Cornell vs UVA (debt vs no debt)

College Search & Selection
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TLDR I want to go to Cornell to study CS+ORIE Engineering over UVA for CS+McIntire Commerce to land a job in tech/software entrepreneurship (Silicon Valley, Silicon Alley) or maybe quantitative finance (Wall Street). Is it worth being $75k in debt for Cornell vs $0 debt for UVA?

I really, really hope to hear from alumni/students who took on debt to attend somewhere prestigious as opposed to their state school and had things work out for them or not close to as well as they expected…here I go

Hi CC, I’m choosing between UVA and Cornell. I’ve looked through lots of previous posts, but wasn’t able to find much I think matches my situation.

Ok let me start with the money. UVA is in-state tuition for me, and it will cost my family about $27k which they are happy to provide for me, but it’s also close to their max limit. Cornell gave me an expected family contribution of $37k on top of $7500 loan per year so I’m planning to be $60-75k in debt over 4 years (I’m not letting my parents touch their personal savings/retirement, no matter what). However, this debt is not something I’m too scared to take on for the factors I will soon discuss.

Campus vibes - This isn’t too big a deal for me. I’ll find a way to fit in and find happiness no matter where I go, because that’s how I’m built. I visited Cornell last week, and apparently it was the first week when the weather turned warm, so I found lots of students in good moods as opposed to what I usually hear about Cornell. I also found the students at Cornell more approachable that at UVA. This is partly due to my own bias because I spent the day at Cornell hanging out with other preadmitted students whereas at UVA I was with my parents. Cornell, in comparison to UVA, was by far a nicer college campus. I enjoyed the bigger environment, buildings, and freedom a lot more. (I also liked VTech a lot more than UVA, for comparison.) The dining halls at Cornell were spectacular whereas UVA was just ok. There are lots of other minor factors I don’t want to explain but Cornell campus trumps the UVA campus, in my opinion. However like I said, this doesn’t mean I’ll be unhappy at UVA. I’ve lived in Virginia all my life and I already have lots of friends attending/have attended UVA. My mom certainly prefers UVA just so she can come visit me whenever she wants (maybe even every other weekend lol), but I feel like I would prefer distance from my parents for my college years.

Academics: This is the most important factor to me at the moment. These schools both have a variety of strong programs, but I’m going to be playing each school to its strengths. As of now, I’m in the college of Arts and Sciences for both schools. One of my main interests at the moment is computer science, particularly used towards software development. Some of my other interests are chemical engineering (particularly materials science engineering) and econ/math/stats. I’ll get into specific job opportunities and career paths later in this post.

If I choose to attend UVA, I’m going to obtain a B.A. in computer science and a B.S. in commerce. The McIntire program seems like it would be a great fit for me. Some specific concentrations/tracks I would follow are Finance, IT, Entrepreneurship, and Quant Finance (probably all of them). UVA doesn’t have strong engineering at all, which is why doing CS in the CAS or Engineering won’t make a difference to me. While I visited UVA for Days on the Lawn, I sat in on two 3000 level classes for engineering/chem. Both of them felt like relatively lackluster environments, especially because I have an extremely strong background in STEM, chemistry, and physics. However, McIntire looks fun, has lots of resources, and is something I’m going to be ready for (with all the prerequisites) because I’m in CAS.

If I choose to attend Cornell, I’m in the College of Arts and Sciences so my current plan is to double major in CS and Economics/Statistics. There is a very strong chance I will transfer to Engineering and double major in CS and ORIE. In a perfect world, I hope to accomplish the latter (I will be taking CS/Chem/Math/Physics classes to satisfy all transfer prerequisites.)

Cornell has just about everything I want academically. For example, The Gates Institute for CS and the Materials Engineering research labs at Cornell are so much stronger than what UVA has to offer. I’m willing to bet UVA and Cornell are on a similar level for liberal arts/humanities type classes. I’ve heard rumors that Cornell is #1 in the Ivies for entrepreneurship, particularly software type projects, which I’m willing to believe. I’m sure they’re in the top 5 overall for entrepreneurship, as it relates to engineering/software, as this is my strongest interest both academically and professionally.

