I’m a Canadian, currently taking a gap year, and have the option of either going to the University of Toronto for Chemical Engineering or Harvey Mudd College for general engineering (I’m an athletic recruit so admission is pretty likely). U of T will cost around 30-35k USD per year while I’ll be paying full price for HMC (~70k USD per year), which my parents are willing to do if I can land a good job out of college.
Does anyone have experience with one or both of these universities? Is Harvey Mudd worth the extra $ / is the ROI as good as it seems? I would like to work in the States in the future and therefore see Mudd’s location as a plus, but I know U of T sends graduates to the US each year, too.
Engineering tuition at Toronto is C$17,300 or US$13,700. While at Harvey Mudd it is US$54,600. That is US$163,000 more over 4 years. If you parents are affluent then fine but it seems like an extreme premium to pay for an education. While Harvey Mudd is well known on the west coast and to employers most Americans would say “Where’s that?”
I’d argue that you are underselling the value of a University of Toronto degree in the US. Maybe the Average Joe here doesn’t know much about the school, but they probably don’t know much about Harvey Mudd either unless they are on the West Coast. In engineering circles, though, Toronto is a very well-respected university.
If you look at this from a purely financial perspective and fully factor opportunity cost, it’s not even close. You should never choose HMC. That’s no slight to HMC. For that sort of dollar difference, you couldn’t justify MIT over Toronto.