<p>Like the title says I'm in a predicament where I can either go to a prestigious undergrad business program (USC Marshall or NYU stern) with lots of debt ($75,000-$150,000) or a less prestigious program (Boston University SMG) pretty much debt free. My potential major right now is marketing so I was just wondering if anyone had opinions about which path seems best. My current goal would be to get an MBA later but at any rate I do intend on getting a graduate degree so with that in mind does anyone have thoughts?</p>
<p>NYU Stern is really known for its Financial strength, Marshall has a good network in California. So, if you’re not looking at Investment Banking/Management or really set on working in California, a debt free education from BU sounds pretty good.</p>
<p>It seems like if you could get into Stern and Marshall you could probably have gotten a scholarship at a school that’s somewhere in between Stern and BostonU.</p>
<p>That said, a debt-free education is always a plus, but marketing has a nasty reputation for leading to crappy jobs at an average program and NYU and USC have both edged into the top 10 for marketing.
<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/spec-marketing[/url]”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/spec-marketing</a></p>
<p>75k alone is so much debt, though! I wouldn’t take it.</p>
<p>Depends on your career goals, if you aren’t aiming that high then you can settle for less prestige.</p>
<p>Having 75k in debt out of college can make your standard of living pretty awful . It’s not like BU is even close to being a bad school.</p>
<p>Do a financial analysis…compare the average strarting salaries from each school…comput the delta between each…determine the debt you’d create from each…do a payback based on years needed to payoff the debt…do the best economic deal…
save your debt for grad school…that’s where you’ll get the best leverage…you get no leverage at the undergrad level…you’re paying for image…its like “goodwill” in a deal…hard to value, means different things to different people…
make your college decision the real first business decision you’ll make…make a dumb economic deal and you’ll pay for years…</p>
<p>Average starting salaries is the worst way to judge. You actually get a lot leverage from undergrad. Applying to a grad school program at a more prestigious, all things the same (GPA), will work to your advantage. A more prestigious school gets you the more superior work experience for grad school too and obviously salary.</p>
<p>I see your point…but $75K to $100K debt vs. none…no issue, go with the economics…never leverage beyond what you think you can afford…just good business sense…recessions and economic down cycles could care ledd where you went to school…</p>
<p>Speak english. Are you saying in a recession employers could careless where you went to school? That’s completely opposite from the truth.</p>
<p>Here’s English…thst’s exactly the truth…have sat on the Board of two companies…ran global operations…have P&L responsibility for large operations with hundreds of people…guess what, you look at the performance, contribution, cost, impact, etc…not where they went to school…sounds cold and tough, but its the real world…that’s English and the truth…</p>
<p>75k-100k is a lot of debt, unless you are going to be making in the high five figures to six figures once you graduate. Coming from someone with a lot of student debt, go for the debt free option.</p>
<p>thanks so much for the opinions
any other thoughts?</p>
<p>depends on how much your job pays lol</p>