<p>Mizzou will cost less, but is it worth it to pay more for Indiana?</p>
<p>Colleges are not appliances, so shopping prices is problematic. The best approach is to decide what you can afford and then ignore options above your price point. Of course, the colleges make this pretty tough since you have to apply and get their financial offers first before you’ll know what it will REALLY cost.</p>
<p>Spending more money to attend a school that fits you better and/or provides you with an advantage later is most likely going to be worth it. How much more money? Tough to say. </p>
<p>A higher starting salary and or more prestigious position secured right after college will have compounding benefits over time. In today’s tough job market for recent grads, every advantage counts.</p>
<p>In purely financial terms, if your starting salary is likely to be 5k higher coming out of IU over another school due to the companies that recruit there or the strength of the program, then it’s an easy math problem to calculate how soon you’ll get a return on that investment. If the outcome you want in 4 (or 40) years is more likely after attending IU over another school, then it was worth it.</p>
<p>There are no guarantees, only probabilities. For my student, IU presented enough likely benefits to make it the best choice even though attending Mizzou would have been much much cheaper. Only time will tell if that bet pays off.</p>
<p>Thank you, Thaumaturge, good information.</p>
<p>Also depends on your major. Mizzou great journalism program, IU great business school</p>
<p>Is Mizzou a decent school if NOT for their Journalism school? D would like to attend Mizzou but not in Journalism. Will she get a quality education? </p>