That’s the problem, right? It’s so hard to predict the future. You never know what he’s going to do - he could go for a master’s or not. And even then, he could take a break of several years before returning for the master’s. And even then, where he goes for the master’s comes into play - there’s a difference between going to Columbia and going to Binghamton, for example, for the master’s.
That’s why it’s tricky trying to make choices on the basis of what you think or expect he’ll do in the future. Unfortunately, you can only make ones that will set you up well now.
If your son knew absolutely 100% that he wanted go to Wall Street and was asking which university is the best to get there directly from college, then I’d agree with the assessment of Rutgers, Fordham, maybe Stevens. The truth is that Wall Street firms don’t really care what you’ve majored in so much as where you went to school, and they tend to recruit at top colleges. A history major from Columbia has a better chance of getting an elite Wall Street job than a Stevens quantitative finance major, if we’re talking about WS collectively. (Quant finance - those jobs are usually held by master’s degree holders or PhDs - and yes, you need quantitative facility to get them. So it’s not quite as simple. Still, I think that even with the closeness to New York it’d be particularly difficult for an NJIT major to gain entry directly out of college, unless they really put their mind to it.) Fordham has the advantage of being located in New York, so an industrious Fordham student could get internships and learn the ways of the city and make connections that way. Rutgers has the advantage of both name and proximity.
That said, that doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily a great idea to pay more, because there are many pathways. Your son may work for a couple of years in a firm that is not-Wall Street and make a series of lateral or upward moves until he gets there. (A lot of people who work on Wall Street didn’t start there straight out of college.) He might work somewhere else, then get an MBA from Harvard, and make his way there. He might get a PhD in math from Stanford and make his way there. And yes then, the undergrad doesn’t really matter anymore.
it also depends on how you’re going to pay that additional money. Is that a combination of federal loans, PLUS loans, and out of pocket money from you? Will he have to take out private loans to borrow the rest?
If money was no object, I’d say that Fordham was probably the best way to get straight to Wall Street from undergrad out of these choices. But there’s a huge gap between $39K and $6K. So what I might do is chat with the quant finance department at NJIT (and the relevant department at Rutgers) and see where graduates end up going afterwards. Also realize that there are many, many, many other lucrative paths within finance other than working on Wall Street.
As for whether NYU is worth it - well, yes, if money is no object and you can afford anything. It’s a much straighter ticket to a Wall Street career. But if money IS an object, then $65K is a lot of money when you have other good options on the table for less than half that.