Hello Everyone,
I’m currently a senior in college planning on majoring in Actuarial Science. The two schools I’ve narrowed it down to are UIUC and Ohio State. As I live in the state of Ohio, as well as a $6,000 scholarship, tuition would be around $5,000 for me at OSU, while at Illinois it would be around $33,000. However, I have heard that the job networking at Illinois for Actuarial Science considerably better than that of OSU. I need help deciding whether I should take the money and go to OSU for less cost, or whether it’s worth it to go to Illinois for more. Thanks in advance!
You’re a senior in HS or a senior in College? If you’re family is happy to throw $28K/year extra to IL by all means go. I see no reason for it. I have a great deal of difficulty believing UIUC has much better recruiting in actuarial science than tOSU.
4 times $27K equals $108K total for a bachelors degree from UIUC instead of OSU. I cannot see networking as a solid reason to choose UIUC. You probably could bribe somebody to give you job for only $10K. :-?
Seriously though, how much better of a job do you think you could get – straight out of college – for the price of $108K? True UIUC is on this list of schools designated as centers of excellence by the Society of Actuaries:
https://www.soa.org/Education/Resources/actuarial-colleges/actuarial-college-listings-details.aspx
How much is that worth? What would it need to be worth, in order to go to UIUC? Probably at least $20,000 extra per year at your first job. My guess is that would not happen. OSU is on this list on the same website:
https://www.soa.org/Education/Resources/actuarial-colleges/actuarial-college-listings-details.aspx
I think OSU would be the better value, even if UIUC has the better degree.
You don’t even need to be an actuary to see that this is a nobrainer for OSU.