UCLA Bizecon vs. USC Marshall

ReallyOldSchool
Mon, 11 Jun 2012 00:52:45 +0000

As the saying goes, don’t Bruin your life!

Seriously though, both are excellent schools. However, USC Leventhal certainly does better with the Big 4. USC also has, for a number of years now, held an advantage in the number and diversity of international students, which gives it an advantage in terms of the international alumni network.

As an international student, you should have either a primary or a backup plan for applying your degree outside of the US. The Big 4 and others do hire international students to do accounting work in the US, but it’s far from a safe bet.

Both schools have significant international enrolment and alumni networks, so the USC advantage is a matter of degree (no pun intended).

The big advantage to Leventhal would be the preponderance of smallish classes and easy access to faculty. With the exception of some first-year classes, enrolments above 40ish students per class are quite rare at Marshall/Leventhal. Instructors will be a mix of some professionally qualified adjunct and clinical faculty in addition to the academically qualified tenure-track faculty. Instruction by graduate students / TAs within Marshall and at USC generally is relatively uncommon. Though, Leventhal used to have PhD candidates teach second-year principals of managerial.

If by “$10K to $15K” you mean per year, then it probably doesn’t make economic sense to pay the extra for USC. If you mean overall, then I agree that the difference isn’t that much. You should also note that UCLA has been increasing tuition rapidly in response to the institutional financial needs resulting from the California budget crisis. If you can find figures for the international tuition rates for the last four to five years, you should consider the possibility that the recent trend could continue if not accelerate. You can be sure that the cost will not go down. Same for USC, of course.