Cornell vs UVA (Debt vs No Debt)

Colleges and Universities A-Z Cornell University
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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 $60k 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.

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 factors: 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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As a hard core future(hopefully haha) cornelian i would say UVA. No debt is big especially if you want to go to grad school. If you go to cornell it will 60k +grad school and you’d be in big trouble once you graduate. You can still succeed at UVA just as much as you would at cornell

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@Gatortristan He said he doesn’t want to go to grad school…

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@ZucchiniSoup He said if he goes to Cornell then he won’t go to grad school not if he went to UVA.

[QUOTE]
if I’m going to Cornell, forget grad school, I’m going straight to work

[QUOTE]

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A couple other factors that you might want to consider are if weather and a strong sports environment matters to you. My two cents is to go with Cornell. The way I look at it is that the debt acquired by going to grad school if you went to UVA might equal the debt for going to Cornell. At the very least it will make the 60-75K debt of undergrad slightly less significant because you would be acquiring debt anyway. From what you’ve said I would say that Cornell will give you a better chance to succeed in the workplace immediately after you graduate undergrad.

You really can’t go wrong with either school. Good luck!

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IF you are able to work in finance or well paid technology job, you could easily pay off 60K in two years. I spoke at one of Cornell’s start-up tech seminars. If you want to work at a real start-up company, you really can’t afford to have student loans because you wouldn’t be paid much in the beginning.

I really can’t blame you for wanting to go outside of your home state for college, especially UVA because most students are in state. At Cornell you would get to interact with student from other regions/countries. I think it would be worth it for you to spend additional 60K to get that experience. One other thing to consider is you could get a very lucrative junior year internship to help with expenses. Some of those internships pay 20+k over the summer.

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My son is at Cornell and my best friend’s daughter is at UVA so some familiarity. We live in TX and my son had to choose between UT and Cornell so we had that similarity. First it sounds like you really want to Cornell but are afraid of the debt which I understand. I can only advise that while $60k looks huge now you need to put into the context of what you hope is a 30 year career, if you are successful that will be relatively insignificant. Other than the fact that CS at Cornell is 3rd in the Nation (LinkedIn) and they are opening the tech campus in NYC which you mentioned and have the Incubator in Ithaca you need to keep in mind the demographics and the overall experience. My son realized that if he went to UT most of the students (90%?) would be from Texas because its a State School like UVA. At Cornell there are students from every state in the US and many foreign countries, your classmates are as an important part of the experience as any classes you will take. Still its your money and debt we are talking about so I respect that, just asking you to consider the decision in context of what you hope is a long successful career.

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@oldfort Your optimism is what I hoped to find, yet its so rare on these forums.

I keep seeing people comment that a $60K debt could take 5-10 years to pay off, but with the average CS major coming out of Cornell making $95K, I don’t take those opinions too seriously. Your estimate is a lot more on point with what I hope to accomplish regarding debt.

And your point about internships is extremely valid as well, and I had no knowledge of the subject until I spoke to some friends yesterday. A freshman can expect to make somewhere around 10K over the summer, but big software companies have some very lucrative opportunities (20K+) for juniors.

I might have to give up the startup dream right out of college, but are there any startup resources (clubs, seminars, etc) you could point out to me which I should take advantage of at Cornell, considering you have a lot of personal experience on campus (which is really awesome to hear)?

@lonestarvike I think you can detect my enthusiasm for Cornell from the post, but I sort of left out a section I had on networking because my post was getting superfluous. I understand Cornell has much more diverse population, which is useful for contacts and my future in general. Is your son pursuing a tech/engineering type major and career path as well?

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My son is a Development Sociology major in CALs, but is basically on a pre-med track. He may however work for a bio-tech startup here in Houston.

