I reached out to the admissions people from Berkeley and Cornell and managed to delay my college decision response by a week and a half; I am deciding between offers from the two schools. I do not qualify for any financial aid and am from a middle to upper-middle income family. Berkeley in-state tuition will be about $14k per year and Cornell tuition will be $55k per year. Finances are not a big concern for my family but I want to make the best value-based decision between the two schools since the tuition difference between the schools is non-trivial.
I am interested in a career in finance, for which Cornell has an upper-hand over Berkeley, but I also have an interest in computer science and technology, for which it can be argued that Berkeley has an edge based on its location. I was initially drawn to Cornell for its strong presence in the financial services sector, but I am not yet entirely sure that I want to pursue a career in that industry so that is not a deciding factor for me. Location-wise I prefer Berkeley but that is also not an important consideration for me. The most important consideration is whether Cornell’s marginally stronger undergraduate experience is worth the premium tuition over Berkeley in-state tuition.
When I did some research on Cornell I noticed that it has 15,000 undergraduates, about 8 to 10 thousand more undergraduates enrolled than at any other “top” private school, which is about the same number of undergraduates as the undergrad population of the University of Virginia. I also learned that Cornell is not fully a private school; it is half a statutory or public school affiliated with the State University of New York. Based on this fact, and the fact that Cornell offers tuition remissions to New York State Residents at its contract colleges, I am wondering if members of CC would recommend that I as a California in-stater pick Cornell over Berkeley since Cornell looks to be a state flagship of sorts for the state of New York and is the federal land-grant institution of New York the same way that UC is of California. This question is about value return of the premium tuition; I met a Wisconsin resident who paid out-of-state tuition for UC–Berkeley for a year and returned to Wisconsin to attend the University of Wisconsin–Madison since she did not believe that the out-of-state premium of UC–Berkeley was worth it given the resources that she was offered. This question is specifically for me and other students of families in the middle to upper-middle income bracket who are full-pay; financial aid packages are likely much better at Cornell than at Berkeley. I would like to know the opinions of Cornellians and CC-ers in general if the extra ~$40k of tuition per year at Cornell undergrad vs. in-state tuition at Berkeley will offer significantly better private school instruction, alumni networking opportunities (during both the College years and down-the-line in one’s career) and selectivity and rigor of the student body than what is offered at Berkeley. Thank you.
Cornell is not a public school, is not a public flagship and none of the colleges within it are run by the state at all. You must not have fully researched it to have come to a different conclusion.
If you are full pay, you are also not middle class.
All that aside, it seems silly to consider choosing to pay what, $200k more for 4 years? For what may or may not be slightly more prestigious in one major over your much cheaper, more prestigious in other areas, choice? And you seem to prefer Berkeley anyway? I don’t see why it’s that difficult a choice to make.
@mom2twogirls “If you are full pay, you are also not middle class.”
This is 100% not true and representative of one of the main problems with the current financial aid system. The upper class can easily afford college, the lower class is given grants to easily afford college, but the middle and upper-middle classes are often determined to pay full price, which for many families is impossible depending on family circumstances.
I am middle class and my brother was full-pay. So there’s one data point that proves you wrong.
@hstarschools, I am a former Cornellian whose academic program involved many biology and chemistry courses, so my experience (and my age) is likely to provide a very different experience from what yours would be.
Cornell provided me with a stellar education and a fun, well-rounded undergraduate experience. That said, I would recommend UCB by cost alone. However, like some other state schools, I hear it is difficult to enroll in certain popular programs and required courses.
Most low income students aren’t handed $55k/year (or anything remotely close to that) for college. If your family was full pay to the tune of ~$60k/year, you’re not a middle income family and declaring yourself one doesn’t make it so.
OP, Berkeley is an excellent school. There’s no reason to pay more just to get an OOS undergraduate experience. NYS doesn’t have a flagship. We have 4 university centers, but Cornell isn’t one of them.
Ok @albertsax . I get it. People have this need to call themselves middle class, whether they are or not. There isn’t really a set, agreed upon number defining it, so I suppose it’s all opinion. Not “100% not true”.
I stand by my assertion that a family that can pay full pay, without loans, and contemplate spending an extra $200k for 4 years of college is not middle class. And not “representative of one of the main problems with the current financial aid system”
But YMMV.
Back to the main point of this thread though, why would Cornell be worth that extra money over Berkeley for someone who isn’t wealthy?
@mom2twogirls You are incorrect…Cornell U is half publicish, half private.
Cornell is unique: Although it’s an Ivy League university, chartered as a private institution, it includes undergraduate colleges and schools that receive some funding from New York State. They are sometimes called state contract colleges. The state subsidy results in lower tuition for students who have New York State residency and are enrolled in these colleges or schools. The state-assisted colleges are:
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
College of Human Ecology
School of Industrial and Labor Relations
SC Johnson College of Business: Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management (Dyson)
The other Cornell undergraduate colleges and schools, sometimes called the endowed colleges, rely on private support. They are:
College of Architecture, Art, and Planning
College of Arts and Sciences
College of Engineering
SC Johnson College of Business: School of Hotel Administration
Cornell is known as the easiest Ivy to get into, but the hardest to stay in.
