Right now, I’ve decided I want to major in Computer Science and stay within the Midwest for college. However, I’m having a bit of trouble balancing quality for cost and was hoping to gain some insight into these schools.
From what I can tell, the University of Minnesota offers the best program of the three schools. With that said, it would cost nearly $30k a year to go there, which while it is probably do-able would be an incredible burden involving lots of debt.
For this reason, I’ve looked at some other places near me. Both NDSU and UW - La Crosse would be significantly cheaper, closer to $15k a year, with the potential for further scholarships. When I visited these schools, the programs seemed to be quite good, but it can be hard to get a good impression from a visit alone.
NDSU is typically ranked pretty low by US News rankings, but rankings focussed on research it tends to do better on. I was hoping to gain some insight into why the program ranks so low, especially since they are ABET-accredited, seem to have a good program, have good graduate results, and has a Microsoft campus nearby so internship opportunities should be great.
UW - La Crosse is a school that’s never talked about, but when I visitted seemed to offer an alright program. They bragged about their starting salaries and internships, so nothing seemed wrong. Really was hoping for more information than could be found on their website or through the college visit.
Essentially, my question boils down to if it would be worth it to pay twice as much to attend the University of Minnesota, or do NDSU or La Crosse offer programs that are comparable?