<p>I am in-state at UVM and with financial aid, i could go there for about $5000 a year that i would have to pay back. At UMASS i could go for about $14,500 a year. I am wondering if it is worth going to umass(i like umass better) over uvm and to incur the extra 40K debt(without interest) over 4 years?</p>
<p>I am going for something in the business field, i know isenberg is better than UVM's business program but is it that much better? any comments would be appreciated.</p>
<p>You would be crazy to take on $40k debt. No offense intended but kids your age have no idea of the ramifications of taking on huge debt that has to be paid back after college. Such debt could have a huge affect on your life for many years. My senior insisted on taking out $100k in loans (which we would have to co-sign by the way) to attend a private university, but will be attending UMass Amherst (we are in state) at our insistence. We will pay the $20k per year cost. Go to UVM. You will not regret this decision when you are 22 years old and many of your friends who took out large loans are broke for many years. Our senior got into the UVM business school too, but at $40k per year for out of state - no way.</p>
<p>My son is considering the exact opposite. Wants UVM but Umass is in-state and makes more sense!!! Bottom line is you should go where you think you’ll be happiest.</p>
<p>Are you really willing to pay double (or have your son take out loans) for UVM over UMass? That’s $80k more over 4 years. I really think that most kids can be happy at many schools and UVM and UMass are about the same academically.</p>
<p>I am also deciding between the two schools. I would recommend uvm because it is about the same or even better than umass academically at 1/3 the price of umass. Umass has a good business program, but uvm’s is also pretty good from what i’ve heard. Also, UVM is much smaller and will generally have smaller classes than umass.</p>
<p>I’m not a big UVM fan for a variety of reasons but the cost difference is bigger than any advantages UMass has (or that I think UMass has). You should figure out what you want and put a number on that. Is your preference worth the difference? Why do have the preference? For example, both are in small places - Burlington being bigger but the total area of UMass being more. Both are cold in winter. Is your preference based on wanting to go farther away? Try to isolate it.</p>
<p>As Lergnom suggested, there are certain characteristics you must put a value on. For example if your from the deep south you’ll be stuck with cold winters anyway</p>
<p>I am having the same trouble choosing between UVM and Umass. Money is not an issue for me, so I would rather go to which ever school is better. I would be an engineering major. which one has the better engineering program?</p>
<p>If money is truly not an issue I would choose UMass over UVM. They have the best engineering programs of all the state schools in the northeast. Despite what the marketing machine at UVM wants you to believe it is not a public Ivy. That label may fit on Virginia or UC Berkeley but certainly not UVM. It is a good public school however and if you apply yourself you can learn all you would need to get a job or go to grad school.</p>
<p>So glad this topic is on the board, because it is so important that families talk about this huge issue for a while before May rolls around. From my point of view — a 40-something year old father who pays attention to the money and wonders how we’ll get through the next 5 years—taking on that much debt raises all kinds of red flags. I don’t want to be carrying debt as I move toward retirement, and I don’t want my kids starting out life with debts that resemble a mortgage payment from the '80s. Everything we can do to minimize debt is a plus from my lense.</p>
<p>I’ve never really understood the fascination people have with state schools from other states. Seems kids from Mass want to go to UNH or UVM, and kids from NH and VT want to go to UConn or URI…we’ll leave Maine out of this dicussion because Orono really is too damn cold. </p>
<p>Somebody mentioned that you should go where you feel happiest…I’ll agree with that to a point. If you really don’t see yourself at your state university, and there really is something that draws you to another campus then you need to weigh that difference. But remember to think about debt as something that will limit your options down the road. Think of it in terms of something you really value, like cars, or houses, or vacations. Carrying a boatload of debt may be the difference in your ability to afford a Lexus or a Corolla, or a 3-bedroom cape rather than an apartment, or a trip to Europe as opposed to a few days in Montreal. The one thing I’m reasonably sure of is that your earning power isn’t going to be greatly affected by which school you pick.</p>
<p>Best of luck.</p>
<p>Abstasdad, thank you for that insight. We were deciding between Penn State UP & UMass. oos from NY. D received $$ from Umass in sports management program although PS was always her dream. PS does not have sport management major so going with UMass. PS would have left us w/$55,000 in loans. UMass we can afford… no loans. I’m happy with her decision… she can save the loans for grad school if need be.</p>
<p>Quite honestly I think most kids have no idea what they truly want. They fall in love with an idealized view of something, without realizing that colleges are all 95% the same, and they most likely would be happy almost anywhere.</p>
<p>It’s crazy to take on $50K, $75K, $100K+ in debt for undergrad, and sometimes we as parents have to tell our kids “no I’m not letting you take that much debt and I’m not taking it myself either, I don’t care how badly you think you want to go there.”</p>
<p>I made my kid turn down a top-15 $55K/year school because they offered zero in financial aid, and between him and myself there would have been $100K in loans by the time he graduated. He was very bummed, of course. He wound up picking UMass (which we made him apply to as a safety) over some other more affordable privates (hurrah for merit aid), and he loves it there.</p>
<p>I got in both of them and money is not an issue but i was wondering which one is better. I plan on majoring in Neuroscience. I heard UVM has a lot of hippies and that UMASS AMHerst is boring and in the middle of nowhere…so which one is better?</p>
<p>Boring is the last word I ever expect to be associated with UMass Amherst.</p>
<p>UMass= Zoo Mass</p>
<p>lol…seriously it’s not worth it to incur that much debt…you’ll probably realize that in the future :/</p>
<p>Hippies? Seriously?</p>
<p>UMass is hardly in the middle of nowhere. Amherst is a nice college town and Northampton, another nice college town, is not too far away. There are four other colleges in the area and you can take classes at any of them (the 5 college exchange). They are all connected by a bus system.</p>