Prestige vs. Financial Aid Award

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I recently got accepted into Georgia Tech, UofI, and Notre Dame for engineering. The problem I'm facing choosing from these is whether to choose GT/UofI which have really good programs but small grants and aid, or Notre Dame, which does not have an engineering program that is very good, but is very generous. My parents want me to disregard money and go for the better school, but knowing their income/financial situation I can see how much of a burden a huge debt can be to them. </p>

<p>What would you do in my situation? Is "prestige" of a undergraduate engineering school that important for the future? </p>

2

<p>Look up the programs ABET accreditation. If it’s accredited there is NO reason not to attend. People don’t get paid more for being engineering grads from ND than from GT.</p>

3

<p>And it’s not the generosity of the school with which you and your parents are concerned. It is the cost-to-you of each school. We can better help if you can tell us that and include any loans in the figure.</p>

4

<p>So that we can provide a cost/benefit analysis, can you tell us much each would cost: (tuition + room&board) - (grants and scholarships)?</p>

<p>I should note that Notre Dame would be considered very prestigious by most people.
Are you Catholic?</p>

5

<p>I am Catholic.
Unfortunately, I do not know all the exact financial aid rewards as they have not come in yet. </p>

<p>Cost approximately would be </p>

<p>UofI: $15,000
ND: $5,000
GT: $25,000</p>

<p>Sorry for the rough numbers… I want to go to Biomedical Engineering, which GT is one of the best. ND doesn’t even have a Biomed program, so I got in for Mechanical. But I’m not sure if that is what I want to go for, especially because I might want to end up at Med school.</p>

6

<p>My parents told me to go for Georgia, but I still would like to hear if this is the right choice.</p>

7

<p>I’m puzzled as to how you can know the costs of attending if you haven’t received financial aid offers yet. Are these the estimates? They could be pretty inaccurate.</p>

<p>There is a LOT to be said for graduating with as little debt as possible. All 3 of these schools are excellent and if you were my kid and even thinking of med school in the future, I’d want you to have as little debt as possible. I’d wait until I get all the financial offers in hand so comparisons can be made.</p>

8

<p>Thank you guys for your responses. I will get back with the exact financial info when it does come out. </p>

<p>The costs I put above where rough from the calculators at the respective schools. I do agree they could be a lot different. </p>

<p>I feel like it would be harder to go to med school if I go into Mech Engineering at ND, where I probably would get the least debt. </p>

9

<p>Take a loan from your parents (loans are paid back) - Prestige. </p>

<p>If you want to be more or less self-sufficient then don’t go with prestige, but let me tell you that being somewhere that is top-tier transcends money completely in the long-run. Money can be recovered with time and effort, but an education at an esteemed university can be much harder to get after your high school years. </p>

10

<p>You can’t really make a decision until you get financial aid, so I suggest that you try to distract yourself with something else until your financial aid packages come in.</p>

<p>And all three of these places are esteemed universities, so I wouldn’t worry about that too much.</p>

11

<p>Don’t believe the fluff about prestige. It’s what you do with your education not where you are educated that matters. If your parents can sneeze at 100K, then go to GT. If they don’t yet have a retirement fund, then go to ND.</p>