For the schools you listed, it’s pretty clear cut. The State U’s you mentioned are all nationally recognized for their engineering programs and you would be hard-pressed to do better than those. UT vs MIT/Stanford would perhaps be a more interesting comparison.
@NeoDymium, no doubt there’s a MUCH wider standard deviation among ALL state schools versus the “elites,” but if you are from Texas, Michigan, Illinois, Georgia, plus a few others, or California as is the OP’s daughter, we aren’t talking average engineering programs.
Specifically, she was accepted into UCB, UCLA and Cal Poly. I’ll use Cal Poly as the cheap end of the spectrum because it would be by far their cheapest state school option at $100k, I know the most about it because it’s the school my son chose (from out of state), and, maybe most importantly, it can’t be compared head to head in USNWR rankings because they don’t offer doctorate degrees.
Before I go any further, this in NO WAY is a statement that Poly is the school she should choose and this assumes something we don’t know, that they’d all be full price.
Cal Poly is centered around the undergraduate experience. In the ME department there are 3 TAs. Contrast that to Berkeley where there are over 60. Classes for the most part are small. All of them including labs and discussions are taught by professors. Their largest lecture hall holds 200 people and classes there are rare. My son has been in there twice in two years, for Materials I and II. Within the engineering department alone there are over 80 dedicated labs several of which are there solely to support student clubs and incubators. Poly places students into many good companies including Apple, Tesla, Space X, JPL, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and Boeing. Of the students who go to grad school and don’t take advantage of the 4+1 efficiency, they’ve gotten into Berkeley, Stanford, Washington, Cornell, RPI and Texas to name a few (this is ME data). Students aren’t coddled. The curriculum for ME at least goes beyond the minimum ABET requirements.
So, when the state school is not Arkansas State or Tennessee State, but a known, respected state school, is an “elite” private still worth $140,000 more? Are there advantages to being in an undergraduate centered program like Poly, HMC, Olin, and Rose, where by the rankings at least, they can’t even be compared to the “elites”?
Again, this varies from individual to individual and is highly dependent on finances, but I do not believe it to be as simple as the car analogy.
When you consider a specific state such as California, where some of the state schools are internationally recognized (UCLA and especially UCB), and the prices are also substantially raised, it’s a different question altogether. Most state schools don’t cost $100k sticker price as a lower bound - that’s already pretty far up the cost ladder and out of the range of what people who don’t have money can afford to spend. If you use the car analogy, that would be like asking - "should I buy a BMW or splurge and get a Ferrari? " - which I’m sure is not what most people are thinking about when it comes to getting an education.
Every large, established program should be placing people into the very best of companies, and especially into companies that are geographically close to it. If the local engineering university doesn’t place people into its own companies, which may be prestigious even if the university is not, then it’s not doing their job. In that light, local NY universities should be placing people into Wall Street, California universities should be placing people into Silicon Valley/tech/national labs, XVille U should be placing people into XVille’s prestigious tech companies, etc. This is not to bash any specific program, but simply to say that geographic placement and a strong standard of quality should be enough to get people in if they’re good enough to succeed. In that sense at least, rankings are overrated.
UG-focused institutions are good for some, not for others. The simple fact is that some people want to have a UG institution that gives them specific focus (that’s why LACs are popular) while others want a university that offers strong research opportunities that they can perhaps continue in their graduate program. While it’s not exactly looked highly upon in general, I personally believe that, if you got into an excellent research group at your UG top-tier university, you should continue with that group and project into your graduate work. Even if not, it’s valuable to get the experience of working on real research projects. So, as I’m sure you’re aware, they’re not for everyone.
You are implying that research is not available at UG focused colleges. That is not true – and in fact, it can be easier to get research opportunities at UG focused colleges – the profs have no one but their undergrads to help with their research, so they have an interest in mentoring and supporting their efforts that may not exist at a school with grad students. One of my kids is at an UG focused institution. She has done two summers of research on campus in one academic area, has changed majors, and is now immersed in another area of research during the school year (to continue on next summer and then as her senior project) – the work she is currently doing is in conjunction with Los Alamos labs, it isn’t somehow lesser work than a student at a research university would be doing. Her CV will be pretty rich with experience when she is done, at least if not more so than a student at a traditional “research” university.
Also, if you are implying that students would stay at their UG colleges for grad research, that isn’t usually recommended. If you just mean that the student will have some self-awareness and goals regarding what they want to do in grad school research, again – that is not just something students at large research universities gain.
Just because an UG-focused university has research available (or even more available, if that’s the case), that does not mean that all research is created equal. Research programs are often more mature at PhD-granting institutions on account of the fact that a PhD student toiling away at a problem for 5 years is likely to get a lot farther than an undergraduate working on it for 2. This may or may not actually matter from the point of view of the undergraduate student, but it’s something to be aware of.
