UIUC vs San Jose State vs Purdue fro Computer Engg

College Search & Lists
1

I am from California and have received admission in Computer Engg undergrad at San jose State, UIUC & Purdue (Purdue First year engg is common, you declare your major after first year).

San Jose State is the cheapest almost half the cost- about 25K or even cheaper (less 10K) if I stay at home. Graduation rates in 4 years are very low, most likely will take around 4.5-5 years. I also did not like the feel of the college as much but location is great in silicon valley, Computer engg program is rated high and is close to home (which could be a positive and a negative).

UIUC computer engg was impressive very highly rated (#5 by US news for computer engg), excellent and impressive computer engg facility and labs, but costs are double about 50K/year with out of state tuitions and cold weather.

Purdue had the best feel, great people and campus and also rated very highly for engg - but more for non-computer engg, though computer engg is also rated 9th in the country by US News. It is about 5K cheaper than UIUC- with out of state tuitions.

Would appreciate your feedback:

  • Is it worth spending so much more for a under grad degree for UIUC or Purdue? I will most likely take longer to graduate from SJ (atleast a year- so will start working earlier with UIUC/Purdue) and will enjoy the UIUC or Purdue experience much better
  • Between UIUC and Purdue UIUC appears to have a better Computer engg program while Purdue was more friendly. Which one should be better?
2

Why would you take longer to graduate at SJSU? Lots of SJSU students take longer because they have to work to earn money to afford school, attend part time, or are weaker students who need remedial courses. If you are a strong student, that may not apply to you.

3

Thanks for the response, it is difficult to get the required classes which typically increases the time for graduation, in addition to some of the other things mentioned by you. Link below shows 7.8% graduation in 6 years for Computer engg.

http://www.iea.sjsu.edu/RetnGrad/programs.cfm?version=graphic&program=CMPE

4

A common meme that is probably not true. http://info.sjsu.edu/web-dbgen/soc-spring-courses/d52933.html indicates that most computer engineering courses have a section that is not filled completely to capacity this semester.

In terms of the low graduation rate for the major, that includes the effect of students changing to a different major.

5

SJSU would be your best bet, and even if you dorm, you’d still be ~100K ahead when you graduate, compared to UIUC or Purdue. That’s a HUGE amount! Contemplate for a minute what you could do with 100K :slight_smile: …
Definitely dorm and you won’t feel you’re close to home - you’ll be on your own, in a different city. Make your parents promise they won’t show up unannounced “to visit”, and it’ll be as if you were farther away. :slight_smile:

6

I agree - SJSU, living in the dorms for at least the first year.

While there are difficulties in getting classes at SJSU, the engineering and CS students (as well as nursing students) follow a very prescribed course progression, and can almost always graduate in 4 if they are registered for full time.
Many other majors are not able to do that so the time to graduation can be problematic.