Title says it all. Should I go for a full ride at a lower ranked school, or pay full tuition/go in debt for a top ranked program?
It depends on the programs - how low ranked is the lower-ranked one, and how top is the top one?
Prestige isn’t necessarily very important - there are more openings in many CS jobs than there are people competing for the positions. The advantage that top schools have are the connections and recruiting/career resources, but going to a lower-ranked school won’t prevent you from getting a great job, either - and those advantages aren’t necessarily worth the extra money.
I’d almost always advise the full ride.
I agree but if you want to reassure yourself, find out what the employment statistics are for the two programs. You might find that they are similar in which case, the decision is easy. after your first job, no one will really care where you got your MS.
It really won’t amount to much, if anything more than a masters degree at a “lower” ranked program. In fact, when I was interviewing for my current job, they never even asked about my education. I have one, but it never really came up. I would go for the scholarship and save yourself $300 a month in student loans.
I remember seeing a list of schools that serve as typical pipelines to Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. with names like Berkeley, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon popping up at the top. If your “prestigious” school is one of them and your “lower ranked” school isn’t on the list and you feel you’d have a hard time finding yourself being employed at any of decently well-establish companies, then you might seriously consider going for the “prestigious” school. After all, it’s NOT four years of undergrad accumulation of debt. On the other hand, if you’re talking about the difference between, say Berkeley and Georgia Tech, forget it.
Apple’s top feeder school is San Jose State. I’d be wary of taking on a lot of debt. What schools are we talking about?
What is your goal in obtaining an MS in CS? Are you planning on going straight out of undergrad or have you been working?
I would take a big grain of salt with any school that is located within 50 miles of the main campus of these companies. They definitely prefer local universities. The other question is what exactly are they getting jobs in…I mean is SJSU the primary feeder for janitors at Apple? These lists really don’t define what type of jobs they are getting. BTW you see this at all these companies. UW grads vastly outnumber (by 10 times the next university) any other university grads at Amazon, and I’m pretty sure not all 2248 UW grads are holding great jobs there. You might want to “normalize” these numbers by taking out the local colleges and seeing who is left. You’ll get a very different list and one that really might show you where you would want to go to school. If not, then your might want to attend the University of Phoenix, it comes in the top 10 for Amazon.
@CU123, that’s sort of my point. I’m certainly not saying everyone should go to SJSU. You don’t KNOW what any of them from any school are doing. There’s no guarantee that a big name will land a big job. What is certain is that big name will land big debt for the OP.
My son faced this exact same question when his advisors suggested he apply to Stanford for his MS. After figuring that it would cost him at least an extra year, losing income AND paying $50k per year for the privilege, it became clear that the smart thing was to stay at his undergraduate institution and finish the 4+1. There was simply no way Stanford would bet him that much MORE once opportunity cost of the money was figured in.
He goes to Cal Poly, so it isn’t exactly Podunk U, and the OP never revealed their UG school. Still, I’m disinclined to suggest big debt for any school. After extensive searching for information, no one has any objective information to show he made the wrong decision.
Like others have said it depends on the particular schools, but I’d lean towards the full ride in most cases.
I’ll put it in perspective. If you get a $100k a year job at Amazon, you just earned the privilege of living paycheck-to-paycheck in California while most your income goes to living in a broom closet. You deflate the cost of living and taxes, it turns out to be around $45k. Any other location other than the east/west coast, you would start with around $50-$55k. Perhaps more, depending on the employer. For most areas, that salary could buy you a house. That’s enough to live on while you gain experience. With no student debt, that value goes even higher.