I was accepted to the three colleges up there.
Cost after scholarship deduction- including room and board:
- Iowa state 25,000$ (scholarship of 6,500 per year)
- University of Minnesota 34,000$ (still not notified of any scholarship- expect no scholarship)
- University of Nebraska 20,000$ (14,500$ per year scholarship)
My dad will pay for the cost but still he is not that rich so he can pay to U of Minnesota hardly, while Iowa state and Nebraska will be more easier to pay for.
Iowa state: Love the beautiful campus and the small college town, good engineering program
U of Minnesota: Nice to live in a major city, #4 best chemical engineering program in the country
U of Nebraska: the place is nice (lincoln city), Low cost tuition, I don’t like it because not well known engineering program.
I will major in either Mechanical or chemical engineering.
I want a good and well know Engineering program where I can easily find an internship and a job.
Please Help—Hard decision which can change my life.
If price isn’t an issue and your father can pay for it, choose UofM. As you stated, it has the best engineering program out of the collges you are considering, and is widely regarded as a “Public Ivy”. In addition, the amount of engineering internship/job opportunities you’ll be able to find in Minneapolis-St. Paul is infinite compared to job outlook in Iowa and Nebraska.
However, if $34k is too much to pay in a year, and you find yourself unwilling to take out a loan to help your finances, Iowa State is a good fit. According to U.S. News, it’s overall engineering rank is only 7 below Minnesota. However, as stated earlier, your job outlook still wouldn’t be as great in Iowa as it would in Minnesota, and you may eventually find yourself looking for jobs out of state upon graduating. (A solution to this might be to pursue a Masters in Engineering at a more renowned school in a larger metropolitan area.)
Wow, congratulations, that’s a good problem to have. 
It’s clear UMN is the strongest of the three academically and most likely to be welcoming for internships. (unfortunately I think that now on that must be a concern to take into account for internationals).
The cost differential is big though and Nebraska 's engineering program isn’t bad. In particular I don’t think it’s majorly different from Iowa State for engineering depth, breadth, or opportunities.
I would email admissions at all three, asking about local climate toward internationals and track record for local companies willing to extend internships to internationals.
Okay I must have confused him with another poster (I recall posting on a poster named mohamedfaris ’ threads but I admit I didn’t dig into this poster’s thread history). Therefore remove the ‘climate’ and internship issues.
OP, have you visited those campuses? Are those your first three acceptances or are they your top choices ?
I also was accepted to Virginia tech and penn state university park but they will cost me about 40k a year so I just removed them from my list.
I Just realized today that I was waitlested in U of M and I wasn’t accepted yet.
So let’s put it a way.
Iowa state vs U of Nebraska lincoln.
I really love Iowa state campus as will as U of Nebraska campus.
Iowa state has a positive because it is well known in engineering more than Nebraska.
While Nebraska has a positive because Lincoln is a better town (bigger) than Ames (though it’s a beautiful place there put more rural than Nebraska)
Nebraska has another advantage considering the cost.
So how do you compare Iowa state and University of Nebraska in term of internships and job placement?
Thanks guys, I really appreciate your help.
I don’t think there’s a big enough quality difference between Nebraska and Iowa State to justify the price difference, so, I’d go with Nebraska.
So, if money wasn’t an issue, what school would you go to between Nebraska and Iowa State? If I’m interpreting your numbers correctly, you saying its a $5k difference between the two. Seems like you might be able to help offset some of that difference with a PT job if Iowa State is the better fit. I feel like within your post you may like Iowa State better but are trying to justify the price difference.
If I’m misreading your numbers and you are saying subtract the ( $ ) from the Cost then it would seem like Nebraska by far is the better value.
I do think there is a quality difference between the engineering programs at Iowa State and University of Nebraska, a simple search online will pull up several ratings that will help you compare. The US News Best Engineering Schools ranking lists Iowa State as number 48 and the University of Nebraska is 92. Maybe you could talk to the schools and get more information about their engineering programs and ask them some questions like how big are their career fairs, number of students who get internships, etc.
OP is a US citizen currently living in Jordan.
Are your costs taking into account travel and health insurance? Those will likely run to ~$8k, so make sure to budget for them.
Thanks all for your opinions.
austinmshauri, Thoses costs are probably excluding travel and health insurance.
I know about the travel expenses. But what about health insurance, How much will it cost? Is it that expensive?
https://shb.umn.edu/health-plans/shbp-home gives details of the plan but not the cost. There is an email address you can use to contact them and ask.
edited to add: I think I found the page https://shb.umn.edu/students-and-scholars/shbp-dates-cost