<p>Here's my dilemma: assuming I get into all of my choices, I have to pick between Duke, MIT, Georgia Tech, and University of Louisville for a mechanical engineering degree, with the colleges listed from highest to lowest cost. I know UofL isn't at the level of the other schools, but I would actually be getting paid to go there, and in five years I'd have a master's degree and a good chunk of change saved up as well. So my question is, is a degree from the other schools worth the added cost?</p>
<p>You are going to get conflicting advice depending on posters’ POV. Here is my anecdotal reply. Employers want grads from ABET certified programs. They want grads with experience (meaning co-op and get on the job training before you graduate.) Industry has their own ideas about where they want to hire which have nothing to do with mainstream public perception. Find out from the career center at U of L which corps recruit their grads and call some human resource depts and ask them how they perceive UofL grads and if they plan on continuing recruiting there. What employers say is far more important than what anyone else says.</p>
<p>fwiw, our oldest ds is a chemE. He went to a zero name recognition school but one that is highly respected by industry. He was recruited as a grad and had multiple job offers in 2011 when the economy was still incredibly weak. He has a great career that required zero college debt and he works alongside grads from top engineering schools including GT. </p>
<p>My POV is as a parent. Go to the school where your costs will not exceed $5500 in loans the first year plus whatever your parents tell you they sensibly can afford to provide you. Any more outlay than that can’t be worth it.</p>
<p>I don’t want to see my child take on more than 27K in debt over four years (the federal max) and I don’t want to overspend just so junior can go to MIT or Duke. As a parent, I know it doesn’t matter much where you go to school but how well you do there. The MechE curriculum is pretty similar from one school to the next. </p>
<p>@jkeil911 I don’t know how true it is that mechanical engineering curriculum are pretty similar from one school to the next. As I’ve posted before, I regularly used lectures posted by schools ranging from MIT to Ohio State to a community college (can’t remember the name) to study for various classes. Simply put, the courses at the elite schools covered far more material in far greater depth than those of less selective institutions. Sure they covered the same general topics, but what the professors expected of their students closely corresponded with how selective the institution was. </p>
<p>To the OP, IMO yes, especially if you can somewhat easily afford the other school’s CoA. The opportunities available to students at your top three choices dwarf those of Louisville. So what if you can’t get a masters right out of college? You might find it’s not necessary, that a future employer will pay for it, that an MBA from a well regarded school might better fit your eventual goals, etc. </p>
<p>And what happens, if like so many students, you change your major? What if you decide that operations management or urban planning better fits your academic interests? </p>
<p>no doubt you’re right about the opportunities at MIT and Duke, @whenwhen, and the expectations of the professors. I’m not so sure that those things make you a better engineer. I think it depends on what you DO as a student and engineer that make you a better engineer. And when the issue is money, as it is for most applicants, the importance of opps and professors’ expectations matters even less. Keep in mind that professors’ expectations can also increase the possibility that you will not pass the course and finish in four years. I guess what I’m asking is “when is enough enough?” </p>
<p>It’s bad to assume. Once you actually have a decision to make, come back to us.</p>
<p>Yes, lot’s of speculation going on about what-ifs, but two important points:</p>
<ol>
<li>Opportunities - Top rated schools often get better ones, and if you don’t go down that path right away, some avenues are closed off forever.</li>
</ol>
<p>However…</p>
<ol>
<li>Cost - If we assume UofL is free and the other three cost $200K, regardless of the opportunities out there, it will take a tremendous amount of time to make that $200K back. That’s where it gets difficult, what are those additional opportunities worth? It’s possible you’ll never make it up and it’s possible you’ll make it up in 5 years or make 100x that over the course of your career. Anything is possible to some degree, which is why the question is so hard to answer. It’s possible for any of the four to be a great choice or a horrible mistake. Only in hindsight will you know which, and maybe not even then.</li>
</ol>
<p>Many students will find that there are many more opportunities at their schools than there are hours in a day. Others will find that they cannot keep up with the classwork they have. So I don’t recommend choosing a school based on opps you may learn of, may be interested, may apply for, may be awarded, and may take advantage of. Not when those maybe opps are going to cost you a lot of money. Frankly, if you look at any college or uni there are opps for students to grow beyond the curriculum and classroom. </p>
<p>OP, here is a link to the engineering co-op page. <a href=“Co-Op Partners - J.B. Speed School of Engineering - University of Louisville”>http://louisville.edu/speed/co-opCareerDev/co-op</a>
