So far, I have been accepted to the University of Illinois at Chicago’s MHA program and have been offered interviews for the MHA programs at the University of Minnesota and Ohio State University. I’m out-of-state for all of these programs, and I believe the tuition cost is roughly the same, give or take $1-2k between them.
When I got accepted to UIC, I was still planning on interviewing at the other two schools because Minnesota is better ranked, and to see if OSU or Minnesota would offer me more scholarship money than UIC. However, I have just been accepted into the University of Michigan SPH’s Health Behavior & Health Education program, and am debating whether to continue with the interviews or cancel them in favor of the HBHE program at UM right now. As a Michigan resident, tuition would be considerably cheaper (about $8-12k/year), but an MPH in HBHE isn’t my degree of choice, so I’m wondering what would be more beneficial for me going into health administration as a career.
I applied to UM’s Health Management and Policy program with HBHE as my second choice, since UM lets you apply to two programs, but have yet to hear back. Of course, I’m still waiting to hear back from all the programs I have applied to, but would like to decide whether or not to rule out Minnesota and OSU before I make travel arrangements to interview there.
Any advice or experiences to share if you have attended any of these universities/programs (UIC, Michigan, Minnesota, OSU)?
FYI, some universities offer MBAs with Health Management concentrations. I mention this only because they seem to qualify fully for all MHA career positions, plus many MBA jobs.
If you want to go into health administration, getting an MHA is much better than getting an MPH in HBHE. HBHE is my field, and sometimes I browse through hospital websites looking at administration jobs and they almost always want someone with a degree in administration. They will sometimes take a kid with a BBA in business administration over someone with an MPH in health behavior.
You don’t learn administrative skills with education in HBHE. You learn about social determinants of health, how health influences behavior and vice versa, and the elements of educating people about their health. Some people with HBHE type degrees eventually move into administration after working at businesses for some time, but if you want to go immediately into the business of running a hospital or clinic then I think an MHA would be the better bet.
Besides - why should you cancel your interviews? Presumably you have until April to decide, so I think you should take the time you need. Go on the interviews at Minnesota and Ohio State (people are doing interviews for master’s programs now? That’s crazy) and see how it pans out. Once you get all of your acceptances in, lay out the financial realities. It’s the only way to make a real decision - you don’t know whether you’ll be offered some aid at OSU or Minnesota that makes it just as affordable as Michigan, or whether you learn some information at the interviews that makes your decision easier either way.
Also - I suspected you were wrong about the tuition costs because Minnesota is widely known as being relatively cheap for OOS students, and so I checked. I was right. Minnesota’s semester tuition rates for 6-14 credits is $11,480, making the cost for a full year of tuition just shy of $23K. Ohio State’s annual tuition for nonresidents is $30K. UIC’s base rate is cheap, but they add a $5K per semester differential to the healthcare administration degree, so their tuition is just about $34K a year. So actually, OSU is about $7K more per year than Minnesota, and UIC is $11K more per year than Minnesota.
Columbus has the lowest cost of living; Minneapolis is next and Chicago the highest. Most cost of living calculators seem to suggest that the COL difference between Minneapolis-St. Paul and Chicago is quite small. So overall, Minnesota and Ohio State’s total yearly costs might even out, given how much less it costs to live in Columbus. (The difference seems to be primarily rent).