Is the OOS cost worth it

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

I’m interested in majoring in EE. I will be a Senior once this summer is over, so I’ll be working on applications soon enough. I’m still quite undecided on which colleges I should be looking at. I’d like to go to a school that is known to have a good EE program.

I live in Minnesota, so the two main state schools that I would be looking at would be University of Minnesota - Duluth and University of Minnesota - Twin Cities. Duluth is locally known, and I think UMN has a top-notch Chemical Engineering program, but I don’t know how their EE programs are.

So, here’s what I’m trying to figure out.
I want to know what schools I should be considering near the Midwest, although I’ll travel further if the education is superior. Some of the schools that I have found that are ranked fairly high have some fairly large pricing for OOS students - University of Michigan which is at like $40k.

Schools that look like they could be good around here: University of Illinois, University of Michigan, Purdue University(A bit further away), and both of the schools that I listed above that are in Minnesota

The first three universities are ranked pretty highly, but are they worth the extra cost compared to my state schools?

My parents will be covering the tuition, so money isn’t a large issue, but I don’t want them to spend a significant amount more just because I want to get to a top school if education isn’t that far off from my state schools.

Education wise - I have a 4.0 unweighted since that’s all my school does. My first ACT I got a 32 and I’ll be taking again to see if I get any better.

What I’m looking for in a school - I come from a rural area; I live in the country, and I’m not a large fan of cities. My class is around 90 people. I’d like to go to a smaller school; however, I think I can make adjustments to any size of school/city if I like the school itself enough.

To recap: Are there any schools that I should be looking at that I’m not looking at already, and is the larger price worth the higher ‘prestige’ and education?

2

I think you’ll be hard pressed to find a program that offers better value than Twin Cities. The engineering program is well respected, maybe not on the same step as Purdue and Illinois, but certainly not in a completely different league and the tuition is a good deal, especially in state. Couple that with the fact that you’ll likely get at least some merit aid and your state flagship is a pretty compelling option. In my opinion, you can find schools that might be a scoche better, but not so much better that it would be worth the cost difference.

3

Minnesota has a tuition reciprocity agreement with Wisconsin, North Dakota and South Dakota. So you might look at University of Wisconsin-Madison and the S.D. School of Mines and Tech in Rapid City. They are located in smaller cities than the Twin Cities but are excellent schools. Given that you are from rural Minnesota they may be more to your liking.

4

@goldensrock, goldens do rock. :smiley:

Unfortunately, like with many state tuition exchange consortia where the most popular schools are excluded, Madison does not participate in the Midwest Exchange.

5

@eyemgh, Minnesota has a direct reciprocity agreement with Wisconsin. This student would pay in-state tuition at Madison.

6

As long they are accredited.

From Internet:
“Engineering school accreditation is the peer review process that schools, colleges, and universities undergo to determine whether an institution or program offering engineering courses meets or exceeds professional standards of educational quality.”

7

In that case, I’d certainly visit Madison too. :smiley:

8

The Midwest Exchange is also worth exploring. However that is a different program from the direct reciprocity agreement between MN and WI, SD, ND.

9

For UMich, the CoA would be $55k-$60k per year. It is not worth it unless you receive some merit aids. UIUC and Purdue would be slightly cheaper (~$45k-$50k) but still not worth it over the cost at UMN.

10

Ya, I think Michigan and Illinois are out of the question just because of pricing since there are similar schools for much cheaper. I’m going to be taking a serious look at both UW-Madison and Purdue and maybe look over the Twin Cities again. I’m just not fond of the large city as much. My older siblings have taken a tour of the Twin Cities campus, and they felt it was so spread out that they didn’t really feel comfortable there. I don’t think my parents were too impressed with it either.

UW-Madison and Purdue are both much smaller cities, so I’ll have to look them over and see what they are like. Madison would be cheaper, but I haven’t looked over by how much. I did the pricing calculator for Purdue, and it came out with a total of $35k without any scholarships of any kind. Directly from the Madison school without going through the calculator, it has a base price of roughly $27,845 for a Minnesota resident.

Those are probably the two colleges that I’ll be focusing on. If anyone has been to either of the colleges and wants to offer some insight, that would be awesome.

Thanks for all the responses! This site has been great for getting information!

11

Have you pulled the curriculum maps from both EE programs and reviewed their web pages. Often times you can learn a lot about what you’ll actually be doing at a program just by doing that little exercise.

12

Madison is an awesome college town, very beautiful, but it is very large and spread out campus due to being built on an isthmus. It is a really big school. If you are OK with that you will love it. If you find 40,000+ students over whelming, South Dakota only has around 3,000 students and is a well regarded engineering and tech school. Rapid City is near the Black Hills, a beautiful area. Given that you are from Northern Minnesota, the weather in either Rapid City or Madison will not phase you.

One caveat re S.D. fewer girls. My s who is a rising senior will not consider it due to the gender ratios since most of his friends are girls.

13

Twin Cities campus isn’t really compatible with your preference for a smaller town. I think Madison has a very urban feel for its size, though, so don’t assume that you would prefer UW without visiting both first. Both are good programs. Feel free to message me if you have further questions about ECE at Minnesota.

I think Duluth is a decent option as well, but there are more opportunities in the Cities. Many MN kids go to NDSU in Fargo and SDSU in Brookings, so check those out as well. Or SD Mines if you want a much smaller technical school in a different setting.

14

Ya, I’ll definitely be visiting it to see if it would be something I would consider being at. Those schools I listed just looked good on paper, and I felt like those would be worth checking into and seeing if I actually could see myself going to them.

I visited NDSU, but nothing really clicked for me. I’ve been to Duluth, and I felt it was a way better option compared to NDSU. Duluth is a beautiful place, and the campus was nice too, but I feel like that isn’t where I’m supposed to go.

15

There’s no substitute for seeing the environment with your own eyes. Having said that, you can easily have a great experience somewhere even if the first viewing doesn’t have a magical quality.

One nice thing about the Twin Cities campus is the availability of internships / coops in the surrounding metro area. Many ECE students are able to continue working part-time during the school year, which is a great way to build experience.

You mentioned your ACT scores…did you take the PSAT? Is National Merit a possibility?

16

They’re trying hard to recruit more women to South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, but that’s a tough task for all STEM schools. Even MIT’s ratio of female undergrads is only about 35%. It’s approximately 28% at Mines. In any event the education at Mines is excellent and women students do very well there. There are several Minnesotans in the study body, as you can imagine.

17

We visited both Madison and Purdue a couple years ago. Besides the cost, there are some other factors you may want to consider between these 2 schools. Madison campus is bigger and is more beautiful (by the lake) than Purdue (unless you include the airport, golf course, and parks). The capitol is just right down the street. Their engineering is fine although not as great as Purdue. Their 4 year graduation rate is rather low though. Also, they may have some financial problem that the tuition may go up significantly over the course of your study. While Purdue is in the middle of corn field. Their engineering campus is tightly packed but with mostly newer buildings. There are great co-op and internship opportunities even near campus. They have their own airport that most other schools don’t. They have a higher freshmen drop out rate but they offer more merit scholarships.