<p>S wants to major in engineering (undecided) and has full tuition scholarship at NEU or no money at Cornell. Is it worth the student loans??</p>
<p>Not if you live in state where there’s a public (and some private) university with a powerful engineering department, states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Georgia, California or Texas.</p>
<p>Northeastern is well known for its co-ops and student employment, but generally speaking, public university engineering departments are a much better option than privates, including the Ivy League.</p>
<p>Sorry. I missed the part about the full ride at Northeastern. Check Northeastern’s list of engineering recruiters to determine if a degree from the school would provide opportunities that interest you.</p>
<p>Cornell engineering is a top ten program. Whether it is worth full pay is a family decision.</p>
<p>[Best</a> Undergraduate Engineering Programs | Rankings | US News](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-doctorate]Best”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-doctorate)</p>
<p>as LakeWashington said , public school “especially the big ones” are much better.</p>
<p>no. You can always go to an expensive grad school later on. </p>
<p>Save your money</p>
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<p>this is the best sentence I have read so far in this forum.</p>
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<p>That is not what she said, nor is it a correct statement. There are plenty of privates that can hold their own up there with the big boys. MIT, Caltech, Stanford, Cornell, Princeton, etc… Shoot, these guys are the big boys.</p>
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<p>This is not only not the best sentence in these forums, but also one of the most commonly repeated falsehoods on these boards. Unless you want to be a doctor, no one should ever go into college assuming they will want or need graduate school. Especially in engineering, you can get a perfectly good job (and even a great job) with just a BS. Graduate degrees are only occasionally necessary and sometimes overqualify you for a position, not to mention the fact that after 4 or 5 years of your BS, you may just be tired of school.</p>
<p>The moral here is that you shouldn’t choose a school based on cost alone and just assume you will make up for it with a top graduate school. It doesn’t work that way. You should choose a school based on the types of employers that tend to hire engineers from that school. Find a school whose recruiting profile matches your career goals and then do a cost-benefit analysis. If you can go to a school like Northeastern and get the job you hope for, that is wonderful. Do it. If you are looking for some type of company (or specifically) that has no history of recruiting there but does actively recruit Cornell engineers, then I would seriously consider Cornell (or any other school that sends engineers to said companies) instead, despite the cost.</p>
<p>There is no one-size-fits-all answer. I really wish people would stop just flat telling people to save their money and go to a top graduate school. It is dangerous.</p>
<p>The rule of thumb I’ve seen thrown around is not to go into more debt than you’ll make from year first year of work. This may vary depending upon the economic climate and your personal financial situation.</p>
<p>But there are a lot of factors besides cost here. Consider the environments before deciding. Ithaca and Boston are vastly differently places. Also, if he wants to go straight into an industry job after graduation, both schools will (essentially) guarantee him employment. I know NEU has promoted their 100% employment among graduating engineers. Of course at Cornell I imagine finding a job would be easy compared to keeping your GPA above 2.5.</p>
<p>@boneh3ad:</p>
<p>I doubt the quality of that advice. You’re advising the OP to take out about $200,000 for an undergraduate engineering degree? Even assuming OP starts off making $80,000 a year (definitely on the higher end of the spectrum, so that’s assuming a lot) straight out of school, he wouldn’t make make enough in two and a half years to pay that off, even if 100% of his income went toward his student loans AND it wasn’t taxed. </p>
<p>OP, taking out a six figure loan is not a smart decision, especially when you have Northeastern offering you a full scholarship. My brother took out just $45k in loans (a number that pales in comparison to what you’d have to borrow) and graduated almost 8 years ago and is now making ~$80k a year. But, get this: he’s only paid off about $10k of his debt. It’s a weight he’s constantly had on his shoulders for the past 8 years. </p>
<p>OP, save the money. Six figures of debt is not worth it, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.</p>
