<p>Question for a friend. Which would you choose? Is an MIT education worth 30 thousand more annually than a Berkeley one?</p>
<p>No. At least, I wouldn't. I think.</p>
<p>If this was the scenario, Berkeley EECS hands down.</p>
<p>how could your friend have gotten his financial package from MIT already?</p>
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how could your friend have gotten his financial package from MIT already?
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<p>Yeah, with aid, it might be only $10,000 a year or something. Which is still a lot, but hey, an MIT degree goes a long way.</p>
<p>I'm not going to come down either way, because it's a highly personal decision, but I would like to note that an MIT education is usually a much more personal experience than a large state school education -- there are fewer students, so it's easier to cultivate personal relationships with professors, get research opportunities, and generally find help when you're flailing. That help can be academic or otherwise -- there are a lot of academic and personal safety nets at a smaller private school like MIT which aren't in place in a large state school environment.</p>
<p>That's not to say that research opportunities don't exist at Berkeley, or that it's a bad choice, or anything that ridiculous. But there is a rather big difference in institutional culture between undergrad at Berkeley and undergrad at MIT. At MIT it's just going to be easier to seek out those sorts of opportunities. </p>
<p>It's like the difference between working out on your own and hiring a personal trainer -- at MIT you can be a little shy and retiring and still get a research opportunity, but at Berkeley you will probably have to work harder and be more proactive.</p>
<p>how could your friend have gotten his financial package from MIT already?</p>
<p>He's upper middle class so I don't think he'd get aid. What he's got are apparently merit scholarships.</p>
<p>64% of students recieve need based aid.
Median family income of families receiving need-based aid - $83,000.
Average aid - $23,000.</p>
<p>So, if your family is upper-middle class, depending on where you live, you've got a great shot at getting aid. If you feel that your family needs aid for you to go to MIT, apply for it, and see what they do. Chances are, you'll get a good amount of gift-aid, a work study, and a small loan. The average debt of an MIT student after graduation? $18,000. Not too difficult to pay that back with an MIT education, I think. It really depends on your situation though..</p>
<p>Good luck with your decisions, just don't rule anything out too early!</p>
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Question for a friend. Which would you choose? Is an MIT education worth 30 thousand more annually than a Berkeley one?
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<p>Personally, if it was up to me, and that was indeed the scenario, I would take Berkeley. 30k a year is a lot of money. I would only go with MIT if I was so rich that money doesn't matter anyway.</p>
<p>However, I doubt the veracity of the scenario. Like others have asked, it seems unlikely that somebody would have gotten their aid package from MIT already. If the person is so rich that he anticipates not getting much aid from MIT anyway, then the chances of getting much merit aid through Berkeley (presumably through the Regent's/Chancellor's Scholarship) are negligible, as the amount of aid you get is determined by your need. {For that reason, I know one person who was a Berkeley Chancellor's Scholar who only got $500}. Hence, the person is most likely getting this merit aid through outside scholarships, but if so, then those outside scholarships should be usable at MIT too. I am aware of few large outside scholarships that are actually usable at Berkeley, but not at MIT. </p>
<p>The one major exception I could see is the above analysis is an athletic scholarship. If the guy is being offered a scholarship to play a varsity sport at Cal, then I could see how that might translate into a 30k difference. But, truth be told, there aren't exactly a lot of athletes within the Berkeley EECS program, especially if we're talking about a money sport like football or basketball where the players are looking to go pro.</p>
<p>I don't find 30K to really be that much money. If I was broke and choosing between being way in debt at MIT or getting paid to go to any other school, I'd take MIT. If all you care about is money, skip graduate school and take a 100K+ job out of college; you can pay it down in no time. Economics says: spend against your expected future earnings, not against the money you have now.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>1) 30k x 4 = 120k.
2) You have to earn at least more than 120k (not counting stuff like interest) with your MIT degree than your Berkeley degree in order to get a better deal. Somehow I doubt that's gonna happen.</p>
<ol>
<li> Financial aid at MIT would only be speculation at this point as financial aid is not developed until after student is accepted.</li>
<li> Money, especially relating to education truly isn't everything.</li>
<li>Having gone through a similar analysis last year with good merit offers from other schools, I can say with some authority that the bottom line is to attend the school that in your heart is the right one. I know DD made the right decision and I am really glad that the bills and loans did not prevent me from supporting her choice. Three months into freshman year I truely know both DD in her decision and "the parents" in their willingness to deal with the financial burden, both made the right choice.</li>
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1) 30k x 4 = 120k.
