<p>I am just wondering about how life after graduating BC is in terms of job prospects. It’s not the ideal school for me, but I am going for academics, so I am just wondering if it will all be worth it in the end vs. going to a cheap state school.</p>
<p>I am also planning on majoring in Economics.</p>
<p>One of my nieces went to Notre Dame and her financial aid package was such that she actually ended up graduating with less loans than if she had gone to Penn State. I think a fair number of people are in that boat and you may be as well.</p>
<p>So I think the answer to your question depends upon whether or not you’ll get any financial aid. If you’re on the hook for the entire amount, then, in my opinion, BC’s not worth the money. For us, the difference in cost between BC and Penn State is a projected $144k over 4 years. I’m not convinced that BC is more prestigious than PSU’s Schreyer Honors College and since we know our daughter can graduate from PSU without loans, we can’t justify BC’s cost. </p>
<p>The only question for us is whether our daughter would be really unhappy at PSU. That’s why we’re trying to find colleges that have that BC vibe she loves so much and will give her some merit money. No question, the degree won’t be as prestigious as Schreyers’ or BC’s, but assuming she’ll need to go to grad school anyway, undergrad doesn’t seem like the time to take on debt if we can avoid it.</p>
<p>eagle:</p>
<p>much of the answer depends on your your state school and where you want to work.</p>
<p>If you want to work in the south, for example, a degree from 'Bama or Georgia or Tennessee will easily beat BC. OTOH, BC’s rep is really strong in the NE.</p>
<p>IMO, at $60k/yr, a private college better be a really good fit, or it ain’t worth it.</p>
<p>it’s not so much about fit for me as how much the name will help. i am considering working in new york but also possibly california.</p>
<p>The school “name” means very little (outside of the elite schools). What matters is what you learn, internships and how you present yourself to prospective employers.</p>
<p>My nephew graduated from the Carroll SOM about 3 years ago. He loved his time there, did very well, and graduated magna cum laude. He got on campus interviews with several companies, but was basically told they weren’t hiring at that time but were glad to keep his resume on file. He took that to mean he should go to grad school and was accepted into some excellent MBA programs. His parents were concerned about his nearly 80k in loans and told him to move back home to Long Island and get a job locally. Back home he was offered two jobs - one was the same job (with the Nassau county government) he’d been doing every summer since high school but was offered it on a full time basis and the other was a job for a small business on Long Island offered through a family connection - an offer he’d have had if he’d have gone to SUNY or St. John’s (where he had a full ride) or Fordham (where he had a good bit of merit money).</p>
<p>Our nephew ended up getting his MBA/CPA from Baruch (CUNY) and that seems to have opened more doors for him than his undergraduate degree. Now he’s got a good job in NYC. I think part of his problem was that the financial industry was really struggling at the time he graduated - I don’t think it can necessarily be blamed on the BC brand. However, his story has served as a cautionary tale for us. Our kids will be taking out as few loans as possible to complete their schooling. Because we know we can afford to pay state school tuition without borrowing, it just seems too risky in this low jobs environment to take on loans to attend BC (as great a school as it is and as much as people love it).</p>
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it’s not so much about fit for me as how much the name will help. i am considering working in new york but also possibly california.</p>
<p>BC’s brand is not very competitive in California, against the other local nationally-ranked Unis. </p>
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<p>The big accounting firms are always hiring, and pedigree of college means little in accounting. (But pedigree is critical on The Street.)</p>
<p>I don’t know enough about the financial district (or to be honest, my nephew’s particular job) to know if where he got his degree is relevant, but our nephew’s accounting job is on Wall Street with a large financial firm.</p>
<p>so are you basically saying BC is not an elite school?</p>
<p>Hmm, a top 30 institution with one of the largest endowments? I do believe there is advantage to school “name” in the business sector especially. Don’t underrate alumni networking… </p>
<p>Oh and yes BC is an “elite” school. It is not HYSP but it has plenty of its graduates working on Wall Street. Not to mention the fact that Boston’s new mayor is a BC grad :p</p>
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<p>What I am saying is that most recruitment occurs in a college’s backyard (with the exception of HYPS). It’s not that employers in Cal consider BC a non-elite school (whatever ‘elite’ means), its just that they have strong connections to hiring locally, which means that they favor grads USC, UCLA, UCSD, Caltech, Cal-Berkeley, Stanford, the Claremont Colleges, other UC’s, etc., all of which are locally considered as more “elite” than BC.</p>
<p>OTOH, the reverse would be true in the NE.</p>
<p>so is going to BC for its name and possibly taking out loans not worth it? it seems like i can’t get an exact answer on how much BC’s name is actually worth or if i am just paying for a nice campus. i would probably do the same things at a state school as BC. it is hard for my family to afford and i am just concerned about wasting money.</p>
<p>As selective as BC is, I’m not sure it is worth its ‘name.’ However if you are looking for a national university that is a small (ish) private school with big school spirit and sports, a close knit community and small classes, BC is a good match. There aren’t many of them: Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, TCU… I would include USC in this list but they have 18,000 undergraduates and I don’t know if SMU, Wake Forest or University of Miami have big school spirit.</p>
<p>Am I better going off to a state school with no loans? I just find it hard to believe that BC’s name won’t help.</p>
<p>BC’s name can help you, but only if you do well in your studies. Students who excel in their academics are in good position to do well in the job market. The question of whether you’re better off at a less expensive state school is very hard to answer - a given amount of money means different things to different families. </p>
<p>As usual, bluebayou hits it on the head. Most of the firms recruiting on campus are looking to hire in the northeast. There are some firms recruiting for the midwest but they’re the exception. That’s true for most schools. Why would a California-based firm fly someone across the country to interview here when there are many fine schools out there?</p>
<p>There’s much more to college than employment after graduation. It’s the education, in and out of the classroom that is also very important. Fit is crucial. It’s hard to reduce this solely to dollars, I’m afraid.</p>