Hi! I was accepted into the University of Maryland Scholars Program (2 year living learning program focused on volunteering and public service) and Middlebury as a Feb (meaning taking a gap semester before attending alongside a batch of 100). UMD offers almost everything I am looking for. Scholars provides a smaller community, the school is very diverse and close to home, and much cheaper (10K tuition per year). Middlebury is less racially and socioeconomically diverse but the students seem to be extremely engaged and different. It is more expensive (55K tuition per year) but more prestigious and tight knit.
I am planning on majoring in sociology and am not sure if I want to go into business, public policy, or education after that. Because of this, I know I’ll most likely go to grad school at some point. I am lucky that my family can afford to pay my undergraduate tuition, but if I choose UMD, I will have 100K left over for grad school/other opportunities.
Essentially, I can see myself at both schools and will be happy either way. I’m wondering if it’s worth it to consider the extra tuition if I feel unsure about my field after undergrad, or if I should save the money and have an awesome experience either way while attending UMD and participating in Scholars. Thanks!
How would you come up with the 90K tuition difference for Mid?
But in any case, I would save the money for grad school, especially since you’re undecided on what you want to do in life and UMD already does it for you.
Middlebury is worth the money. But, I would say the same of most of the NESCAC colleges. All of that beautiful scenery, the sense of community and the prospect of valuable internships (its reputation for language proficiency garners a lot of placements in overseas branch offices) have to speak to you on a gut level. If they don’t, they don’t.
@circuitrider, since you say Mid is worth the money (presumably, your money; I certainly wouldn’t think of speaking for other people’s money and I’m positive you’re not so gauche as to do that either), you’re willing to put your money where your mouth is and pay the tuition there for this fine young person, I’m sure.
As others have written above, where will you come up with the difference in cost? Run some numbers here: https://finaid.org/calculators/awardletteradvanced.phtml Right now the difference in tuition is about $45k each year for 4 years = $180k. That is a serious chunk of change.
That is a huge difference in cost. I have only met a handful of UMD graduates but they have all made the school look very good, and have been very successful in their careers.
I do not think that “prestige” is going to take you very far. To me UMD sounds like a better fit, and it will leave you with money that you will want to use for graduate school.
By the way, one daughter made a similar choice (but different schools), is loving where she went, and having about $100k left over for graduate school is going to come in very handy when she is looking at master’s programs.
Thanks everyone for the help! To clarify, my family has enough to pay for a full education at Middlebury, but I would not have money for grad school, which I plan on likely investing in. Your advice makes a lot of sense, thank you! I agree that UMD is a great fit, and though Middlebury is too, is not worth $180K that could otherwise be spent on graduate studies or future expenses in general.
Any PhD worth doing should be funded. However law school will cost you a lot of money.
What sort of grad school are you thinking of?
For a field like sociology your peers will be quite different at Middlebury than at UMD.
In addition, you can change and decide to major in any field at Middlebury if you change your mind about sociology. At UMD you’ll be able to pick from any major in the college of Behavioral science and social science, but transferring outside that college may be more or less difficult depending on what you would want to switch to.
Is that flexibility to change your mind and the different peer group worth the cost difference? Only you know.
Personally I’d pick Middlebury for undergrad and UMD for grad school. But that’s me, if I had that money I’d consider Midd an excellent investment in my future.