Sure… so the undergrad can wash test tubes, prep samples, and cut tails off rats for the grad student. The student at the UG focused institute gets to work directly with the PI – may or may not be true at the research university.
And it also implies that just because a student goes to a large research based school that they will have access to meaningful research. Just because a school has one or more Nobel Laureate doesn’t mean they are excited about UGs poking around in their labs. Some students will get positions, but just because they are there isn’t a guarantee.
Along with that they’ll typically get large lectures and graduate students, most often with no teaching experience and often with poor command of English as instructors in many of their labs and discussions. This holds for both MIT and CalTech.
At the end of the day, maybe the Ferrari example or any other exotic for that matter is apropos. They are fast and have amazing fit and finish, but are notoriously unreliable, expensive to maintain and drop in value precipitously. Are they worth the extra money? Not if you want to haul kids or tow a boat.
You are over-generalizing. Having worked at two labs as an undergraduate at a PhD-granting institution and worked with a lot of them while in graduate school, I can tell you I’ve never been or been around an undergraduate whose job was just menial labor. If a professor assigned only that kind of work, he or she is wasting their precious money on someone who is not contributing. I’m sure this happens from time to time, but the average professor is way too concerned about their research to make this the norm.
I worked in several labs as an undergrad. I wouldn’t consider what I did at either super meaningful though. Doing electrophoresis and HPLC seems cool for a few weeks and then is standard tech fare after you get the hang of it. I did go to the flagship in the lesser state to your west though. Go Tigers! 
90% of research is mundane, standard tech fare, to be fair.
That mundane grunt work in the lab is exactly how research is done. At first it looks like menial tech labor that is just busy work, but eventually, if you keep at it long enough, it all comes together in a meaningful way. I know someone whose job actually was, quite literally, to cut off tails and prep test tubes. By the end of his UG years, it all came into a rather impressive project on animal genetics that got him multiple publications, acceptance into all schools he applied to, etc. Besides learning the theory, working as a technician is probably the most useful skill for doing graduate research.
Perhaps. You’d be a fool to even consider a “Ferrari” school if that amount of money is a lot to you. Though my point was that the question is seldom “BMW school or Ferrari school” but more along the lines of “Honda school or BMW school” for most college choices. When all of your choices are of the >$100k variety, you are already well into the range of luxury spending.
This varies by school, and I do understand why it generally isn’t recommended. But there is one exception I’d make to the rule that you should switch schools: if you are at a top-ranked school, with a meaningful research project that you want to continue to work on, and you are making some rather impressive progress, then you are better off pushing forward with the project you already have than moving to a new one. That happens rarely, so it’s usually better to switch.
I wish it was so, but it isn’t. The total cost of attendance at nearly every major state engineering program is over $100k. The University of Wyoming, one of the cheapest schools in the nation is $80k in state. The other screamin’ deals, NMT and SDSMT are also $80k. That is as cheap as it gets.
In every case, the decision will depend upon the student factors and the family finances (including eligibility for FA). There is no one right answer for all.
Well, that $80k cost is much more reducible than it is at elite schools. If it’s in-state, good students will get a large part of the tuition subsidized by IS tuition and merit scholarships. If you live within driving distance of that school, a lot can be saved on living arrangements by living at home (IMO, dorms are another form of luxury that is not strictly necessary). Books never need to cost anywhere near the bookstore price if you know how to buy them for cheaper. And so on. At a top school, you will almost certainly need to get living arrangements unless you just happen to get accepted to the local Elite U, and the base tuition of ~$40k is not going to go down anywhere near as easily.
I have more than enough problems with the education system and how unfair it tends to be with money (among other shortcomings), but the true cost for Local State U should be nowhere near $80k. In that light, I think a comparison of “$100k vs $240k” is not reasonable because one cost is far less likely to actually be paid than the other.
Many states don’t have money to give for merit and most kids don’t live in the same town as their engineering school. You must not have any kids in the game now because life at a public is not as you paint it. Certainly, I wish it was.
Take Cal Poly for example. They give virtually no merit aid to in state students. My son got $8000 over 4 years, but that’s only for OOS and the highest award available. Whether in state or OOS a family has to have an EFC below $6000 to get ANY need based FA. Above that, it’s all loans. Poly is the best deal of the good engineering programs in CA. The UCs are about 40% more.
From out of state my son was offered a year tuition free at Utah followed by three years at the instate rate. It still would have been over $100k. At Oregon State, our instate flagship, with the maximum possible merit award, which he got, COA would have been $90k. He got $100k at Case. That would have brought it down to $140k.
