Ivy League Schools Worth It?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hello,
I just finished my junior year in high school and I have looked at a range of colleges. I have created a small list:
Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Cornell, Tufts, Boston University, New York University, Duke, UT Austin and Harvey Mudd. I would like to dual major, mechanical engineering and economics.
The amount of money that my parents need to spend for my tuition is a large factor in my admission. If I end up going to an ivy league school I will have a lot of debt on my own shoulders than if I went to another private university like BU or NYU. Would it be wiser to go to a less competitive school(ivy)? Would I have greater freedom in my academics? Is the debt after going to school worth it?
Any feedback is greatly appreciated. I will give more information if needed.</p>

2

<p>For starters, the cost of attendance to NYU or BU is relatively the same as the Ivy League.</p>

<p>Excessive debt upon graduation is not worth it.</p>

3

<p>How do you figure that BU or NYU would be cheaper than an Ivy?</p>

4

<p>From what I’ve read on CC, it’s very hard to double major at Columbia because of the number of courses required. Just something to consider. </p>

<p>But the Ivies generally give a lot of financial aid, and in some cases can be less expensive than a state school. So I’d try using NPCs for each place you’re looking at. They’re not 100% accurate but the results may surprise. </p>

5

<p>For higher income families, ivies are much more expensive because ivies do not give merit aid, while BU, NYU, Duke, HMudd do. </p>

<p>Some debt is fine; going deeply into debt is not. For an undergraduate MechE degree, I don’t think paying a premium for an ivy nameplate is worth it. Employers favor recruiting from engineering schools & big state U’s.</p>

<p>On this WSJournal list of top 25 recruiting schools, only MIT & Cornell made the list:</p>

<p><a href=“http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704554104575435563989873060?mobile=y”>http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704554104575435563989873060?mobile=y&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

6

<p>For high-income families with extremely high achieving kids, you mean. I’m not aware of NYU giving a lot of merit aid, and considering that just getting in to Duke or Mudd is already very difficult, the scholarships from those schools are EXTREMELY hard to get.</p>

7

<p>You can go to any school and be just as successful as someone who went to an Ivy League. If you get two financial aid offers and they Ivy League school is more expensive by more than $5,000 per year, it probably isn’t worth it to go.</p>

8

<p>Um. Depending on the other school and what you want to do, I may disagree with that. That said, most elites aren’t worth full-pay.</p>

9

<p>NYU Poly gives a lot of merit aid but I’m not sure about NYU.</p>

10

<p>Emory and Georgia Tech Dual Degree. Econ from Emory and engineering from GA tech. Check it out!</p>

11

<p>I think some Ivy League schools have a no-loan policy. Princeton and U Penn do. </p>

12

<p>

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<p>This is only applicable if one qualifies for FA</p>

13

<p>Thanks for all the replies. @DrGoogle Isn’t NYU and NYU Poly the same thing? I thought that it was their engineering branch and that you apply there, but you are still allowed to take courses at NYU.
And I was getting my numbers by doing the Net Price Calculator on the college websites. If I went to an ivy league (UPenn) my price came at around 23,000 but when I did BU it came at under 7,000. </p>

14

<p>I think they are merging to NYU this year but last year it was NYU Poly which is the school that gives free application and merit aid.</p>

15

<p>Look into your state schools and schools that offer good merit aid. These schools also happen to be strong in engineering as others have mentioned, especially the big ten. Anyways, it’s not like “ivy or doom” type of scenario, especially if you are a good student, there are other options out there that are much less expensive</p>

16

<p>Hmm, those NPC numbers seem strange. BU doesn’t have automatic merit awards, do they?</p>

17

<p>No but BU gives a lot of merit aid.</p>

18

<p>But the net price calculator assumes you can get them?</p>

19

<p>@PurpleTitan
BU’s NPC asks SAT/ACT score, GPA and rank and calculate/estimate your merit aid based on those. I just tried it with our data from last year. BU=$49,100 w/ $10K merit, Penn=full pay.</p>

20

<p>Ah, so it’s automatic/near automatic merit aid, then? Not sure how much to trust the NPC if they are not automatic, though.</p>