Extracurriculars - This is an important factor for me as well, as most of my time spent in college will be outside the classroom. My biggest extracurricular commitment is going to be entrepreneurship. UVA has a great startup culture because of the presence of McIntire and Darden. One of my friends at UVA who founded a startup there let me hang out with his startup project team for a while…there is no doubt in my mind I’ll be able to create or join a solid startup I’ll enjoy working on for four years at UVA.

However, Cornell has extremely strong entrepreneurship, arguably on a level that is better than UVA (I’m really not sure). Cornell has startup project teams, extensive connections to Silicon Valley, an entrepreneurship minor, some of the best venture capital incubators, and they’re opening up a new location called Cornell NYC Tech which is basically just for startups/entrepreneurships and its in the heart of Silicon Alley.

There are some other clubs I’m interested in…these would be investment club, debate, volunteering, tutoring, etc…but I think UVA and Cornell are comparable in these areas.

Job Opportunities/Career: Sorry I’m running a little low on steam here, and probably not elaborating too much.

I’m very interested in tech entrepreneurship jobs at startups as well as big, established companies (Google, Microsoft, etc). I’ve interned at an IT startup located in DC for over six months. I’ve also participated in remote internships at Silicon Valley startups as a high school student. I’m almost 100% sure Cornell has significantly better job placement into these tech companies when compared to UVA.

Then there’s Wall Street for finance jobs. My particular interest right now is quantitative finance, but this might change. To my understanding, Cornell is more reputable than UVA on Wall Street, but not by much. There are different sets of companies that aggressively hire from both. I’m not going to make some claim such as “I want to work for an investment bank and then move on to private equity and hedge funds” because I haven’t experienced the finance lifestyle. However, I would say it’s a viable option for me regardless of which school I choose to attend.

Finally if I’m going to Cornell, forget grad school, I’m going straight to work. And if I can’t find work, I’ll chill in DC until I do.

Special factor: I’m a Dean Scholar at Cornell, but this doesn’t seem like too big a deal. This just means early on I have access to the absolute best counseling/scheduling coordinators because I get to work with the Dean’s team on coordinating my schedule and research projects I’m interest in. Furthermore, I’ll always have good contacts with the best professors which will probably be useful for networking/research.

I’ve provided the whole picture here, regardless of whether it seems immature or overly audacious on my part. Any input from you guys would be greatly appreciated.

I also have one question…does Cornell hedge their aid so that it’s favored towards first-year students?? I’m pretty sure they’re not allowed to do that…but just wondering.

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Cornell is a powerhouse for computer science. You’ve clearly done your research. The Gates Institute is incredible and I have some first hand knowledge of what’s happening at Cornell Tech. While it is primarily for grad students, it is a total game changer for Cornell entrepreneurs because of its location (access to capital in NYC) and will be a resource for Cornell alums/techies for years to come.

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Is it worth being $75k in debt for Cornell vs $0 debt for UVA?
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Uh, no.

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UVA is a fantastic school, but OP has very specific academic and career interests, and he has an opportunity to go to one of maybe 3-4 schools at the top of the tree which is exactly suited to his interests (CS/Tech/Entrepreneurship). I’d invest $75K for that opportunity.

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Thanks for your opinion alum88. And if you don’t mind me asking, are you a CS/Tech/Entrepreneurship type of person as well?

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$75,000 could end up being a crushing amount of debt. The parents will have to cosign, I believe , for that amount of debt. I would personally not do it, particularly when Virginia has such good instate options. But if the OP and his parents are willing to take on that kind of debt, that is up to them. Hopefully, what the parents were willing to do was discussed before the applications went out.

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You can’t take on that kind of debt without a co-signer. OR your parents would have to borrow it in PLUS loans or by some other means.

In other words, you can’t do this without their cooperation. And, I’m guessing that they haven’t offered that cooperation or you wouldn’t be here right now looking for some ammunition to support your desire to study at Cornell.

Go to UVA. You can get where you want to be by starting out there. And, since you won’t graduate with debt, if indeed you don’t get a job right out of college, you will be free to “chill in DC” until you do. If you would find yourself without a job after Cornell, with that level of debt there would be no chilling at all. You’d have to take whatever job you could come up with the second you found it.

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  1. did you thoroughly research if you could even transfer to the engineering school at Cornell? sometimes internal transfers are exceedingly difficult. 2) In any event, I would not take on that much debt especially with an excellent and affordable option.
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What if it was $60k? What’s a decent limit which wouldn’t end up being a crushing amount of debt?

