I really want to go Stevens, but I have better financial aid from Arizona.

@Publisher That is due to the fact that a very high percentage of students at Stevens study engineering and business – two areas that have strong employment opportunities after graduation.

Arizona all the way.

The hype of going to your “dream college” never outweighs the debt you will get after graduation.

@lucidz Worry about money later? What kind of idealistic and naive world do you live in??

  1. A brand new Stephens engineer with 82k of debt will not be paid one cent more in salary than the brand new Arizona engineer with 22k in debt who works right next to him/her. The Arizona grad will be able to live in a nicer apartment, drive a newer car, go on better vacations, buy a house sooner, etc., etc.

2). You can’t borrow those private loans on your own. Who is going to cosign them for you? Will that person be able to qualify for more loans every single year?

Buy yourself a Stephens sweatshirt to wear on cold days in Arizona. If anyone asks about it, tell them that you really liked Stephens, but Arizona gave you a much better financial deal.

The 30 Colleges Where Students Go To Earn The Most Money published March 15, 2017. Based on the 10 year earnings level after graduation.

  1. Harvard

  2. MIT

  3. Stanford

  4. Georgetown

  5. Stevens Institute of Technology

  6. US Merchant Marine Academy

  7. WPI

  8. U Penn

  9. RPI

  10. California Maritime

  11. Maine Maritime

  12. Princeton

  13. Caltech

  14. Kettering

  15. Bentley

  16. Lehigh

  17. Duke

  18. CMU

  19. Colorado School of Mines (NOT Mimes)

  20. Columbia

  21. Georgia Tech

  22. SUNY Maritime College

  23. Yale

  24. Villanova

  25. Wash & Lee

  26. Cornell

  27. Notre Dame

  28. Illinois Institute of Technology

  29. Bucknell

  30. Massachusetts Maritime

@gearmon & @happy1

@Publisher Encouraging that level of debt is madness. If OP has to go a fifth year then, IF he/she can have parents borrow more, OP is looking at 120k in debt minimum. OP can go to Stevens for grad school if that’s the dream.

@gearmom: I am not encouraging anything other than to evaluate the options in light of employment information & earnings as well as cost of attendance.

You clearly are not hearing what you want to hear on this thread. No mature adult poster who has ever been in debt for anything is going to encourage a 17/18 year old to plan on taking on 82,000+ in debt. Those high graduate incomes from those institutions aren’t guaranteed, you have to finish a degree first. It’s not easy to do that and a lot can go wrong. If something goes wrong, the debt doesn’t go away (unforgivable debt).

You don’t seem to be open to hearing that advice. It’s your life, and the life of whoever cosigns those loans with you. It’s your ball and chain if you do it. Good luck to you.

@Publisher My comment stands…the list is made up of a combination of top tier colleges and colleges which have a large portion of students studying engineering/business. Students from both types of institutions typically do well in terms of finding well paying jobs after graduation. It doesn’t mean that an engineer from Stevens will do better than a person with the exact same major coming from UArizona.

You are not being fair to the OP. He posted seeking advice & seems well aware that the barrier to attending his first choice school is the cost of attendance.

@happy1: I think that it means that the odds are that one with a degree from Stevens Institute will do better than one from the University of Arizona.

@Publisher Please, kids don’t really understand what that level of debt means.

@Publisher I guess we will have to agree to disagree. IMO to make that conclusion you would have to compare how students graduating with the same major do over the long term.

It seems that OP understands what getting a good job with a good starting salary means after graduation.

I would like to see employment statistics from the University of Arizona before deciding if I were OP.

Engineers are judged on performance. Your first job? Sure the uni name can matter just like your internships will matter. That level of debt will be a hindrance for a long, long time.

Yes, as long as the program is ABET accredited, no problem.

Now if the professors are good or bad is a completely different question.

No one is denying that. But getting a good first job & solid work experience is very important also.

Yes, because the stats from U of A include history majors and teachers and theater majors. There aren’t any of those graduating from Stevens.

Compare engineers to engineers, chemists to chemists, not engineers to teachers or chemists to history majors.

Stevens is in NJ, a very high salary area. It is likely someone graduating from Stevens will take a job in that area, so may make more than the average engineer at U of A who stays in Arizona makes. In that case, the new grad will also likely have higher cost of living expenses too.

Where’d you pull those tables of the 30 schools from, @Publisher ? THis? https://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/15/the-30-colleges-where-students-go-on-to-earn-the-most-money.html

You know you should cite your sources.

Y’all are arguing at each other. I do not see a second post from the OP here, so those of you who have criticized the OP for ignoring advice are out of line.

Well, in fairness, @AboutTheSame, the OP just started this thread this morning! Give them some time!