Looking for some perspective. My daughter has, I think, narrowed down her decision to attend either Ohio State or Notre Dame this fall. We live in Ohio, she’s been accepted to the OSU Honors Program and was awarded the Maximus sholarship, and is a Merit Finalist. We’ve been fortunate to be able to save a fair amount for her college education, but also have three younger children we’re saving for as well. We don’t qualify for much in need-based financial aid so Notre Dame will be approximately 4x the cost of OSU for the full four years. She’s planning on majoring in Mathematics and my question is (taking all other factors out of the equation such as school size, campus, atmosphere, etc.) is a math degree from Notre Dame worth 4x the cost of attendance versus a math degree in the Honors Program from OSU?
Can you afford ND costs for her and the three other kids? If not, do you know how to explain to the other kids that their choices will be more financially limited than their oldest sister?
Have you received her financial aid award from ND?
Well you can’t take all other factors out of it because it is those factors that will answer your question. If those factors meant nothing, then it would make no sense to go to any school but the cheapest one, probably a community college.
If she is going to live in Ohio for the rest of her life, there are going to be people, including employers, who HATE Notre Dame and will hold it against her. If she’s going to live in Florida or Texas or Canada, ND might take her a long way toward a great career. If you can take money out of the equation, then do it. Would she rather go to ND or to OSU? If money needs to be in the equation, then leave it in there and take the cheaper (perfectly fine) option.
Have not received the aid package. We’re not anticipating much, but maybe we’ll be surprised.
If the two are fairly close in price, I think she should choose based on fit: Columbus/public/huge rah-rah school vs. South Bend/smaller/private huge rah-rah school.
If there is a huge price difference, I think she would have to like Notre Dame a lot more than Ohio State to keep ND a viable option. All universities have large survey classes and then become quite more intimate as students move into the courses in their major – that’s the case at Harvard and at Florida State, as well as OSU and ND. The biggest difference might be in career services, where ND probably holds a fair advantage. But if she can’t get a job with an OSU degree, it isn’t probably OSU’s fault.
If I were choosing between OSU and ND and price were equal, I’d probably choose ND. Most similar classes probably are smaller at ND and there is the career services edge. Teaching – i don’t know, maybe a verrry slight edge overall at ND, but each school has relative program advantages. So a slight overall preference for ND, if it were me. But not enough to overcome a six-figure difference in price.
“If she is going to live in Ohio for the rest of her life, there are going to be people, including employers, who HATE Notre Dame and will hold it against her.” Interesting. I have never heard this. My D is at ND and we are from Ohio.
@rickroll19, ND was very generous to my D. Hoping the same for you. In any event, they are both great schools and your D can’t go wrong.
There’s going to be employers who hate which school some candidates attended for personal reasons and other factors regardless of the school…especially if it’s well-renowned as Notre Dame or OSU for that matter.
If the employer is going to hold the college you attended against you, they’re not worth working for. On this, I speak from firsthand experience. 
tOSU’s in-state list price is $25,820, according to https://sfa.osu.edu/incoming-freshmen/about-aid/financial-aid-eligibility . The Maximum scholarship is $5,000, according to http://undergrad.osu.edu/cost-and-aid/merit-based-scholarships . So the net price should be $20,820, which means that your original estimate of ND’s price being 4 times tOSU’s price is a little high, since ND’s list price is $69,395, according to http://financialaid.nd.edu/cost-of-attendance/ .
Did you try ND’s net price calculator to see an estimate of its financial aid? In any case, you presumably want to wait for the actual financial aid offer before deciding.
But you need to figure out what your actual price limit is for her college so that you can still afford to contribute fairly to your later kids’ college costs, in order to avoid future family conflict over any perceived unfairness if your later kids have tighter financial constraints on their college choices due to overspending on your first kid’s college. Once you figure that out, you can know whether ND is possible once it delivers an actual financial aid offer.
Note that it is not a given that ND is better than tOSU for math. Some rankings (although at the graduate level) have tOSU higher than ND.
Is her goal continuation to PhD study in math, or more preprofessional at the BA/BS level (actuarial, finance, statistics, operations research, computing, etc.)? The answer may help you determine what to look for if you check course catalogs and faculty rosters to see how well each school’s math department (and related departments like statistics, computer science, economics, industrial engineering) fit her interests.
