I am deciding between attending either Georgia Tech or the Penn State Schreyer Honors College to major in mechanical engineering. I have visited both colleges and fell in love with Tech, but Tech is $10,000 more per year (instate for PSU). I believe that I can be successful at both schools but is GT really worth the additional $40,000? I plan to co-op which would reduce the cost and possibly land me a decent job after college if I attend GT.
GT provides its engineering students not only with a great education, but with amazing opportunities to get hooked up with jobs in the field right out of college. Not sure about penn though. It’s a hard choice, but I’d keep this in mind about GT.
Where do you plan on living after college? The PSU alumni network is legendary if you stay in PA.
PS to @gdlt234 it’s PENN STATE. Penn is a totally different school
@surfcity I realize. I just didn’t want to write out the whole thing 
But for the purpose of answering the Q I’m sure the op will know what I meant.
Know nothing about Penn but my son ruled out GT because he didn’t want to be part of the cookie cutter machine. Not worth the extra cost. For engineering job wise most graduates stay in that region, so know what area of the country you want to work in.
Be sure when you’re comparing PSU versus GT that you factor in the Schreyer benefits: smaller classes, priority scheduling, honors housing, study-abroad money, scholarships.
With GT being a co-op, there is a very significant chance that you graduate with a job offer in hand either from one of the places you did a co op or from a competitor bc you will have a very well developed resume for a 22-23 yr old, BUT those offers would very likely be in Atlanta. Since you’re from Pa. – where do you see yourself after graduation? Would you be ok starting off in Atlanta if that’s where you got your first offers? PSU Honors is solid, but keep in mind internships would be limited to whatever you could find for yourself over the summer – the location makes year around internships difficult if not impossible.
Would you take loans for GT or would your family pay? Even if you have loans, 40k (or less w co op income) on an engineering salary wouldn’t be that much of a struggle.
If it were me, unless finances are a tremendous concern – I’d lean towards GT. It’s a bigger name in engineering, graduating from someplace with a number of internships/co ops and maybe even an offer in hand will be a huge sense of security to you as a senior, and IMHO there is a lot more industry growth down south than in the northeast so having a network of alums down in Ga. is going to be a strong positive for your career.
I don’t really mind living in Atlanta. I would have to take out loans. The only real drawback from GT is that I will have a little over 70k in debt coming out (w/ out co op salaries factored in). I would only have 30k debt if I attend PSU but I think that’s more than manageable.
Thank you for everyone’s responses so far. They have been really helpful.
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70K in debt is too high, even for a GTech graduate. It’d take you until your mid 40s to pay it back (at best… early 50s if anything happens, if you want to change cars more than every 10 years, etc.)
Bump.
Bump - please, any advice/experience is greatly appreciated
I don’t know much about Georgia Tech but I plan to attend Penn State Schreyer Honors College for civil engineering. The university says that one in every 50 engineers is a penn state grad. The networking opportunity that penn state provides is hard to beat. As for co-ops, they are available at penn state too if that’s what you’re looking for. My high school has a panel each year where graduated students come back and talk with us about any college questions we may have. Last year, a girl attending penn state visited and told us about her co-op with Gore-tex, which she really enjoyed. She had even secured a job with them by the end of her rotation. This means nothing if you don’t like the college tho. Only you can make the decision if the extra money is worth the college you really love!
At the end of the day, I like both schools. Despite the fact that I would prefer to go the GT, 40k is too much additional debt to take on if Tech cannot provide me any better opportunities than PSU. Would going to Tech give me significantly better opportunities?
Not to the tune of so much debt.
If I could cut down my debt before I graduate to around 30k through work study, a summer job, co ops, and living off campus, could GT be affordable?
Is it $30,000 MORE than another given amount, or $30,000 total? And is it $30,000 in debt or paid by your parents?
It would be 70k before deductions (work, co op, living off campus, etc.). After, I could reasonably bring my debt to 30k total (if I went to GT). If I went to Penn State, my debt would be 30k before deductions.
It would be debt.
Bump