Can’t make the decision about whether it is worth the extra but you are going in to a field where you will be able to pay off loans relatively quickly. You have been invited to attend the best CS program on the planet. Or, you could go to an excellent program (top 20 in US). The opportunities MIT students have are unparalleled And I would bet that, given identical credentials going in, the one attending MIT would end up with an advantage because of the entrepreneurial climate, the collaborations across students, IAP (January term), and the MIT network. I’d normally not suggest the more expensive option, at least not necessarily but in Computer Science I think MIT is far ahead of UCSD-although UCSD is excellent.