From that page alone it is impossible to tell which corps are recrutiing specifically mechanical engineers, but the fact that some of the same businesses listed on UofL’s website are also ones that you will find on GT and other top engineering schools’ websites means they hire from both. (Fwiw, my dh is also an engineer and I have never heard him mention a Duke engineer, so I think their paths are far different than your typical industry career path, so those types of goals might be something you want to investigate. Most industries do recruit across tiers, so you are going to find grads from all over. )</p>
<p>However, some companies/industries stick to top tiers.</p>
<p>In any case, come back when you actually have offers and hard aid numbers.</p>
<p>Which begs the question as to what the career opportunities exist strictly from those businesses that don’t. I have a feeling that Duke grads are not really working in your typical industry engineering jobs. We run into NCSU grads across the country via our job transfers but have never met Duke engineer. The OP really needs to investigate what sort of work they want to pursue and what companies offer that sort of employment and then look to see where they hire.</p>
<p>It’s fine and dandy to say some companies only hire from certain schools, but if someone from Kentucky wants to work for Ashland, the reality is that they don’t need to pay for a degree from Duke or MIT. Ashland is going to recruit from regional ABET schools as well as schools across the country. That is typical industry reality. The OP needs to understand what the different types of education and debt are going to provide or inhibit (debt can inhibit a lot of opportunities.) </p>
<p>Cost alone is not enough for us to give you adequate advice? What about affordability? Can you attend GT or, better yet, MIT, without too much financial hardship and strain? </p>
<p>@jamesconti
This very much depends on how ambitious you are and what you want to do with your career. For extremely talented and ambitious people, MIT is worth every penny. If a person just wants a good steady engineering job (and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that!), then Louisville is fine.</p>
<p>Also, if you actually want or need a master’s degree, then you could save a ton of money by attending UL for undergrad, and then attend MIT or GT for graduate school.</p>
<p>As mentioned above, if you just want to be a line engineering in a local company, UofL is just fine. MIT engineers probably are more likely to head off into research and/or academia, Duke engineers are probably more often in management, medicine, or law, and GT engineers probably get picked off by top, top companies, although any career path is possible from any of the schools, it’s just that some are more likely from some schools than others.</p>
<p>Employers aren’t going to pay you more for a degree from GT or the others. </p>
<p>How would you pay the costs of the more pricey schools?</p>
<p>There are other schools that will give you very large merit for Engineering…why does UofL have to be your only safety? </p>
<p>Are you a NMSF?</p>
<p>I’m really curious about what avenues close off forever if you don’t pursue them as a 22-year-old grad straight from an elite institution.</p>
<p>Yes, to me this is all about affordability, not total cost. Would I borrow $40,000 to go to MIT for undergrad engineering, even if Louisville was going to pay me? Definitely yes. Would I borrow $80K to go to MIT for undergrad engineering? No. An engineering major with a bachelor’s can easily pay off $40K of student loan debt (although keeping it to the federal maximum is a good idea). But once you get upwards of around $60K, it becomes more of a struggle.</p>
<p>I think it also depends on what you want to do. Do you want to engineering planes at Lockheed Martin or Boeing, or build computers at IBM or something? Elite corporations do tend to oversample from elite institutions. If you simply want to be an engineer and where doesn’t matter, or you’re willing to attempt to work your way up, then Louisville probably will be fine.</p>
<p>Besides not knowing what you can afford, we also don’t know the cost differences.</p>
<p>A cost difference of $20K a year is going to look very different to a family bringing in $100K a year than to a family bringing in $500K a year. A cost difference of $2K a year is a different matter. My recommendation would likely differ depending on the details and your goals.</p>
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<p>New BS engineers are not hired into research or management. They are hired into entry level engineering positions. On the job performance and personal decisions can lead toward management or technical sides of the industry. In terms of being hired into research, academia, or management, you are talking about eduction levels beyond undergrad.</p>
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<p>It would be things like working for a national laboratory like Los Alamos, Fermilab, Sandia, Lawrence Livermore, etc. Or even NASA. Not saying Louisville grads don’t get into places like that, but MIT and GT grads are probably much more common. Also, management tracks at P&G or GE are more likely filled by engineers from upper level schools than Louisville. Again, those companies do hire from Louisville, but you’re probably on a different track from the start than those from the upper levels schools. Moving over to that other track will be difficult, but it’s not unheard of.</p>
<p>Anything is possible from any school, it’s just where the odd lie. And I do like you’re analysis of the MIT problem - there does come a point where it’s not worth it, unless you have parents with money to burn or they just really love you.</p>
<p>I’m at Lockheed Martin, and from what I can see here 90%+ of the engineers come from state universities, not the elite institutions.</p>