Tulane or LSU?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Tulane University
1

<p>I got into a number of colleges this year, but have narrowed things down to two choices. I plan on majoring in business (with an international concentration), and cost is the main issue for my family, but my parents also want me to get the best education possible. Here are my options:</p>

<p>a) Go to the honors college at my state flagship, Louisiana State University, and pay $6,500 a year. My parents can cover this cost and there are a number of classes I can test out of and get credit for. LSU's business school is ranked 62 by the USNWR. Average starting salary for graduates is $47,000.</p>

<p>b) Go to Tulane. I was admitted to the honors program, and received a good financial aid package considering the size of the school. I like New Orleans much more than Baton Rouge, but attending would involve me taking out $22,000 in Stafford loans over four years plus my parents would have to pay $10,000 a year. Tulane's business program ranks 54 in the USNWR, and there is no doubt a degree from there would hold more weight than one from LSU. Average starting salary for business graduates is $52,000, but as someone pointed out to me, the $5,000 difference from LSU means nothing because Tulane has more graduates taking jobs on the east coast where the cost of living is higher, so the difference isn't because of the better degree.</p>

<p>Which should I pick? Is Tulane worth the extra cost over LSU? Are there other factors I am missing that I should consider in my decision?</p>

2

<p>I encourage you to pick Tulane.</p>

<p>LSU has been falling rapidly down the rankings (not so much because of a decline in quality, but it’s in a lower part of the tier where other state universities are making huge progress).</p>

<p>Tulane will be going up in rankings next year, and that’ll be much more accurate.</p>

<p>Undergraduate business will help you establish yourself in the years between graduation and an MBA (if you’re considering it). The difference in salary is small, but the educational opportunities would probably be vast.</p>

<p>I think comparing the business schools at LSU and Tulane is like comparing the law schools at Loyola and Tulane. In-state, the reputation doesn’t matter as much. But out-of-state, the reputation is significant.</p>

<p>Also, honors at Tulane seems to be much more freeform. I only knowTulane’s, but it’s more of a “do what you want” program.</p>

3

<p>Sleepy Sentry - your post is intelligently laid out, and clearly you have researched this some. Let me start with my conclusion (and of course this is only my opinion): Only you and your family can know whether the overall advantages you would get from Tulane are worth the financial stretch that going there would cause. I say advantages because of course if you didn’t perceive Tulane as your higher choice this would be moot.</p>

<p>What do I mean by advantages? First of all, I don’t mean how good one or the other is with regard to their business school, or how well they may place you afterwards. The latter is subject to so many variables, as this economy shows. I truly don’t believe you should choose or reject a school because of what you intend to major in, unless they just don’t offer it, in which case you wouldn’t be considering it in the first place. No, by advantages I mean the smaller class sizes, the overall higher level of the peer group you will go to school with, your overall perception of how you would fit in, etc. And one that you named already, New Orleans vs. Baton Rouge.</p>

<p>Only you can weigh these and the many other factors that are different between the schools, and make a value decision based on that vs. the $22,000 + the extra $3,500 per year for your parents. As you know if you have read some of my other posts, I do not think that paying, for example, $40,000 PER YEAR extra for an Ivy league or other top tier school is worth it if you can go to a very good school and save that kind of money, unless the money is not an issue for that family (it sure is for us!). That is exactly the situation I faced with my D and Washingotn U in St. Louis, a top 20 ranked school that she liked very much. But she got no merit aid from Wash U, and in her mind Tulane and Wash U were pretty similar. So she chose Tulane and the DHS she got there, easy decision compared to yours. If she had been faced with your decision and the $ amounts you are talking about, we would have done Tulane for sure. I don’t think coming out of college with $22K in debt is too bad. But again, that is our value judgement.</p>

<p>Trojan also makes a good point about LSU falling some and state budgets are just going to get tighter. Tulane seems to be in good shape financially. Also, don’t be afraid to talk to FA office and see if you can squeeze out that extra $3,500 a year or at least some part of it. Just be polite, lay out your case, and see what they say.</p>

<p>Go where you will be challenged and the happiest, I would say. Good luck with your decision.</p>

4

<p>Just a small clarification:</p>

<p>The Ivies have the largest endowments (due to alumni success and gifts), and they are the best in giving merit aid. So unless you “barely got in,” the costs are typically very low to go to an Ivy. In fact, Harvard has the lowest amount of students in debt right after graduation.</p>

<p>Anyway, for Sleepy_Sentry, you can consider other aspects of the collegiate experience outside of pure academics. I lived in LA my whole life, and in the GNO area, but my views of the state and city have changed so much by going to Tulane. And to me, LSU would’ve been high school 2.0. Some small things to consider, even though they might factor in very little because of the steep costs. Remember your decision is also public v. private university. The people there will be coming from vastly different backgrounds.</p>