<p>efeens44, we don’t know the family’s situation with regards to how much in loans the student would have to take out. I’ve seen a number of posters here that have had the money to pay for any school the student would choose, but then required the student to get some sort of loans. It becomes a cost/benefit analysis for the whole family.</p>
<p>I will agree with bonehead about “saving the money for grad school” not always being good advice for potential engineers. If you’re going to do an MS, you’re generally either better doing it as a 3/2 with your undergrad or getting an employer to pay for it (or, if you’re ambitious, do your 3/2 in 4 years). Both of which are a heck of a lot easier than taking two years and a ton of money to pay for grad school. If you wind up wanting to go for a PhD you’ll get a stipend and school won’t cost you anything.</p>
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<p>At no point did I say that. I said try to match a school to your career goals instead of assuming you will just go to graduate school. I know many people for whom that doesn’t work out. There are plenty of other schools not named Cornell that are just as “good” and cost far less. Once you find a few candidate schools, do a cost-benefit analysis. There are few, if any, situations where I would ever think taking out that kind of debt is anything other that foolish.</p>
<p>Again, do not make decisions by just assuming you are going to graduate school. Choose a college based on which schools will get you where you need to go. If a cheaper school can do that, jump at the opportunity.</p>
<p>I’m deciding on an engineering school too. So how can we check to see ourdream company job recruits from the school you went to?</p>
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<p>Start by getting a list of companies/organizations participating in your school’s career fair(s). Most schools usually post this list on a career fair-designated website. This list will give you a general idea of the caliber of engineering program(s) your school offers. The more noteworthy the companies are, the better shot you’ll have after graduation of getting hired by ‘those types’ of companies. The idea is that companies/organizations will not waste their time setting up career fairs at schools for which they have no intentions of hiring graduates from.</p>
<p>Do keep in mind, however, that just because a particular company you want to work for isn’t on your school’s career fair list, doesn’t mean you have no chance in getting hired by that company. The sheer cost of recruiting prevents most companies from visiting every good engineering school out there.</p>
<p>NEU has a terrific co-op program. Unless your son has strong reasons to prefer Cornell and you can easily afford the extra costs of Cornell… I’d say learn toward the NEU full tuition scholarship. Good luck.</p>
<p>For grins, after a minute or two of Googling, here is the list of companies attending the Northeastern Spring 2013 Career Fair:
[url=<a href=“http://northeastern.experience.com/stu/cf_registered_employers?fhnd=5644]experience.com[/url”>http://northeastern.experience.com/stu/cf_registered_employers?fhnd=5644]experience.com[/url</a>]</p>
<p>I made my statement in general terms. </p>
<p>No its not guaranteed you can get into a “higher” or “great” grad school. But grad school does cost more than undergrad. That’s if the student wants to go. By that it would make more financial sense to take the full ride at a good engineering college for undergrad. The student might not do well, change majors, drop out, or maybe want to transfer later. It’s best to retain the financial flexibility of having no debt at a very good school. </p>
<p>Northeastern has co-op opportunities with Fortune 500 companies all over the world. It is not Backwater school of engineering. </p>
<p>Take the money. Think of it as interest free money for the student to apply to great grad schools that don’t have funding if the student qualifies. Or even using it to buy a house sooner. Also for the parent their retirement or savings fund will be in much better shape.</p>
<p>may i ask if business major for UG should be analyzed differently since brand recognition and alumni association carry more weight in the business world.</p>
<p>would you choose a full ride from Tulane/Baylor (major in economics) or pay $120k for the same UG degree from UC Berkeley? ( this student will likely be continuing his eduction at the graduate level -> MBA)</p>
<p>btw, no loan for UG. parents will pay $120k out of pocket. However, there will be no $ left over to pay for MBA. Student will get a loan to pay for MBA</p>
<p>I would do the first option. Save up during your time and then take a loan out for your MBA.</p>
<p>You can either go to a good school for a relative pittance or a great school for more than the average yearly salary. Now, it would kill me to make this choice, but the responsible thing is to go to NEU. Debt is essentially a risk</p>