The math degree from ND is not worth 4x the cost, but the college experience may be. I attended ND and would not go to any other school if I had the choice today. I was pretty thrilled when my son got in last year. And conflicted when he chose another school that was more highly rated in his major. Per the above comments, OSU is likely as highly rated or higher in math. Ratings are tricky as they skew toward the big research universities and ND tends to be lower in many STEM ratings. But I know for his major (computer science) they either placed 100% in jobs or 100% graduated in 4 years (maybe both). And their grads make just as much or more out of college as most of the higher rated schools. So do you care about research rankings? But for my son, they had 5 tracks or concentrations - and none he was really interested in. His school had 15 tracks on CS. And although he went to his first ND football game at 3 months old, he is a musician and college sports mean nothing to him. But he will drive 6 hours to see a concert. He said he could not spend 4 years in South Bend. He wanted a city with a music scene. In the end, we save $200,000. I am happy to save it, but if it was the right fit, I would have happily (well maybe not happily) paid his way. It really comes down to personal situation and what your family values. You can spend your time and money on an educational experience like ND, or save the money and help with grad school, or help with down payment on a house. For me, I would have taken on a little debt to go to ND when I was a student, but that was before the rampant inflation that hit colleges due to bloated administrations. I have had grads from ND, IL, Northwestern, work for me. ND will help you get the first job - but after one week of working for me, where they want to school does not matter at all. If your child is passionate about ND, I would consider it. It is truly a unique experience. But if she is more focused on the academics, she can likely get that at many schools. ND will do more hand holding than a Big Ten and has a much higher 4 year graduation rate. But a kid who can get into ND, likely will not need that hand holding at tOSU and will graduate on time. And , in fact, may graduate in 3 years (more savings) as the Bigs are more generous with APs. In our case, my son will likely graduate in 3 years (I am trying to get him to stay 4 and double major) - and our family net cost will go from about $270,000-285,000 to zero. So that helps me sleep at night! But what really lets me sleep is that he found his fit. They need to live their lives, no our dreams.
Another thing to consider is inflation. Fortunately tuition hikes are slowing down, but ND at 4.18% increase annually on average over the past 4 years (■■■■■■■■■■) and tOSU at 2.61% translates to $295,474 for ND and $84,351 for tOSU over 4 years. Not quite 4x as expensive - but 3.5 times. ND is actually very smart with their money (buildings are paid for via commitments before they break ground as an example) but they find themselves in a race war with other top schools for top grads, with no state aid and too small of a student body. They recently reached out to grads on our thoughts. I think they need to grow very gradually over 10-15 years to double their undergrad population to support the billions they have added in facilities that need to be staffed, heated, and maintained. If their mission is to be a country club, keep doing what they are doing- smaller, smarter, more and more exclusive. But if their mission is to make an impact, the world will be better off with more ND grads.
nvm
My son is in a math PhD program so have been living the math life for some years.
First, many if not most kids who think they are going to major in math change their mind once they start college and get exposed to upper level math material which is nothing like anything they have seen in their life. So unless she already has taken proof based math classes and loved them, do not assume she will graduate as a math major.
Second, future plans with math may make a difference. There are many kids at top PhD programs who came from public U’s. So if she shines in math at OSU there will be no difference in terms of future paths open to her. Also, OSU will have lots of graduate math classes she can take as an UG (I’m assuming there are no restrictions on this at OSU) which she will need if she is headed to math PhD. If not grad school, then you could check into the placement results of the grads from each school in whatever direction she thinks she will want to go in.
I agree that ND math is not worth 4x OSU math. The real question, as noted above, is whether ND is worth 4x OSU as a school to your family. We are paying paying 4x our state school cost for DD to attend a private U. Worth it to us but many people think that’s crazy.
Look at the relative rankings of the math grad programs at each U. She likely will take some grad level classes for her honors degree. USN&WR ranks OSU #28 and ND #41. That is probably a significant difference in caliber. Why pay a lot more for a less prestigious math program?
She definitely needs to consider other factors as well. Her education is much more than just the academics (Ohio State wins on that account, btw). If she really would love the Notre Dame culture you may be able to justify the extra costs. However, Honors programs at state flagships, especially the top tier ones (OSU is in that group) give peer groups on par with many top tier private schools.
For the best MATH education of the two go with OSU. btw, OSU also outranks ND by even more for computer science a field she may also wish to take courses in.
The overall prestige of a school does not mean it is the best for all subjects. In the world of mathematics she may be eligible for more opportunities at Ohio State.
@rickroll19: My older son was a National Merit (Virginia) several years ago. We also have a younger son. We told the older son that he needed a financial safety, just in case his dream of attending Duke, MIT or an Ivy did not work out. So, he selected the U. of Alabama, which has a wonderful National Merit program. He never thought he would go there, but … he did. To this day, he will say it was the best decision. He graduated debt free. He also had incredible opportunities through the honors college, including researching with a professor for three years and traveling to Central America, Europe and Asia.
BTW, he wonders if not having the student debt played a role in UVA Law giving him a full tuition/fees scholarship for all three years.
You say you have other children at home. Would selecting ND over OSU put a burden on your finances, as well as your ability to save for those childrens’ educations?
I don’t think it’s very helpful to use graduate rankings for an undergraduate program. At the very least, there are factors that can make up for the difference between 28 and 41. How involved are faculty members in undergraduate education? Do the professors that contribute to the high ranking mostly teach grad classes, or maybe they don’t even teach at all? What are the opportunities does the school give for undergraduate research? Many math professors do not believe that undergraduates can or should do research, so this can make it difficult to pursue research opportunities.
Notre Dame also has an honors program in their math department, btw.
Just out of curiosity, why would a law school take undergraduate debt into account in deciding whether to give a full tuition scholarship? And how would they even know what a student’s undergraduate debt was?
^^ I was wondering the same thing.
I wouldn’t say Notre Dame is worth 4x the price of Ohio State but Notre Dame graduates on average have higher salaries compared to Ohio State graduates. The College Scorecard says that recent Notre Dame graduates have an average salary of over $70,000 and Ohio State graduates have an average salary of $42,000. Note the the College Scorecard data is not broken out by major.