Biomedical engineerng at Rutgers versus UPenn

College Search & Selection
1

Hello,
My son got into really good undergrad schools for biomedical engineering but given that he is going to do masters we figured we save the money by not going to the private schools and go to state school, Rutgers, NJ in our case. He also got some scholarship at Rutgers bringing our cost down to 15k / per year so total.

But he was wait listed at UPenn and recently got in. This is making really hard now for us to decide. The cost of UPenn is even higher but the prestige and his job prospects would be much better. But is it work the 61k/per (he cost grant of 5k/year at Upenn)?? We will be spending 46k / year more or a total of 184k over 4 years.

I know UPenn is known for it’s business program.

Is the biomedical program at UPenn worth the extra cost of 184k over Rutgers biomedical program??

We have to decide by JUNE 5. So PLEASE provide any input you can as SOON AS POSSIBLE.

Thank you so much.

2

I live in NJ. I don’t the answer specifically but I can tell you with first hand knowledge that NJ is by far the biggest state for nonpublic research in biotech and bioengineering. That part of the state is chock full of companies in the field.

The state is favoring engineering for both Rutgers and Rowan with gobs of money, so that is a good sign.

Rutgers merged the medical school into the university so I have been reading there is a lot of synergy now with Robert Wood Johnson.

Unless you can quantify career prospects or grad school prospects between Rutgers and Penn they don’t really exist. Right?

Rutgers is very strong in science so it seems like a much better value than Penn.

3

Thank you so much BatesParent2019 for your quick response. That is really helpful information about Rutgers. Makes it even harder to justify the additional cost of UPenn.

What do others think?

4

Uh, hello… NO!