I would go with Berkeley as it is also a great school but is much much less expensive.
Unless the money is truly not an issue, I’d stick with Berkeley. The only other compelling reason to go to Cornell is for you to get the opportunity to leave CA and get an east coast experience. Bear in mind, however, that Ithaca is not NYC or Boston or SanFranciscoor even Oakland and nowhere close to major cities. You are truly going small town there.
Yes, there is question as to whether Cornell is even “better” than Berkeley. I know kids who have gotten into Berkeley OOS from here go there over Cornell. It’s an excellent school, has ivy luster. It also has a rep of being edgy and competitive in academics Often called the easiest ivy to get in, hardest to get out.
@bopper please reread what the OP wrote and what I wrote before calling me incorrect.
No part of Cornell is a public flagship. No part is run by the state of NY. The state helping with tuition and those particular colleges within Cornell (none of which the OP has even indicated they are contemplating for their own admission anyway) having a mandate to accept more NY residents does not equate them to being public colleges. I can’t say whether it qualifies them as publicish since I’m not sure how that is being defined. I’m not sure which part of what I wrote originally you thought was incorrect. If you have evidence that the state of NY hires and fires professors, pays professors, sets curriculum, or even has a hand beyond a minimum requirement of students needing to be from NY, please show me. Aside from subsidizing tuition for NY residents, does the state even have a hand in the budget process for these colleges in Cornell? All of those things would perhaps lead me to believe they are “publicish”. Otherwise, all I see is that some of the colleges receive some extra financial support for tuition in comparison to other private colleges in NY. Other private NY colleges also get money from the state for student tuition (TAP, STEM scholarships), so are they also publicish? Or is it just that the state requires a certain number of students in those colleges to be from within NY that it makes them publics?
Anyway, none of the makes sense as a reason to decide for or against Cornell for this student. The reality of the cost difference for what is an subjectively equivalent education, in addition to the student prefering Berkeley, means choosing Berkeley is the best choice.
We had the opposite situation in that our state flagship was going to cost more (at least this year) than almost all the private schools to which our daughter was accepted.
From a purely ROI perspective, it’s really hard to justify full price for Cornell when you get a discount to Cal just by being a CA resident when you consider that money not spent, if invested, can be reasonably expected to be 7-15 times as much in 40 years (about when you will retire) in real terms assuming that you can get the classes that you want.
@austinmshauri By any of the basic measurements (Pew Research has a good calculator that takes into account location and family size), my family is indeed middle class and indeed was determined to be full pay with one child in college.
I was referring to institutions that meet full need. A regional public will likely not provide any aid for anyone and so it’s not really relevant.
Why do you believe colleges are the ones to determine one’s social class?
Haha yeah, I totally agree. You have households with 2-3 kids with 200k annual income with analogically similar assets claiming to be “middle class”. It is getting kind of ridiculous.
We went through this equation last year. Once my D was accepted to Honors UNC early action we took Cornell off the table. There was no way were going to pay $200k more for a college roughly the same size. They told us on Cornell tour that some intro classes are very large and it felt large walking around. Cornell is great, but we just couldn’t articulate the value proposition over UNC.
(Full disclosure, D ended up being WL at Cornell – maybe they had spidey sense she had taken it off her list, lol? Also, she end going to a highly selective LAC so we are paying more than for UNC; however, we feel like we can actually see where the money is going – small classes, full professors teaching all the classes, lots of $ avail to fund research and travel – and she realized smaller was better fit for her. And they offered us some aid. Realize not everyone would make same choice. )
Net price calculators at good financial aid private colleges suggest that one needs to have very high income (e.g. $200,000+) or large assets to be full pay. Of course, if the private college has bad financial aid (but then we would be referring to NYU, BU, etc. rather than Cornell or other Ivy League schools), full pay would be at a lower threshold. But the level of income and wealth to be full pay at good financial aid private colleges is multiples higher than the median in the US.
Yes, at least in theory.
Only at a small number of highly selective colleges that admit few students from lower class families (due to various K-12 disadvantages that prevent most of them from being admissions-competitive), or in a small number of states with good in-state financial aid. Students from lower class families in some states, like Pennsylvania and Illinois, may find their in-state public schools to be unaffordable.
If a family with $200,000 income lived and spent money like a family with $60,000-100,000 income (the upper middle range in the US), then it would be saving plenty of money for kids’ college and parents’ retirement.
Which division/major did you get admitted to at each school?
Note that UCB L&S CS does require a 3.3 GPA in the first three CS courses to declare the major, and the UCB business major is competitive admission after two years. Cornell requires a 2.5 GPA in CS courses and a 2.5 GPA in math courses to declare the CS major, and changing to the business (AEM) major if not already in it is a competitive process.
However, Cornell has a huge price difference against it.
Cornell does have better recruiting on Wall Street, but just marginally. You’ll still have plenty of opportunities in finance coming from Berkeley. Its really up to you on whether the extra money is worth it.