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University of Texas is much larger than either Cornell or UVa. Cornell and UVa have a fairly similar number of undergrads(13,935 to 14, 896). UVa is public but has somewhat of a private school vibe.
Texas has 38, 463 undergrads. Texas is over 90 percent instate kids, UVa is about 70 percent instate and has students from many other states and countries. Even Cornell shows as 35 percent NY residents and attracts many kids from neighboring states. The OP would have plenty of opportunity to meet kids from all over at mist schools.The OP clearly prefers Cornell so I hope that works out. I do think $60,000 sounds like too much debt, even for a tech person, and I hope that number can be brought down .

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My son entered Cornell as a chemistry major (pre-med) in CAS. He realized after his first semester that becoming a medical doctor was not for him so he contacted COE in regards to transferring to ChemE. In order to affiliate into ChemE, successful completion of three or four classes including honors Physical Chemistry was required. He was able to graduate in four years (2013) even having taken three graduate level classes in ChemE with a solid GPA with minimal AP credits. There were many sleepless nights preparing for Cornell’s very demanding COE requirements.
Son’s upper level classes were augmented with internships at two different internships.

He’s become an outstanding engineer performing complex technical assignments previously assigned to senior level engineers and consultants.

In hindsight, even with these great results, I would be very apprehensive to encourage my son to graduate with $60K - $75K of student loans. My goal was to have my son graduate with no more than $20K in school debt. He had three available options that met our goal including our state flagship and Vanderbilt. We were blessed with the Cornell offer which included significant credit to eliminate all student loans, the student contribution portion, and work study due to an outside reoccurring scholarship. This enabled him to graduate debt free (parents included)). I realize that most outside scholarships are non-reoccurring but if you are awarded such then take full advantage of it.

He will be getting married in two months. I shudder to think about his impending marriage if he and his future wife had accumulated $120K+ in debt even with an excellent salary.

If after all of your research leads you to attend Cornell based on your desired goals I would recommend taking a personal finance class to manage your finances. Son took this class and has reaped wonderful benefits.

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I would not recommend taking on $60,000 or more undergrad debt for Cornell when your other option is UVa. It may be easy to throw around figures and look up internet salary tables when you are eighteen. Not so easy when the loans will hang around your neck, in an economic climate that may be quite competitive for hiring. Those starting salaries seem inflated to me, but it is your bet to hedge.

Also remember that part of Cornell is a state school as well (not that this should make a difference either way, as they are both fine institutions); and that viewed from an academic perspective, these two would be considered peer institutions. Cornell has more STEM research, but it is also larger. Cornell’s students aren’t appreciably better than UVa, if at all, and the UVa alumni network is quite strong. If you could get the costs down at Cornell, and that is truly your best path, then I’d consider it.

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I wouldn’t recommend anyone taking on $60,000 + in debt for any school. I would have the same concerns if a teenager was talking about having to take on that kind of debt because UVa was their first choice. My UVa son makes very good money in tech but has been talking about buying a house Prices in DC are crazy, even worse in Silicon Valley, where he visits regularly because that’s where headquarters are. But I’m glad he’s not paying off large debt. I really hope the OP can bring down that debt number for Cornell.

This thread does bring back memories. We have friends in New York. Their son’s first choice for college was UVa but he wasn’t accepted there. He ended up having to settle for Cornell. :slight_smile: He did end up going to UVa for graduate school! Some kids just really seem to want to get out of town!

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Hey everybody I keep hearing bring down the debt as much as possible, what are some reasonable ways to try and accomplish this?

UVA and Cornell might be peer institutions (LOL), but Cornell is going to make 0 effort to match their price. I’m talking to my counselor about negotiating as much as possible, but the chances of any significant difference seems really bleak. I also doubt any sort of appeal will be processed in time (Maybe it’s still worth doing though?).

I’m gonna be doing everything I can to earn 10-15 K over the summer through internships, so my actual debt when I graduate will be minimized.

@Proud3894 Thank you for the valuable recommendation of taking a finance course. Even if its nothing official, I’ll definitely be reading on the subject over the summer.

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I ran (sponsored) the summer internship program at my previous tech company. It was my side project. The pay was pro-rated amount of $85K. The first year graduates made $85K plus $15-$20K in bonus. This firm’s pay was low relative to other tech companies.

