I’m a freshman at the University of Arkansas right now majoring in Computer Science. I applied to a few transfer options and so far have been accepted everywhere, but I’m considering RPI and UMN. I have had a good freshman year but I honestly don’t really have any personal reasons or attachments to choose between them so I’m trying to make the logical, objective decision for having the best career.
I don’t actually have my package for RPI yet but it appears that UARK will be the cheapest by far, UMN will be far, far more expensive (+$20k/year or so) than UARK, and, of course, RPI will probably not be cheap (though, surprisingly or not, it will probably be cheaper than UMN based on the big zero in merit aid I got).
I’d say this decision is better than it could be because it’s pretty well cut into “tiers”: RPI, UMN, UARK. Since UMN will probably be more expensive than RPI, isn’t in as good a CS-y place, is way too cold, and seems to be not quite as good as RPI overall, I have kind of “half eliminated” it because an extra $100k in debt to go to another state school seems borderline insane.
But for RPI vs UARK, even, it still seems like quite a difficult decision. I do not doubt I can get a great education where I am, but objectively, is it probable that the (likely) big difference in cost will be balanced by a career jumpstart?
If I look at average CS salaries by major, RPI remains a good $20k/year over UARK even over time and a good $10k/year over UMN. I know there are tons of faults with this, particularly geography / cost of living and the fact that they are also ranked by difficulty to get into, but I am having trouble judging this.
I realize this post makes it seem like I’m judging by salary alone. I’m not, but it’s where I’m starting; I firstly want to make sure my decision is probable to pay off.
Apologies for the long post. Any ideas?
