Are engineering masters programs generally funded or pay as you go?
The reason I ask is that Cal Poly has a co-terminal BS/MS 4+1 program. My son is ahead enough that he’ll be able to take additional graduate level classes during his senior year. Worst case scenario, he’ll walk with an MS in 5 years total.
There are certainly other very prestigious schools he could move to for his masters. It doesn’t seem however that even schools like Caltech, MIT, Stanford or Berkeley would be worth the extra year and higher cost (roughly $65k figuring the differential in year 1 and the extra 6th year, not including wage loss of the 6th year) UNLESS it was funded.
It’s highly variable. It is common at some schools and not at others. However, it would be exceedingly rare for it to happen with a non-thesis MS degree.
I think he’s operating on the assumption that it would not be funded. Funding is possible, but only if the student brings it from a competitive outside source like DOE or NASA.
For non-thesis, they are rarely funded. Thesis may be funded, but to a large extent it’s going to depend on whether or not your thesis advisor is willing to get you funding - whether by giving the money or by ensuring you can get a TA position.
Some schools fund MS students, others don’t. Some schools don’t even have thesis MS because Masters programs are just cash cows for them. But it’s possible to be funded and you should see what you can get.
The cash cow concept was my guess, making moving to another school a poor idea, figuring no additional amount of prestige and connection will ever make up financially for the extra cost ($65k in cost plus at least $65k in lost wage). Funding MIGHT make that more favorable. Moving would still result in a year of lost income.
Honestly, the effect of prestige, especially in the context of engineering, is overhyped by those in whose best interest it is to keep the hype up - such as the schools and their graduates. Having a Masters degree from a good school is much more important than whether or not you have prestige points to go along with it, and nothing about those schools justify their often ludicrous price tags (it can cost $80k/yr to attend, all direct costs but not opportunity costs considered). And the data seems to suggest that people, more than the schools they attend, determine how successful they ultimately are. There are lots of mediocre MIT/Stanford/whatever graduates who start with an early boost in their career but never manage to make anything super special of it. And a lot of said of the connections you get, but the “let’s get my drinking buddy a job” connections are far less valuable than “I know this guy who is really good at what you want to have done” connections that you get in mid-career.
It’s still pretty uncommon for a school to have no thesis MS program, but it does happen. Even the ones that do have a thesis option still make a fair bit of money off of them, though, depending on the particular university’s business model. For the most part I’ve never seen that become exploitative, though.
Prestige doesn’t really matter any more at the Ms level than it does at the BS level unless the goal is to eventually continue on for a PhD somewhere. In that case, prestige can carry a bit more weight along with the reputation of your thesis advisor. Otherwise, at a “terminal” Ms thesis level, it would be a combination of your school’s recruiting connections and those of your advisor.
The perceived quality of the strength of academic teaching and research at your school is also a rather important factor in recruiting. It’s tangentially related to prestige (e.g. Harvard would be more “prestigious” than a big university with a strong engineering program, despite the fact that Harvard isn’t much of an engineering school), but it is important to be able to give the perception to your prospective employers that, if you finished your school’s degree program (at the BS or MS or whatever level) with good stats, then that means that you can be trusted to be academically solid. The entire “prove you aren’t an idiot” situation that often comes up when you aren’t assumed to have a reasonable level of competence is a miserable affair, and your degree (level and reputation) is probably the strongest instantaneous indicator you have that you are competent.
Of course “prove you aren’t an idiot” tests still come up in engineering (especially in CS), but having a well-regarded degree to your name with a solid transcript is highly important for proving competence.
Though as you’ve mentioned before, prestige is proportional to academic productivity divided by school size, and by that definition, the school’s academic productivity is more important than prestige.
I think we’re mostly saying the same thing. You don’t necessarily have to go for prestige (either in the purely engineering or the general sense) but you do have to have a degree that is well acknowledged to come from a school known for being academically solid, in both teaching rigor and research productivity. A “diploma mill” school is really what is most important to avoid.
First, I’m not even sure if I know of any diploma mill type schools that have ABET engineering programs. Most are pretty solid.
Second, as I mentioned before, pedigree is often much more important when considering PhD options and beyond. It’s not the alpha and the omega or anything, but it’s a much bigger factor, though as I mentioned, it can be trumped by your advisor’s reputation.
I think I’m reading from both of you that there’s no reason not to stay at Cal Poly in the 4+1 program for a thesis based terminal masters. Am I correct?
It sounds like a reasonable choice to stay, assuming there is a research area that interests him.
It seems like I’ve heard about a lot of opportunities for high caliber STEM students to do funded masters grad work (at least compared to non-STEM majors),. But I have also heard that it’s rare at top schools like Stanford. Caveat - this info is NOT first hand knowledge because DS did not apply to grad school.
The efficiency alone seems like staying would be worth it. Even paying at Cal Poly, he’d enter the work force a year earlier which would offset the savings of a funded program.