But they are not the same opportunities. For the students at the top of CMU, there are a different set of opportunities relative to the top students of most other CS programs. The student from our high school who just graduated from CMU CS (we are family friends with them) is starting a job in a few weeks where his first year comp will be 3x what Amazon used to offer. Other top students at CMU end up in the research arms in major companies, or startup companies.
Whether that opportunity is worth $400k (or whatever the family is expected to pay) is up to each family. Some decide it is.
It isnāt "one third of the price ". CoA for an OOS student at UT Austin for CS is roughly $69,000 a year. As CMU, itās roughly $83,000 a year.
While job satisfaction is not always about paycheck, in this case, itās worthwhile figuring out whether, financially, CMU would be a better choice.
College Transitions (for whatever their data is worth) claims that the average salary gpt new graduates in CS from UT Austin is $79,558, while for CMU graduates, itās $94,408. If itās true, and assuming that both colleges have the same placement rates. After taxes, the CMU graduate will have around $10,000 more a year. Over 4 years, attending CMU would cost roughly $56,000 more.
So the CMU graduate will pay back the extra money within 5-6 years. However, after 5-6 years, the effects of the college one graduates from attenuate, and salaries are based on job performance.
So I would say that, looking at cost/benefit analysis of UT Austin versus CMU, there is really no real difference. The advantages of UT Austin in lower costs is quickly balanced out by the higher salaries of CMU graduates. However, since that difference disappears after some years, CMU does not provide the better ROI either.
No idea where college transitions gets data or how old it is.
CMU CS major 2023 first destination report shows average starting salary of $150K
I donāt see recent outcomes data for UT Austin CS major (which is in CNS)
College Scorecard shows median annual earnings of CMU CS grads of $247K (4 years out of undergrad, n=237), while UT Austin Computer and Info Sciences is $112K (n=445). All the typical College Scorecard data caveats apply.
Per Capita, UTās Turing program has all of those same opportunities at the same crazy high comps. It accepts 30 to 50 students a year. Google ālinkedin Turing intern citadelā and you will get a more hits than a small program would expect. Replace ācitadelā with your favorite high comp Fintech and you will likely continue to get hits. For such a small program that wonāt report on itās own, I donāt know of another way to get this information like quoted for CMU in other posts.
UT Austin is definitely available at one year OOS and 3 years of in state tuition for nearly every student that puts in the work to gain residency. There are multiple paths and the UT residency office will help you understand them. If you are comparing this path against a significant financial aid package itās one thing, but comparing against a private at full cost itās meaningful.
Note that the College Scoreboard data I shared above would include Turing CS majors (to the extent College Scoreboard would pick them upā¦students who received federal financial aid including pell grants, fed work study, student and/or parent plus loans, etc)
If you consider the amount of research papers published itās hard to beat CMU. Papers published represents research opportunities for undergrads - a great way to learn, create connections, and gain experience.
The closest I could find for UT Austin was from their School of Engineering, where they give the starting salary for graduates of Electrical and Computer Engineering as $100,536.
The College Scoreboardās numbers for CMU really make no sense, considering the medians of all of the fields, the general median, and then the median for CS. Moreover, it seems strange that the median salary of Pell Grant students is almost twice that of the median of the rest of the students. I feel that somebody messed up and put a 2 instead of a 1.
In any case, the median starting salary for CS graduates from CMU is likely that $135,000 that they provide, and I think that the closest that we have for UT Austin is for Computer engineers, so in the general vicinity of $100,000.
The numbers are of the total graduates, while the median salaries are of the Pell Grant students. Around 15% of CMU students are Pell Grants students, so that is the median of maybe 36 students, while UT Austin has 28% Pell Grant students, so that is the median salary for around 125 students.
I think that we agree, though, that attending UT Austin is not financially a better choice than CMU. Even with caveats, you make a good case that CMU is a better choice, financially, than UT Austin, and probably better than many of the other choices (not Purdue).
Just to be clear for those using this databaseā¦it doesnāt include only pell grant students. These data include anyone who receive any federal financial aidā¦so that would also include those who received federal work study, fed direct student loans, and/or parent plus loans.
No doubt that many will agree, however I do not think CMU at full pay is a financially better choice than UT Austinās Turing program while obtaining residency. That said, both are super reaches for nearly everyone and we are splitting hairs over financial returns, both are fantastic paths to career options.
Yes, I just think that while UT Austin is an excellent choice, I donāt see that it is better than the other flagships like UIUC or UMD, and itās more expensive, and has a much lower admission rate for OOS students.
There is a regular list of top publics for CS and engineering, like Michigan, UIUC, Berkeley, UMD, UW, UNC, GTech, and yes, UT Austin, but the OP already has some that they obviously like the best. CMU belongs to their choice from the smaller list of private colleges with top programs in CS.
If you are considering UMD, be aware that you must apply early action. Maryland takes a super-majority of students from early action and very few for regular decision. In addition, as a limited enrollment program (LEP) computer science is nearly impossible to transfer into at university of Maryland. You ~ must be accepted as a freshman.
For CS, any of UIUC, Cornell, CMU, GaTech, etc. are excellent schools. The lists above are great. I did notice that you were interested in data science which at some schools is a concentration within computer science while at other schools it is a separate degree or a joint degree with a department like math/stats. For example, W&M is establishing an interdisciplinary college of data science. You might want to look into the DS/ML/AI path at each school.
Agree with above on ED. You have to absolutely love the school first. Just FYI -my neighbors s24 just went ED to RIT for CS (which was his absolute #1) but then realized he got a lower financial aid package than other people he graduated with. So, keep that in mind.