In banking, first year analyst is $85K plus $25-$35 bonus, and 2nd year associate is $130-$150K base with $85-$150 bonus.

Rental in NYC is around $1500-$2000/mon. I know a lot of graduates of Cornell are paying down their student loans with ease.

$60K maybe a lot of money, but it is cost of a nice car. I think education is a better investment. UVA is a good school, but…

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"Also remember that part of Cornell is a state school as well "
Actually no, though sort of, it’s complicated. But not like UVa is a state school.
(or I should say I wouldn’t think so. I actually don;t know how UVa is structured)
It has “statutory colleges” that get state funding
. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutory_college
But OP does not plan to attend any of the statutory colleges in any event

".and that viewed from an academic perspective, these two would be considered peer institutions. "

In many areas, no doubt. I haven’t seen many CS type lists where these two are listed as academic peers in that particular field though. If I asked somene in the field of Computer Science, or Operations Research, to name Cornell’s five closest peer schools in those particular areas I don’t think UVa’s name would come up . At least I don’t recall ever seeing it on such a list. It is a great school though, one of the nations; elite public universities.In general. Maybe not in particular though.

“Cornell’s students aren’t appreciably better than UVa, if at all”
Don’t know about Arts & Sciences, didn’t look, but they certainly seem to be better on the tech side, where OR and CS - areas that OP indicated interest- reside:
http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/6527/screen/19school_name=University+of+Virginia
http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/6574/screen/19school_name=Cornell+University

“We have friends in New York. Their son’s first choice for college was UVa but he wasn’t accepted there. He ended up having to settle for Cornell.”

This is actually not that uncommon. One of my daughter’s HS teachers had the same experience. However,her alternative at Cornell was not the Art & Sciences college, it was one of the statutory colleges. When tales like this are pursued one finds this is often the case. UVA, and I think UNC are selective schools generally, but they are or at least were, particularly selective for out-of-state applicants.
My daughter;s HS teacher was probably not pursuing studies in CS or Operations research,

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I wouldn’t take on 100k+ debt, but in my personal opinion 60K for tech or finance is doable.

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The most reasonable way to bring down debt is to not take on a lot of debt to begin with. It’s not crazy that you want to get out of Virginia and don’t want to go to UVa or Virginia Tech but I doubt Cornell will match Virginia instate prices if your EFC indicates you can pay more. I would imagine they wouldn’t match any instate prices from anywhere. Neither of my sons would apply instate to William & Mary-great school but just not for them. So, I can understand that UVa is just not for you but I’m thinking that Cornell probably doesn’t care to come down to instate price for you but I may be wrong on that. You may want to try a quick appeal so you don’t end up regretting later that you did not try everything to get the cost down (but your guidance counselor may know best if that is worth doing). Possible ways to help with Cornell-working every summer, working during school, be a TA if Cornell allows undergrads to do so, look for more outside scholarships, etc. Good luck!

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The statutory colleges, of which I believe three out of seven function as undergraduate at Cornell now, are funded by New York state. They are not technically SUNY schools, and I didn’t name them as such, but they are categorized as state institutions. And they do bring a higher percentage of New York state students to Cornell than if it were entirely private – though of course not nearly the percentage that UVa does, which is to be expected.

While the statutory colleges are clearly not the OP’s major interests, I think it’s a little disingenuous to assert that Cornell is clearly superior, or totally different structurally than UVa. And yes, OP, having worked in academia, these two institutions would be considered peers, save for specific disciplines in which one or the other excels. Cornell has engineering and programming prowess, and if you feel those loans won’t be a burden, then great – I sincerely hope you choose the school that is best for your life. I don’t think laughing at UVa in comparison is appropriate.

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Actually I am not really comfortable with the amount of money either.
It’s possible to go there, screw up, and then be in a less attractive position to get the most lucrative outcomes.

It’s a matter of risk vs. return and everyone is different. I am more risk-averse than oldfort. Maybe because my D1 just turned down a top grad program in part because she couldn’t afford it.