Since I had a similar question in another thread a few weeks ago, I hope you don’t mind me jumping in this one to get more advice. Given the list of schools below and a rough estimate as to their out-of-pocket cost for me, I’m looking for any input anyone may have as to what they think would be the best choice for my D. All are doable financially, but I’ll list them as “cheap” (1-10k/year), “average” (10k-18k/year) and “expensive” (19k-30k/year). I’m not considering any school where I’d have to pay more than 30k/year hence why I topped out at that.
Cheap/Free
Kean University STEM, either biomedicine or 5 year BS/MD Biotechnology, honors program
Stockton (bio), honors program
Rowan (bio), honors program
Florida Gulf Coast (bio), honors program
Drexel (bio) - (free, dont know about honors yet)
Average
Rutgers (bio, either in SAS school or SEBS, dont know about honors college yet)
Expensive
University of Miami (Microbiology and Immunology)
Lehigh (bio)
Lastly - she’s waiting for 3 Ivy’s (Princeton, Penn, Harvard) - based on NPC I am thinking they will fall in the ~20k/year range (low expensive). For sake of argument lets pretend she is accepted.
My parental dilemma are things like “is Lehigh Bio worth 25k/year vs Rowan which is 5k”, or “Should I pay 20k/year for Princeton or is Drexel for free just as good”. You don’t see much about Kean and their Research-First program on CC, but we were blown away by it and the kids. It’s small, selective, and the kids we talked to from it were all going to top-notch PhD programs or medical schools, but I have no idea how it compares…
Personally, I’d love free/cheap for undergrad and help her out with med school (or grad school if she ends up in that direction), but I also want her to have a great well-rounded undergrad experience and I’m willing to pay for it if it makes sense.
Anyway, I appreciate any input if anyone has the time. While it will ultimately be D’s decision, I want to make sure she’s takes everything into account.
Thanks everyone!