5

<p>Tulane’s business school is criminally underrated at 54. The finance program has been ranked top 10 in the world for several years by the Financial Times, which is London’s version of the Wall Street Journal. As a Tulane b-school alum from Baton Rouge, I can tell you right now that Tulane will open SIGNIFICANTLY more doors than LSU will if you plan on moving away from Louisiana. Even with the horrible job market on Wall Street, I have friends that are TU grads that are still making upwards of $150k with less than 3 years of work experience. The only LSU business grads I know that have done very well for themselves work in internal auditing. The auditing program at LSU is great, but outside of that their business school is really poor.</p>

6

<p>Trojan - hate to disagree but the Ivies give virtually no merit aid. I know Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Brown do not, and I am pretty sure the others don’t also. I think you are confusing their new need-based aid programs with merit aid. If you get accepted and qualify for their new packages because your family income is less that $X, then they guarantee that they will cover the costs (plus you may have work-study), but they promise that you won’t have to take out loans. If you are between X and Y, then it is a sliding scale to where, in Harvard’s case, you will pay no more than 10% of you annual income up to Y=$180,000. But that statement about merit aid and Ivies is not correct. If you Google Harvard University merit aid you will see it right away in the first 2 posts. Same with other Ivies.</p>

<p>Sleepy - I don’t disagree with anything MonStar said in the least, I can only reiterate that most students change their major after their freshman year. At least that is what has been reported a number of times. So while everything MonStar said is true and to your advantage, I still say go where you simply like it best as long as you can afford it or stretch to afford it without too much pain. In either case, I think it says Tulane for you, so answer is the same either way.</p>

7

<p>“I still say go where you simply like it best as long as you can afford it or stretch to afford it without too much pain.”</p>

<p>I definitely agree with that. I know that my post may not have reflected this, but I am a strong believer in going with the best fit and not putting too much weight into college rankings. I’ve just known so many people that have graduated from LSU with a degree in finance or marketing and they end up doing sales for Pepsi or working as a mid-level employee, like a sales rep, at a bank. I actually knew a guy that had to go back to LSU after graduating in finance and complete the auditing program before he could find the kind of job he was looking for. I just wanted to make the poster aware of what I have seen first hand from LSU’s business school.</p>

<p>The fact that there is such a small difference in ranking between them is extremely misleading and shows the absurdity of US News’ ranking system IMHO.</p>

8

<p>Here, here MonStar. Absolutely right, the rankings tend to be a joke, especially when trying to “rate” individual departments like this. At the undergrad level, no less. I think you said it very well.</p>

<p>I should also have said in my response to Trojan (please don’t take that the wrong way Trojan, I like your posts) that there is no difference at the Ivies of “barely getting in” or whatever the alternative is. In is in, out is out. Once in, everyone is subject to that same formula for aid based on family income. Since there are no merit, athletic or other non-need based scholarships, person #1 is the same as person #2000.</p>

9

<p>Sleepy, after reading several of your other posts I see that you are genuinely interested in the business school. I thought that I would run through a couple of the extremely unique opportunities which Tulane presents that aren’t evident in the US News ranking.</p>

<p>First off would be Burkenroad Reports, the school’s equity research program. As far as I know this program is the only one of its kind in the country. Students follow publicly traded regional companies as analysts. You actually meet with the CEO and other top executives of the company you are assigned and construct the same types of earnings models that are actually used in the industry. The guy that runs the program is really cool and very well connected in the industry. I covered the banking industry and was actually set up, through Tulane alums, with several different bank analysts at large firms. Here’s a link to an article on the program:
[Tulane</a> Students Pick Stocks for Real - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/your-money/2008/04/16/tulane-students-pick-stocks-for-real.html]Tulane”>http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/your-money/2008/04/16/tulane-students-pick-stocks-for-real.html)</p>

<p>The school also has a multi-million dollar simulated trading floor that is capable of calling up exact conditions from any time in market history. There’s a really high quality energy trading program that uses this room. They do some really cool things like simulate the oil crash of the early 90’s real time and let students see what it was like to trade in that environment. There is a certification in energy trading that students can graduate with after taking a series of classes. I know that this program has very strong placement rates in Houston and Dallas.</p>

<p>Darwin Fenner is another really interesting program. It’s an invitation only honors seminar in which students manage $250k of the school’s endowment money in groups of 4-5. Each group is assigned a different sector of the S&P 500 to choose from. The woman that runs this program also runs several other trading courses. She’s really good as well. She was an actual trader in NYC for years before moving to NOLA.</p>

<p>These programs all offer a lot of different opportunities. There are also several boutique investment banks and equity research companies in New Orleans that hire interns from Tulane every year. If you go through some of these programs with a nice internship you’ll be able to command a very nice starting salary and have some options on which city you’d like to live in. I interviewed in just about every major city in the country before I landed here in Seattle.</p>

10

<p>Again I thought I’d point out the rankings you guys are talking about are graduate school MBA rankings, which mean nothing in terms of undergraduate.</p>

