My child has been admitted to several top-tier universities and the decision has come down to (i) an original “public ivy” school that has offered my child a full tuition - plus scholarship (making college practically “free”), and (ii) a Top 25 elite university that has offered my child a half-tuition scholarship (reducing our cost to approx $30k per yr). Additionally, the public ivy is 2.5 hrs away by car and the Top 25 elite is a plane ride(s) to the West Coast. Finally, my child ultimately wants to be a doctor, and will need to go to med school. Any suggestions on what approach to use to make our decision?
Med school is very expensive. $120K is a lot of money. Take the public school.
Agreed.
I’d go with the public school.
The top public ivy can’t be ranked much/more less than 30. Do you honestly think that there is any difference between 25 and 30 at USNWR?
You can tell us the names of the schools.
If you want to…
Which “public ivy” is it? Berkeley? UVA? UNC?
I’d be tempted to guess Rutgers (an east-coast school whose biggest scholarship is approximately an in-state full ride or out-of-state full tuition) versus USC (a west coast school with half tuition scholarships), but USC would likely be more than $30,000 per year with one of its half tuition scholarships, and Rutgers tends to be despised by in-state students who tend not to think of it as a “public Ivy”.
Public university sounds like a better plan given that the private school does not sound like Stanford or another top 5 school. Top 25 is great but public ivy plus the cost savings is better.
UCBAlumnus is 1/2 right. Schools are USC and Miami University (Ohio). My child has additional funding/scholarships that bring USC down to between $30-35k/yr.
My sister went to grad school at Miami, and she didn’t seem to like it much. But if Miami is practically free, go there.
For med school, there doesn’t seem to be too much benefit to USC and their alumni network. It will be helpful only if med school turns out not to be the goal. I would choose MiamiU+130K over USC myself. I can do a lot with $130K.
Also, outside the West Coast, USC is seen more as “another school” than an “elite”. For that matter, most people see MiamiU as just another public, but it’s free and I heard that the campus is pretty.
It all depends on what u can COMFORTABLY afford. S1 turned down a full tuition scholarship. We were enthuastically supportive of his school choice. It’ll cost us quite a bit more, but we can manage the cost w/o loans.
While your child today wants to be a doctor, a lot can change in a 4 year stretch. I originally started out premed. I did a hospital visitation program which opened my eyes to the realization I’d be dealing w sick whining people for the rest of my life. I changed my major in junior year and went on to grad school in something completely different.
I agree. Plus, considering that USC is way more than twice the size of Miami, SoCal actually might feel more like a public university than Miami.
I might add that the USC student-faculty ratio is usually misquoted as being 9 to 1. Like many private schools, it counts all professors but only undergraduate students in order to get that number. Last year I dug into their common data set, and calculated the actual USC student faculty ratio at about 17 to 1 (almost as high as Miami’s 18 to 1). Unfortunately, USC appears to no longer be sharing their common data sets on their website.
“Also, the USC student-faculty ratio is usually misquoted as being 9 to 1. Like many private schools, it counts all professors but only undergraduate students in order to get that number. Last year I dug into their common data set, calculating the actual student faculty ratio at about 17 to 1 (almost as high as Miami’s 18 to 1). Unfortunately, USC is no longer sharing their common data sets on their website.”
Is it any wonder private schools are ranked so highly at USNWR? That USNWR knowingly lets private schools get away with this deception, and then rewards them for it, is just another reminder for students to realize that the beauty pageant at USNWR rankings is to be taken with a grain of salt. What’s even more egregious is the fact that USC has more graduate students enrolled than undergraduate ones. I can assure you a significant percentage of those instructors are not teaching undergraduates at all.
Precisely my point.
No brainer. Take the freebie. When you send s/he off to school in the Fall, take a nice little trip for yourself and significant other.
USC has embraced online degrees, and the graduate school, remote enrollment has increased by at least 5,000:
https://news.usc.edu/41400/usc-embraces-online-graduate-education/
And as far as Miami and other public “ivies,” they are also treated just like “another school” rather than “elite” outside their geographic locales as well.
That said, I’d still go to Miami because of the high cost of med school.