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.
If he wants JD or MBA, the $270,000 less debt will mean more options in career and life choices.
Maryland is a respectable enough school that it is impossible to ignore that price difference. It even has famous alumni, including a founder of a big well known computer company.
UMCP is a solid school as far as CS and ECE are concerned. If he wants to consider CS - cool things are happening with a new building (because of a 31 million dollar gift from an alumnus).
I know high GPA students from UMCP get into absolutely top grad schools (I know of one who went to Stanford for CS PhD, and then spent sometime on faculty of Harvard!). Sergey Brin himself went from CS undergrad to Stanford’s PhD program.
Will he have good grad school opportunities going to UMD undergrad? He is in Computer Engineering at UMD. He doesn’t want to major in CS. Should we worry about the cost of grad school now? If he is motivated couldn’t he figure out a way by being a TA to lower costs in grad school? The problem is he prefers Cal Berkeley or CMU.
Among grad schools, the only one I see being hard to access from a good (but not top 3-5) state school are the MBA programs. Feeder school data from M7 business schools suggests as such. High GPA and research experience at UMCP → pretty good for PhD programs in computer engineering. I don’t think law schools place that much emphasis on undergrad school, though I am not particularly knowledgeable in this area.
If he wants to go for a PhD program in computer engineering, money won’t be an issue … if a school wants you, it will pay for you to attend. Law and business schools are a different matter.
I can see that it is a hard decision. In any case, congratulations to your son on his accomplishments and being in position!
PhD program: funded with tuition waiver and stipend (usually for doing teaching assistant or research assistant work)
JD program: expensive, admission mainly based on college GPA and LSAT score ( http://lawschoolnumbers.com )
MBA program: expensive, admission significantly depends on good post-graduation work experience
“Will he thrive/feel challenged at UMD.”. Any computer engineering curriculum is going to be challenging. Since you have already let him know you can help with grad study if he picks UMD, this may be something you will just have to let him decide. I hope he picks UMD since picking the others could impact his finances down the line. He has a great opportunity to receive an education from a wonderful university for free! He is very lucky. Good luck with the decision.
@sevmom I totally agree its a great opportunity. We are not sure if he is mature enough to realize this. His friends are going to exciting schools so to be stuck in his instate school is not very exciting. We are trying to give him as much info as possible and consequences to the different paths and letting him choose (but it is VERY hard).
For engineering, UMD is virtually a no brainer where he should graduate at the top of the class and have a world of opportunity open to him either in industry or grad schools.
Show him how much a top 14 law school will cost (tuition plus living expenses for 3 years).
Have him calculate how long it would take to pay off that amount of debt if he has spent all of the college money for undergraduate instead of taking the highly respectable full ride option.
I looked over the bingo sheet for computer engineering at UMCP. It is a high quality program – 130 credits, many computer science classes, together with computer hardware and basic EE classes. I happen to have direct knowledge of the CS classes – they are challenging! No direct knowledge of ECE classes, but I don’t think their faculty likes being left behind (in inflicting pain …).
My brother who graduated from the School of Engineering at UMD many moons back tells me NOT to send S there. He says the drop out rate from engineering is too high and because it is so large S can easily get lost. Brother says to send S to CMU where the class size is much smaller and a lot more attention is given from the professors. My brothers point of view is we have saved the money use it for undergrad and with successful undergrad S will figure his way through grad school. S will find a way if he wants it bad enough. Let him get loans and pay it off. Or get TA positions or research positions. Let S decide.
^^^^Perhaps your brother would like to contribute some money towards the additional
240K expenditure? Your son is not an average student. No one who gets accepted to UCB or CMU is average. Also. Things have changed a lot since your brother was in school.
If you want to change his life FAR more than the choice between these schools will make, take half the savings, invest it in a total market fund, and give it to him for a future birthday.
The drop out rate at UMD is higher because it’s far less selective than CMU. Your son’s previous achievements are well correlated with future success.
Decades ago, many state flagships (probably including Maryland) were not as selective as they are now. Because engineering curricula were and are rigorous, the washout rate was high back then as many less prepared students decided it was too hard.
But a strong student of the type to earn a full ride merit scholarship is likely to be one who can handle the rigor of an engineering curriculum.
How much is your brother offering to contribute? The decision really belongs to whoever is attending and whoever is paying.
Agree , ignore your brother unless he is paying. My H went to CMU in engineering. He had no interest in our kids going there. Just not worth the additional cost and not a good fit socially for them either. They went to state schools in Virginia for engineering and are no worse for wear!
Thank you all!!! Great advice! We were at Berkeley earlier this week. I totally understand the appeal now. The weather was incredible. We are off to CMU tomorrow (for the 3rd time). We will crunch a bunch of numbers this weekend. I will post once a decision is made.
Have a good trip to Pittsburgh. I was just there last week and drove through the
CMU campus. If the expensive privates remain on the table, it might be a good idea to reinforce with your son that you do not intend to pay for graduate studies if he goes to a full pay private . He may be hoping you would change your mind on that (and maybe you would?) . If there are younger siblings that also need to be factored in, consider the precedent that is set by the older