<p>Let me point out some fallacies I’ve seen and affirm correct points. I’m not doing this to sway you to LSU, because like I said, I could not care less, but I thought you should at least get the truth and a fair and balanced representation of the school.</p>

<p>“LSU has been falling rapidly down the rankings (not so much because of a decline in quality, but it’s in a lower part of the tier where other state universities are making huge progress).”</p>

<p>This is horribly erroneous. LSU has been steadily climbing, and in fact acheived its highest ranking in the US News report last year. Budget cuts will probably prevent it from climbing further and it may fall, but it has not been in the past.</p>

<p>“Undergraduate business will help you establish yourself in the years between graduation and an MBA (if you’re considering it). The difference in salary is small, but the educational opportunities would probably be vast.”</p>

<p>Debatable. If you have the same GPA and test scores at LSU or Tulane, graduate schools will view it similarly. </p>

<p>“the overall higher level of the peer group you will go to school with”</p>

<p>This is a matter of personal preference and debatable as well. I had a 34 ACT, good GPA from a top public high school, and I much preferred the student body at LSU. Like I presented in the other thread, LSU’s top students are on par with virtually any, and having a wider variety of students is more applicable in the real world.</p>

<p>“state budgets are just going to get tighter”</p>

<p>The budget cuts are real. How much it will affect individual students is unknown. </p>

<p>“LSU would’ve been high school 2.0”</p>

<p>This is true for a lot of students, but if you make an effort, it’s not the case. I’m from Illinois and was born in South Africa, so obviously it was a new experience to me. I have a friend who was from the area, but made a real effort to meet new people and expand his world view. Two of his better friends now are me and a friend of mine from Sri Lanka. Definitely not HS part 2. </p>

<p>And my last point:</p>

<p>How do we know that all the people MonStar mentions and knows outcomes came because of what school they chose? Perhaps the Tulane batch were just brighter overall, and would have been successful wherever they went. That’s my personal view on the whole college process. It’s a chicken or the egg case where it’s unclear whether the school is providing the benefits or the fact that more motivated students tend to choose certain schools</p>

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<p>@LSU - I agree with a lot of what you say, disagree about a few things. First, I just assumed Trojan had some basis for saying LSU was falling, especially since he is a LA native. I will take your word for it at this point that they have in fact moved up in the rankings, although I still maintain that rankings are fairly worthless anyway, whether for grad school or undergrad.</p>

<p>However, I will defend my statement about the peer group. Of course there are individual students that are very bright at LSU, lots of them. But on the whole, you will face less competition, and therefore find it easier to make higher grades without working as hard at LSU than at Tulane. I know this from experience, having gone to Tulane undergrad and also doing some course work at a big state university (BSU) very much like LSU. The books the BSU selected for the courses were the same, the profs were competent and fine. Where there was no comparison was in the day-to-day classroom interaction and the difficulty in getting a good grade. I could trot out the average SAT/ACT scores, etc. between the two schools also, but I think you know what that will show. That is not a knock on LSU, it is SUPPOSED to be a place where people that want to get a university education but, for whatever reason including innate intelligence, won’t be attending a more competitive school. And that’s a good thing so that all who desire it can get an education that prepares them for the modern marketplace. But your very last statement about motivated (and I would add generally brighter, emphasis on the generally) students goes to my point.</p>

<p>But I totally agree that if you were more comfortable with the environment at LSU, then that was a better choice for you. I have always maintained that “fit” is possibly the most critical factor. No sense spending big bucks or, even if money not the issue, going somewhere that you are not happy. I also agree with you that as long as you make good grades and do well on the entrance exams, you will get in most places whether you went to Tulane or LSU. I know some people think going to undergrad is about connections or nameplate, and I suppose that can be a factor in some cases. But even if it is Harvard or Princeton, that wears off fast. It quickly becomes more about the person themselves and their abilities.</p>

12

<p>“How do we know that all the people MonStar mentions and knows outcomes came because of what school they chose? Perhaps the Tulane batch were just brighter overall, and would have been successful wherever they went. That’s my personal view on the whole college process. It’s a chicken or the egg case where it’s unclear whether the school is providing the benefits or the fact that more motivated students tend to choose certain schools”</p>

<p>I would concede this argument for just about any other major, but Tulane is vastly superior for any form of investment related finance. It’s really not even debatable. Tulane’s strong alumni network in Manhattan and innovative investment programs make it one of the better schools in the country for that field. I’ve seen first hand the types of doors that both schools open and they aren’t comparable. And for what it’s worth none of the people I mentioned were severely lacking. I went to the Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts and the people I referred to did also.</p>

13

<p>Thanks for the advice everyone has provided. I still haven’t made my decision, but now have a much better idea of what Tulane has to offer.</p>

<p>MonStar- You’re an LSMSA alum? I will be, too, when I graduate in May. The Louisiana School has been the best two years of my life so far. Tulane is also really pushing for our students this year. Nearly all who applied got at least $17k a year in merit aid, and three applicants got the Dean’s Honor Scholarship.</p>