2) You have to earn at least more than 120k (not counting stuff like interest) with your MIT degree than your Berkeley degree in order to get a better deal. Somehow I doubt that's gonna happen.
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<p>Exactly. And furthermore, this is 120k in * after * tax income that you would be saving * early * in your life. As anybody who has ever studied basic finance knows, money earned early in life is more valuable than money earned later, simply because early money can be invested to generate even more money later. </p>
<p>120k in early, after-tax money is a pretty decent sized chunk of change. </p>
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Economics says: spend against your expected future earnings, not against the money you have now.
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<p>Actually, that's the exact opposite of what economics would say. Like I said, present money is worth more than future money because of the investing potential of present money. Future money can't be invested. </p>
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If all you care about is money, skip graduate school and take a 100K+ job out of college
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<p>Ha! You say that as if anybody can just get one of those jobs whenever they want. Trust me, there are * plenty * of MIT grads (and Berkeley grads) who would absolutely kill to get a 100k job right out of college, but didn't get one. Not even close, in fact. </p>
<p>Check out the average salaries of MIT grads in 2006. The average starting salaries for bachelor's degree holders is not even close to 100k. All those MIT grads who are part of the data actually * did * skip grad school to take jobs, and yet evidently most of them did not get 100k jobs.</p>
<p>"I don't find 30K to really be that much money. If I was broke and choosing between being way in debt at MIT or getting paid to go to any other school, I'd take MIT." </p>
<p>I am that broke, and I personally agree with River Phoenix. I'll take the loans; I'm going to the best college I can. But I'm lucky, my mother has the same mindset. I know a lot of parents aren't willing to make sacrifices, or even to let their kids take the loans themselves. </p>
<p>Berkeley is a really good school, so if money is a huge deal, and your friend thinks he could be happy there, even knowing he passed up MIT, then go for it.</p>
<p>Not just that, current money is worth more because of inflation.</p>
<p>i heard berkeley EECE is tough, you won't have a social life there. I hope MIT is better.</p>
<p>Grnfan, if your friend is sure that EECS is what he/she wants to pursue, can consider BS in EECS from UCB followed by graduate study at MIT. If there is any doubt at all about EECS as a career path, one may not want to get locked in at Cal. At MIT one can defer declaring a major until the end of sophomore year.</p>
<p>as a out-of-state applicant, MIT was cheaper than me (cheaper even than my state college) so it was a no brainer. for your friend's case, i have no idea, but with fin aid from MIT, i'd say it could be worth it</p>
<p>The point is, I don't think money really needs to factor into the decision. If the student is really indifferent to MIT then he should just go to Berkeley. If not, he should come to MIT. Why do something to save money now that you could regret in 30 years? If he's not going to get financial aid, then he can afford it without too much pain - and it's hard to put a price on MIT.
I personally turned down full scholarship at Michigan Engineering</p>
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The point is, I don't think money really needs to factor into the decision. If the student is really indifferent to MIT then he should just go to Berkeley. If not, he should come to MIT. Why do something to save money now that you could regret in 30 years? If he's not going to get financial aid, then he can afford it without too much pain - and it's hard to put a price on MIT.
I personally turned down full scholarship at Michigan Engineering
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<p>Well, I don't know if I can agree with that. I suppose it all comes down to how much utility you place on money. Money means financial security - basically meaning that you won't have to take a job that you hate just to pay the bills. Taking on extra debt that you don't have to take on might ITSELF be a choice that you may regret. </p>
<p>Think of it this way. With 120k, you could start your own small business. You could travel around the world for several years, getting some of the best cultural education available. You could put in a down payment on a house, or in many parts of the country, buy a whole (starter) house. Or perhaps more mundanely, you could take a lower-paying job, or even a volunteer job, that has the potential to become something big later, as opposed to having to take a higher-paying job that you dislike just because you need to pay back your loans. For example, you could afford to join a technology startup that pays you very little salary but gives you lots of stock ownership, and if that startup becomes big, you'll become a millionaire. </p>
<p>The point is, 120k is not a small amount of money, and I don't think we ought to generalize about people's preferences. Sure, I agree that if you come from a family of millionaires, you probably don't care about 120k. But regular, middle-class people do and should care about money. I view the choices as equally 'regrettable'. Turning down MIT might cause regret. But turning down 120k might also cause regret, when you factor in what you can do with that kind of money.</p>