MIT Total estimated cost of attendance $260,000
Georgia Tech with Provost Scholarship Cost of Attendance $120,000
University of Maryland BK Scholar $Free
Computer Science Major
Which would you choose and why?
UMD because it’s free, it’s a great school, and the Banneker/Key Scholarship is a prestigious honor that adds juice to your academic accomplishments.
Free vs a Quarter of a Million dollars I’d pick Free
No, but the relationship doesn’t have to be linear. You’d have to pretty affluent not to get any aid from them anyways.
You will constantly need to qualify that you were a a Banneker Key Scholar in the Honors Program at UMD vs an MIT grad. If you can afford MIT, go there.
That price is WITH aid
Is the debt worth it is more the question
No opinions on Georgia Tech?
A $260,000 loan payable over 10 years, at 5% interest is $2,757.a month.
No question about Georgia Tech NOT being worth considering turning down a full B/K at Maryland.
Only the name/reputation of MIT is worth even considering the question, but to be fair, you need to really think about if this will be your only degree, or if you will be going on to grad school (in which case, I would go to UMD for free for undergrad, and then do grad school at MIT).
I wish I could find it, but on one of the parent forums, there was a discussion about how it was possible for a student that was smart enough to be admitted to Harvard to actually fail out of engineering. Yet, students that were rejected from Harvard were able to become successful engineers at other tough schools. The study showed that it was a question of relativity within your class. The students that succeeded in engineering were the ones that considered themselves to be among the smart group of their classmates. While it can be argued that you will achieve more if you are pushed harder because your peers are more competitive, the study actually showed you achieved more if you were at the top of the pack to begin with. Or something to that effect.
So, the point is that it is entirely possible to go to MIT, and not be as successful there. It is not the school name that makes you successful, but rather how you perform at the school that you attend that predicts success.
Thanks
That still sounds like a lot even broken down
My son had the choice of a full ride BK vs. Brown and chose Brown pretty much b/c he had to choose one. 3 years in and we’ve discussed this choice a few times and he has absolutely no idea if he made the right choice, The only way you would know is to travel back in time to live through both experiences. I will say he’s getting fantastic internship offers but he’s met Maryland students at the same places. So my experience is nobody knows. Do whatever you think is right for you.
Go to MIT if you can handle the work load. If you do well, 260K in the long run is no issue. My advice is visit MIT and honestly assess yourself. How strong are you in math etc…?
We had to decide similar issue last year.
There is the small issue that, as a student, you can only borrow about $27,000 over 4 years. The other $233,000 will require a cosigner, probably your parents. That will be an subsidized loan. Also, you should look into any changes to the student loan process that were included in the new Tax Bill passed last year.
MIT, but if I was trying to maximize pure dollar earnings probably UMD because a student of that caliber can succeed anywhere. In my eyes, besides preparing you for the future, college is also an experience to cherish in and of itself. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to live with and befriend some of best and brightest young science and math minds in the world. I think of it kind of like the Olympics. UMD and GA Tech are great. There are plenty of geniuses at both schools. But when you look at the overall quality of their respective student bodies, MIT clearly gets first dibs. When you have a change to be immersed in that environment, I think you take it.
“when you look at the overall quality of their respective student bodies, MIT clearly gets first dibs.”
First, MD is a fine school and you’ll get a legit college experience there. More so than at MIT or GT which are “institutes”.
MIT has 4400 undergrads. And weather is cold and no sports.
GT has 15000 undergrads. And weather is warm and has sports.
MD had 30000 undergrads. And weather is cold and has sports.
MIT has 4400 “MIT academically qualified” engineering students. @ 250k
GT has 8000 “MIT academically qualified” engineering students. @ 120k
MD has 1100 “MIT academically qualified” engineering students. @ free.
MIT is #1
GT is #5
MD is #top 50.
No one knows that MD has an engineering dept. But a Google founder went there.
I’d take free engineering degree over anything over 100k.
You probably have enough AP credit to graduate in 3 years from GT and MD. But not MIT, at best your AP credit will get you half a year.
So 120k at GT is that 3 years?
Hadn’t factored the AP’s. Thanks, another thing to consider
You’re planning to ask your parents to co-sign loans worth more than a quarter of a million dollars? Why would you ask them to co-sign for even half that much? You can go to the University of MD and graduate with no debt. As a CS major, you should be able to pay for your own grad school.
As a computer professional myself, if you’re majoring in Computer Science, it won’t matter if you graduate from MIT or a regional state university. The degree is going to be employable as long as you come out with some proficiency in a programming language. You learn everything else on the job. Computers is a profession driven entirely on experience, so, after about 1.5 years, no one will care where you went to school. In fact, I have a masters and my co-worker has an associates degree. Though we do pretty much the same job, he’s more experienced in SQL than I am, so I usually ask him when I get stumped on something complex.
You’re much better off taking the scholarship. Entry level jobs are not terribly lucrative, and you don’t want large student loans causing financial problems. Your first couple of years in the career world will make college look like kindergarten. You need to be able to focus and learn. If you’re having financial issues on top of that, it can easily sabotage you.