Cal Berkeley V Carnegie Mellon V Univ of Maryland in Engineering

Son was accepted into:
Cal EECS, Tuition/ Room $57,700
CMU ECE, tuition/room $67,794
UMD CE, Received FULL RIDE tuition/room/books $0

Cal and CMU are VERY good in EECS and ECE but UMD Computer Engineering isn’t too shabby. Parents can pay without getting loans but is Cal or CMU worth all that money? We are talking about $270,000 vs $0. Son worked very hard to get to this point, would encouraging him to take UMD undermine his achievement? Will he thrive/feel challenged at UMD? Parents have said to S if he goes to UMD we will pay for his JD/MBA (currently he is thinking about joint degree for grad school) or else he will have to pay for grad school himself.

I would like to hear CC’s thoughts. I haven’t been on CC too long but I have been very grateful for people’s candor and willingness to share important information during this crazy college application process. Torn, we don’t know what’s best…please advise.

Stick with UMD - other schools are great but not worth $270K