<p>Hi all,
I am currently undecided between Caltech, Harvey Mudd, and UT-Austin. I am a prospective math (applied I think) major. I got into the Dean's Scholars honors program at UT.</p>
<p>Caltech and HMC are much more appealing to me than UT, but the main issue is the cost. Both should cost about $30-40 thousand more than UT per year after financial aid and scholarships. If I'm planning on heading to grad school afterwards, is it even worth it to spend the extra money and take out all those loans? Thanks.</p>
<p>You can’t take out that much in loans - only your parents can. Are they able to comfortably afford you this option to go to Caltech or Mudd? If they are happy to do it and you find them more appealing, then go. If they can’t pay that difference and have to refinance the house to the tune of $150K, would they even consider doing that? You need to sit down with your parents to answer this one since no one here knows their finances and comfort level with that out of pocket college expense.</p>
<p>afterwards, is it even worth it to spend the extra money and **take out all those loans? **Thanks.</p>
<p>Employers don’t pay MIT or CalTech grads much more…the amount is negligble…not enough to justify more than a small amount of debt. </p>
<p>Believe me, if you take on big debt, when UTexas is your option, you’re going to be mighty annoyed when your collegues are making the same amount of money…sans the big debt.</p>
<p>BTW…one of my son’s PhD classmates is a HMU grad. And, one of his classmates is a UC-Riverside grad. And, one is a UT-San Antonio grad. And, a couple are ivy grads. It didn’t matter to the university.</p>
<p>and…YOU can’t borrow that much on your own.</p>
<p>lockn - What difference does that make? He’s not taking out the six figure loans - that money comes from his parents. If the dad is a neurosurgeon or law partner, that amount is trivial. Only his parents can give him the information he needs to see if the extra appeal he sees in the more expensive options is even a viable option.</p>
<p>OP- UT Austin is a great state school. I think all the respondents are going to agree with that. You are not going to get a good economic return on your investment by choosing your other more expensive options over UT-Austin. You’re not going to earn significantly more money with a B.S. from those other schools. But virtually all of the adults who respond and tell you this is a no-brainer have bought a new car sometime in their lives when it only makes economic sense to buy used cars. They also eat in restaurants when they could meet their dietary needs with food bought and prepared for much less. People choose to spend money differently and maybe your well off but not rich parents would like to give you this opportunity even if that means they will spend less money on something else. Have you discussed this with your parents and what are their thoughts?</p>
<p>My parents do want me to go to UT because of the cost but told me that it’s ultimately my choice, and if I want to be responsible for the loans it’s my decision.</p>
<p>You can’t be legally responsible for those loans since no lender will loan you that much. So are you saying they will take out those loans with the expectation that you will be paying them back? If you are just going to make the payments, when will they expect you to start doing that? The payment schedule on a $150K in loans with a 10 year payback is going to exceed what a new college grad is going to comfortably shoulder. Its hard for me to understand how they can say it is your choice when they are responsible for loans and you may not be able to assume payments immediately.</p>
<p>UT is a marvelous school and if they are showing you the ‘love’ via scholarships - go for it…good luck!</p>
<p>on another note:
this certainly is not a place to offer social advice and it is not intended to do anything other than plant a suggestion…</p>
<p>When families say the cost of college is negligible and it does not matter to them, they do have an opportunity to make a HUGE difference - send their loved on off to a wonderful, scholarship supported education AND perhaps another 5 young people to a state school or 20 to community colleges that otherwise would not have the opportunity…</p>
<p>by getting JR involved in the philanthropic process they will be changing the world in which we live in - especially for the college bound leader of tomorrow in their own family…</p>
<p>I’m not trying to attack your plans, but I really don’t understand why you would go into Mudd/Caltech planning to get insufficient education/skills in a way that can be rectified by a master’s. I don’t have much personal knowledge of Caltech but I can say with certainty that new Mudd graduates, in some fields at least, have virtually unlimited career opportunities in ways that are shocking. I’m talking near-offers with salary numbers from alumni just floating around the CS department. Taking advantage of this is the only way paying $100k+ can be a good investment (agreed with YaleGradandDad that not everything needs to be, but this is a lot of money) and it seems like paying an ADDITIONAL $100k+ to get a different but probably not better set of job opportunities two years later would not be worth it. The only people doing that from Mudd are pretty much those who switched majors late, few of them planned on it going in.</p>
<p>I can see, maybe, going to grad school at somewhere like MIT after UT Austin. Seems unlikely the salary bump would be worth missing two years of pay/experience based on the statistics.</p>
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<p>Myself and many of my classmates have informal agreements with our parents to reimburse them for part or all of the cost of our education not covered by financial aid after graduating. Reasons include:
parents using retirement money, taking out loans for tuition
there is a college fund now, but not for the younger sibling
etc. </p>
<p>It’s not all $50k+/year resort party fun time for responsible kids at top schools.</p>
<p>Im not trying to attack your plans, but I really don’t understand why you would go into Mudd/Caltech planning to get insufficient education/skills in a way that can be rectified by a master’s.</p>
<p>That’s silly. There are a lot of careers that require a master’s degree, and at a certain point a master’s degree may be required to move up into administration or management. For example, I am looking at a lot of statistical analyst jobs, and virtually all of them require an MS in statistics.</p>
<p>To the OP - personally I’d take the UT-Austin route, unless your parents can easily pay the additional $30-40K per year.</p>