<p>So this is a pretty basic question that most people have probably considered.
I just want to hear opinions and any ideas about the subject.
It's possible for me to go to an Ivy League school, but will the debt and stress be worth it for the much higher tuition?
For example, how much better is a degree from U Pitt than one from Cornell?</p>
<p>Thanks for any responses!</p>
<p>Unless you are targeting a career on Wall Street or in a top-20 law firm, the only advantage an Ivy League diploma gets you is a more impressive decal to put in the back window of your SUV.</p>
<p>And maybe not even then.</p>
<p>From what i remember reading, the only people who really gain advantages from “elite universities” (i.e. top 25 schools as defined by USNWR) are people from low-income backgrounds who probably don’t have the networking connections that they’d make with other students. If you’re from a family which already has said connections, it doesn’t really matter.</p>
<p>Law schools do take your undergraduate institute into account, as i think it relates to its rigour, but that can be overcome by a high score on the LSAT, or the MCAT if you’re going to med school.</p>
<p>It depends on what the Ivy is and what your non-Ivy option is. Cornell is not Yale, and there is a big difference between choosing Harvard over Arizona State and choosing Harvard over Duke or Hopkins. </p>
<p>I agree that for wall street, pedigree is especially important. Academia and professional schools also seem to care, albeit to a lesser degree. </p>
<p>Most of the Ivies are excellent schools, though they are not the only excellent schools.</p>
<p>Your question makes an assumption - that the price tag reflects the cost for most students. The Ivies are among the most generous universities in the US for financial aid, and in many cases that means they’re cheaper than attending your local state university. Their aid has long been generous for low-income students and has more recently become more generous for families in the middle and the upper end of the middle income range; I think most have even eliminated loans as part of their basic packages.</p>
<p>If you fall under these aid limits, then I’d say the Ivies can be very much worth the cost for the educational experience (small classes, top professors, strong peers, lots of funding for student initiatives, etc.). And this applies not just to the Ivies, but non-Ivy privates like MIT, Stanford, top LACs, etc.</p>
<p>"Unless you are targeting a career on Wall Street or in a top-20 law firm, the only advantage an Ivy League diploma gets you is a more impressive decal to put in the back window of your SUV.</p>
<p>And maybe not even then."</p>
<p>… I would imagine that these schools produce a higher % of graduates who end up in leadership roles. I do think that it is an advantage in networking and landing jobs. Alumni who are in administrative positions would tend, IMHO, to interview & thus hire canidates from their alma mater more often than from other colleges…</p>
<p>List price matters for full pay students. For others, net cost after non-loan financial aid is what matters. This makes costs more opaque and more difficult to compare (especially since one may not know what the financial aid is until after going through the application process and getting accepted).</p>
<p>Small classes compared to big state universities; not compared to small LACs.</p>
<p>Only if we’re talking about Harvard and Yale. And your family’s annual income would have to exceed 180,000 for those schools not to give you need-based aid.</p>
<p>Honestly, if your family is making that much money, you don’t have to worry about money anymore.</p>
<p>^ not true - Princeton, and to a lesser extent Columbia and Dartmouth, are all very generous in aid.</p>
<p>It’s not just for those whose incomes exceeding $180k either. Comparison with Stanford (and HYP are likely more generous): for students whose families make under $100k, it’s tuition-free, putting the cost at room/board, about $12,000. Aid at the UCs stops at incomes of about $90k, so for those families, it costs over $25,000 (at Berkeley, room/board/tuition is $28,000). So for even those solidly in the middle, Stanford is cheaper - and the COA at Stanford starts to exceed the COA at UCs at around the $140k mark.</p>
<p>Considering that the average household income is around $50k-60k, the overwhelming majority of students in the US would find HYPSM (possibly among others) cheaper. Of course, the students at these schools tend to be more wealthy, but that’s another issue by itself.</p>
<p>This has been discussed before. Check out these:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1165152-science-engineering-ivy-worth-state-school.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1165152-science-engineering-ivy-worth-state-school.html</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/law-school/843328-transferring-ivy-worth.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/law-school/843328-transferring-ivy-worth.html</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/385201-ultimate-question-ivy-worth-especially-business-entrepreneurship.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/385201-ultimate-question-ivy-worth-especially-business-entrepreneurship.html</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/348332-ivy-worth.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/348332-ivy-worth.html</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/485777-ivy-league-edu-engineering-worth-200k.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/485777-ivy-league-edu-engineering-worth-200k.html</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/654230-ivy-undergrad-education-worth-debt.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/654230-ivy-undergrad-education-worth-debt.html</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/570186-ivy-league-really-worth.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/570186-ivy-league-really-worth.html</a></p>