not MIT. It does not mean you can’t “get anything out of it” - you can. And I enjoyed some parts of college. But not nearly as much as I would have if I had been a good match. </p>
<p>4) If you are a good match at a school, whatever money you do pay will be worth it in many cases. It’s like buying a house. Most people go into debt (take out a mortgage) to buy a home. They do so because (presumably) they like the home and think it is a good investment. If you buy a home that you do not like, it does not matter if it is cheap, you will not like it, and that degrades the quality of your not insubstantial investment. </p>
<p>Those are some of the reasons off the top of my head. </p>
<p>Now of course there are many reasons <em>not</em> to attend an elite (read: expensive) school. If you don’t like it, for one (and hint: match always, ALWAYS outweighs prestige. or should anyway). If you have two schools which you like but one is much cheaper, for another. It’s a complex calculus and different for everyone.</p>
Where you do your undergraduate work will impact where you are able to do your graduate work, though often in more subtle ways than people think – it’s not as though MIT alums get into great graduate programs because professors at the graduate program were impressed that they went to MIT; they get into great graduate programs because the resources and experiences they are able to have by virtue of attending MIT make them outstanding candidates for top graduate programs. Meaningful undergraduate research positions, attention from and relationships with star professors, and intimate high-level classes are all easier to come by at MIT and other elite schools than they are at large state institutions.</p>
<p>Interestingly, I wouldn’t say that where I went to undergrad is irrelevant now that I’m almost done with graduate school. I’m a final-year PhD student in a top lab at Harvard, and I’ve just finished applying for my postdoctoral work. I can assure you that my undergraduate origin at MIT, and the lab work I did with a very well-known professor when I was an undergrad, was carefully noted by my new postdoc advisor. Science and engineering are very tough, competitive careers – it’s useful to have every advantage you can, and having an impeccable “pedigree” is a very good thing.</p>
<p>Another thing to consider is that your grad school plans may change between now and college graduation. Grad school isn’t for everyone, and many people decide not to pursue graduate education. My husband, an aerospace engineer, is among those people, so his MIT degree is the only one he has.</p>
<p>Would it to be unusual to go to MIT for both undergraduate and graduate school? I have read that it is unusual to go to the same school for both. Thanks</p>
<p>It depends on your field – it’s more unusual in science than in engineering, for example. But MIT is the most common graduate school destination of MIT undergrads, and MIT is the most common undergraduate origin of MIT grad students.</p>
<p>What some students did (I saw in the MIT '16 Facebook group) was they calculated how much they would spend on school versus how much they would make (by looking at average starting salaries for their major they plan on doing) in the first few years after MIT versus a school that might cost less. And I’m also in the same boat as IsaacM, where MIT costs less than a state school for me. MIT financial aid is awesome.</p>
<p>So am I. Did they count tax? Interest? Living expenses? Generally, I have read that as debt increases, the time it takes to pay it off increases exponentially (with a low exponent).</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I graduated with higher-than-average debt from MIT and went straight to grad school, and my loans will be paid off in total by the time I finish graduate school in the fall.</p>
<p>MITChris, Does MIT understand that middle income families are hit the hardest? We practically have zero scholarship because “we make too much”. MIT somehow figures that we need to contribute 50% of our take home pay to the tuition. That’s tremendous. We still are really going to try because our son really loves the school. If it doesn’t work out next year, we will have no choice but to transfer him to a cheaper school. My next door neighbor has a son who just graduated from MIT. He also had no scholarship and had to work part time and throughout the summers the entire 4 years, while some of his classmates squandered their “free money” from MIT, and never worked for anything, just because they came from “low income” family. Unfortunately the whole society (including MIT and many elite schools) is moving toward penalizing the people who have worked so hard to build some wealth (the so-called “share the wealth”). The school evaluated our family contribution by reviewing our retirement money, our investments, etc… i.e. everything we’ve worked hard for all these years. Imagine that – we’ll be down over $200K by the time our son graduates from MIT. That’s just about equal to everything we’ve saved up from our previous 20 years. Nice calculations. Sorry for being so sour, but that is really the truth, as we see it.</p>
<p>I just ran some figures for what passes to be an average middle class family in my part of the Hudson River Valley through the MIT net price calculator. The calculator spewed out an estimated grant-in-aid that was frankly pretty generous. I realize , however, that what passes for solidly middle class in Catskill might mean you are just above the poverty level in Chappaqua so I’m not doubting that you are feeling a pinch AnotherMITMom. I’ve just never heard anyone up this way complain about MIT’s financial aid before.</p>
<p>I am curious as to what you mean by “reviewing our retirement money?” I’ve had other schools ask questions about my wife’s IRA before but to the best of my knowledge none of them ever took retirement savings into account when they determined our financial need.</p>
<p>I might be at odds with everybody, but in my opinion, if you’re good, you’ll shine no matter where you are. I have a lot of friends who went to “lesser name” schools (think 30 or greater on the USNWP rankings) and are doing brilliantly after graduation (MD/PhD at UPenn, MD at Harvard, PhD at Harvard). Susan Lindquist, former Whitehead Director and National Medal of Science recipient, attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on a full scholarship, for undergrad.</p>
<p>However, you should be aware of the opportunities that are afforded to you at UW Madison vs. MIT. My post-doc actually went to UW Madison, and she was a little upset about how little post-graduate education information she received at UW Madison–as in, she wasn’t even made aware that she could actually go to graduate school until almost senior year. When she went to grad school, it was really tough for her, since she’d never read a single scientific paper until graduate school; she essentially had to learn a lot of things from scratch. But this is kind of an individual experience…who knows maybe yours could be different?</p>
<p>But yeah, research at MIT is phenomenal. So many geniuses here WAHWAHWAH.</p>
If you’re great, you’ll shine no matter where you are. The top kids, the ones who are clued in from high school on out, don’t have problems getting into graduate school. But for people who are really-smart-but-not-ridiculous, and those who don’t come from clued-in families, going to MIT provides the kinds of opportunities that really make a difference.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s necessary to go to MIT or another top school in order to get into a great grad program, and of course there are plenty of anecdotes about people who went to East Nowhere State and got into Harvard for grad school. But going to a top school (and taking advantages of the opportunities that entails) absolutely helps, and it helps in a significant way.</p>
<p>Though you could shine wherever you go, going to school is about the learning experience, not about what your GPA ends up to be. There is quite a huge difference between colleges. I went to an average university and then a top notch university for a second bachelor. My first college experience was quite a waste of my time, even though I did graduate with very high score. Research atmosphere was lacking, and I was totally not motivated. My second bachelor degree was an entirely opposite experience. The money was well worth it.
HudsonValley51 - Whether MIT did include my retirement savings into the calculation or not, it really doesn’t matter. At the end, we are still not getting hardly anything, simply because we have worked hard to save money.</p>