If you have any secrets, I’m all ears.
That is drifting from the point asked by the OP though. Her question was “Is paying $60k per year for a top engineering school wise?” Given her choices, assuming no need based aid, she’s looking at $140k MORE over 4 years if she chooses Cal Poly and $100k MORE if she chooses UCB or UCLA (or any other UC). The question, is that wise?
Since we don’t know, you have to take it on face value and assume they aren’t eligible for need based aid.
Scholarships and financial aid for in-state students do depend on the school and state.
If one happens to live near a state university with engineering, commuting from the parents’ place can save money versus living in the dorm or off-campus, but remember that food and utilities are the parents’ place and commuting costs are non-zero.
http://www.sjsu.edu/faso/Applying/Cost_of_Attendance/ suggests an in-state cost of attendance to commute to a CSU from the parents’ place of $17,210. Obviously, there are some frugalization opportunities in the misc/personal expenses ($1,416) and the books ($1,899), and the living and commuting costs are likely to be quite variable. But it does cost more than the $7,378 that in-state tuition and fees are.
However, the situation is more expensive in some other places. For example, students living in major cities in Pennsylvania may find that just the in-state tuition at Temple and Pittsburgh are in the $15,000 to $19,000 range, before adding in books, living, and commuting expenses (note that there is not much in the way of engineering offerings at the cheaper PASSHE colleges, unlike at the CSUs in California). And Pennsylvania public universities do not have good need-based financial aid, although top-end students may get merit scholarships.
We live close to a well respected, but not top tier, state engineering school. We have compared apples to apples as in on campus to on campus for 4 years and the total cost is actually more than the state flagship. The savings would be in living at home. The flagship offered 3x the scholarship and is still 90k. Neither has the prestige of a degree from UMich or Purdue but all place students at the same companies. The difference is that UMich and Purdue place more students there while our IS schools place only their top students there while graduating at least as many, but often more, engineers. It becomes a matter of what is one willing to pay to increase their chances of being one of the students hired by one if those employers. Of course, if those employers is not the goal, paying extra may not be wise.
Big engineering companies recruit all over the country. You don’t need a prestige degree to be noticed by them, you just need to know how to get through HR. That’s not a trivial task (and in fact that kind of social signaling is part of what Elite U’s teach you), but a clever student who knows how to find out what they don’t know should be able to manage. There was a time when the prevalent philosophy was that top tier engineering students were all in the elite schools, but that theory has been pretty thoroughly discredited (though it takes companies some time to abandon that approach because it’s easy). Highly skilled students choose their school for any number of reasons, and may very well choose State U over Elite U.
If you want to go to Harvard Law School or Wall Street, or perhaps get into the research group that works on whatever project you fancy (say you want to work on a certain problem in a niche field like particle physics), then having an elite degree is a massive boost. Same with if you want to raise capital in your 20s with your most notable credential being the name of the school you graduated from. Also it’s a credibility booster, as you get to be “XXXX from Elite U” in any conversation. And all of those are pretty valuable things that would be good to have. Less so for engineers than for non-technical (or perhaps non-quantitative) majors who depend more on name brand.
Overall, I’m not a huge fan of Elite U and I’m very much not a fan of spending massive amounts of money on college. But the Elite U’s get you into the “elite club” of graduate/professional/finance with much less labor and uncertainty than the State U’s. They also offer a very high lower bound of education, as their variability will be more like 7 to 10 rather than 1 to 10 in terms of education and in favorable outcomes upon graduation. So for all of their faults, they have some important benefits and I don’t really think that the semi-dismissive approach to Elite U that some have is really well founded.
@NeoDymium, all very well said. I am not dismissive of Elite U for many situations. If you want to be in east coast financing, east coast law, politics, etc. an Elite U degree is almost mandatory. I was only arguing regarding the practicing engineer and whether or not any benefits, which there are undoubtedly some (and some drawbacks) are worth a $140,000 premium.
I’ve been an electrical engineer for 30 years. I’ve been working for a large chip company the last 20 of those years. We have engineers from all over the country represented here. Most went to the large state U near where they grew up. Since my office is located in the Atlanta area, there’s a fairly large number of Georgia Tech graduates. But moving down the hall from my office, I see New Mexico, two Ohio States, Clemson, Louisiana Tech, Michigan, Illinois, several Floridas, Cleveland State, Texas A&M, UCLA, UC Irvine, Auburn, Connecticut, RPI, Alabama-Huntsville, and NC State. I’m sure I’m leaving some out.
A lot of us have worked here together since around the time of our company’s IPO. In all of those years I can’t say that we’ve ever cared much about where my colleagues went to school (except for bragging rights during football bowl season and the NCAA basketball tournament). We just care about who can do the job.