I’ve heard lots of people (not just CC but also Reddit for example) say its totally acceptable to take on $60k debt for Harvard, Princeton, Yale…because it’s an easy route into an extremely lucrative finance career…whats wrong with Cornell when I’m very interested at tech

My parents are fine with co-signing a loan…they know I’m really ambitious and I always back myself up.

I’m fairly confident I won’t have a problem paying money back…ever. My issue is primarily if its worth taking on a debt at all.

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@KtopSpin I sent you a detailed PM. Let me know if it came through.

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What are the parents saying? If they won’t cosign then this isn’t going to happen anyway (it’s too much debt anyway)

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My parents are fine with whatever decision I choose to make, yes they would be cosigning the loan.

@Happy1, yes its 100% possible to transfer. I spoke to several students at Cornell who have done so/are in the midst of doing so

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Your monthly payment on a $75,000 loan will be around $800. Think long term picture here: do you want to be writing a check for $800 every month for 10 years? An extra $800 a month will get you a nice house, a head start on retirement, savings for your kids’ college tuition, etc. It’s not like you won’t get a high paying/desirable/prestigious job out of UVA.

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And you said Cornell gave you a $37,000 EFC. That probably means your parents are comfortable but may not be super wealthy. Therefore, it sounds appropriate that you are the one to take on the extra debt if you decide on Cornell.

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High debt will force you to seek the highest pay job to pay it off. May not be a problem on Wall Street, but may limit your options at very early stage startups where you may be working for lower pay (stock options being the big attractor in terms of compensation).

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@ucbalumnus That’s a good point. Except at Cornell, I could be working at several high-profile startups during college and over the summers.

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You make it sound like your state school option is Nevada Reno. UVA is one of the top public Us in the country and has one of the top business schools.

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@“Erin’s Dad” My bad, prestigious was terrible word choice on my part, UVA is a public Ivy, its a great school, I love it…but it doesn’t have the level of tech entrepreneurship I’m looking for…

To everyone else, my parents said they could cover some more costs and that I’d only have to take $10,000 in loans per year…is it a good investment yet?

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You seem like you really want to go to Cornell and you want people to validate your decision.

The thing is, the decision to take on debt - any amount of debt - over no debt is really a very personal decision. Only you can decide if it’s “worth it”. $40,000 of debt for Cornell is a very good deal, and you could pretty easily repay that no matter what you choose to do post-college - as I think it’s reasonable to expect to make at least $40K in your first job out of college. It also means that the majority of your loans will be federal loans, which is important because federal loans have some perks (income-based repayment, deferment for financial hardship) that many private loans do not.

Lots of people will say all kinds of things. It’s all a matter of personal opinion. Personally, I don’t think it’s worth it to borrow $60,000 to go to HYP if you have a perfectly awesome alternative that won’t cost that much. UVa is an excellent university, widely known as a “public Ivy,” prestigious etc. Why saddle oneself with $60K of debt when you can go to an excellent university without doing so? HYP does have advantage in Wall Street et al., but UVa does, too.

That’s because you are 17 or 18, and you haven’t faced the reality of living independently yet. And I say that not to be mean - but because I remember being there. Everyone has high hopes for themselves when they are a teenager; nobody ever thinks that their start-up will go south, or that their market might crash, or that they might get laid off or whatever. But these things do happen and you want to be able to have a manageable amount of debt that you could comfortably repay if you have to tread water for a little while. $40K is in that range; I think $60K is out of it, and $75K certainly is.

You also seem fairly certain about what you want to do, which is great, but people change their minds all the time - even after years of certainty. I’ve worked with undergraduates at Columbia (so young people poised to do all kinds of wonderful things). I’ve seen pre-med students decide to do Teach for America for a few years first, pre-med students not get into medical school, engineering students decide to take lower-paying but more interesting jobs, economics students be unable to find the high-paying finance job of their dreams, and a pre-med formerly future anesthesiologist who instead decided he wanted to open a nonprofit to help urban adolescents. While you may never change your mind - you want to give yourself cushion to explore, to try things out, to let your career develop naturally with as few constraints as possible.

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As a student you are limited to $5500 as a freshman topping out at $7500 as a Junior and Senior. Your parents will have to cosign for anything higher than that.