Hello… my kid got acceptance from both UMD and Rutgers Computer Science but the cost difference is $15-20k per year more for UMD. I know UMD is ranked higher than Rutgers but is it worth extra 15-20k per years ? Does UMD offers that much better education and opportunity to make it worthwhile go out of state.
Probably not. I have a kid who started CS at Rutgers this year. He is not fully happy, but I doubt he would be happy at UMD either :-). Neither school is small and cozy. Teaching quality at Rutgers is hit and miss, albeit more hit than miss so far. I think kids will place into the local regional economy. Rutgers CS is not terrible – it is attached to DIMACS which is good for theory CS if the kid is inclined that way. I suspect UMD places marginally more into the national job market than Rutgers does – perhaps 15% vs 10% – hard to find numbers for these. By national I mean the west coast big tech jobs, or jobs that pay that kind of money. If you can be in the top 10% of the class at Rutgers, you shouldn’t see a difference. Rutgers is considered somewhat of a party school. Don’t know about UMD. Other complaints I have heard about Rutgers are a) food can be better, b) it is a commuter school and empties out on the weekend, c)sometimes challenging to get into classes you want unless you are coming in with a lot of credits from HS. I suspect UMD may be similar about course availability, although they made it a closed major in the past few years – so things may have improved. CS at Rutgers is an open major. It is a closed major at UMD. Closed is better other things equal. It is possible that UMD will have better peer quality. I have heard complaints about peers at Rutgers.
You may also check out this thread: Current CS Senior at UMD - ask me anything - #22 by SoofDad
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I have familiarity with both schools (my NYC based firm hires from both).
First: did your kid get into Honors at UMD? UMD has a very strong honors program (compared to Rutgers, IMO), and their multiple living-learning communities create small college environments. Plus they get access to opportunities and funding not easily available to other students.
Second: our firm gets plenty of rising junior internship applicants from UMD who have taken advanced CS courses by their sophomore year. This is less common amongst our Rutgers applicants. Whether this matters or not, depends on how advanced your kid currently is, or how advanced s/he wants to be in college.
Even though introductory CS classes are large (200+ students), UMD has associated discussion sessions (of just 15-20 students each) that allows for small group discussions. Not sure if Rutgers has this (perhaps @neela1 can confirm).
UMD is better known to west coast employers (we regularly lose top candidates to big tech) and Amazon’s HQ2 is nearby, but Rutgers does pretty well in the NYC/NJ region.
Greek life: if this is important to your kid - UMD will not allow a student to join a fraternity/sorority until they’ve completed at least 12 credits and met some GPA threshold. Something to keep in mind.
So I see UMD as having several advantages over Rutgers for a CS kid - but are these factors worth an additional $60k-$80k? That’s a personal decision because not everyone weighs/values these the same way.
That thread @neela1 has linked to is very helpful. Good place to ask your questions regarding course availability, etc.
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Last year we debated such a decision vs Madison, and chose not to take it :-). The extra 120k was a factor.
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Thank you
My situation is but more complex I guess. I have twins going in and one got into honor and other did not 
Money aside does that limit the opportunity the other one may have ?
Ah! Tough situation. UMD honors admissions are very holistic and I know many very high stat kids (4.0/1580 SAT) that did not get into Honors. It’s not the end of the world of course, because the university does provide many excellent opportunities to all students.
However, there will be a meaningful difference in their experience. The Honors dorms are much nicer, there are specialized classes in their area of interest (example cybersecurity) that are not available to other students. Plus there are opportunities to attend seminars with industry professionals or other thought leaders, research opportunities, and so on. So if both kids want to be together at the same school, UMD may not be the best choice due to this disparity.
I think Rutgers hasn’t announced honors/merit yet? Perhaps that could change the equation for you?
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No they have not. Waiting for that.
I’ve had two at Rutgers, I think 20 or so students started there from our HS in 2021. It’s a party school, but I don’t think any more than the large universities some of my other kids attended (UDel and Clemson). I wouldn’t call it a suitcase school, especially those who live off campus, a few of my kids head over when they’re home on break for parties (40 minutes away). My kids’ friends love it, one just transferred there from UMASS. Another good friend of my 20 year old is at UMD and loves it.
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My daughters are also accepted by UMass with $16k scholarship. Not sure if it’s worth going OOS to UMass over Rutgers for Computer Science. Location is also not very desirable.
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Better ranked department. The food is excellent. Importantly it’s a closed major. And I think smaller than UMD which is a good thing.
My daughter had to decide between Rutgers and UMASS for business, back in 2014, UMASS offered $25,000 (her higher stats younger sisters were offered $16,000), decided on Rutgers, one reason was not owning a car, she could take a quick train to Rutgers since it’s only 40 minutes away. It turned out to be a good decision, her grandmother who she was very close to got an aggressive cancer her sophomore year and she was able to come home on weekends for the few months she had left. It’s nice to have solid choices!
I have heard about the Niche food rankings but never bothered looking them up until now. UMass is #3? nice!
(Unrelated - but I was amused to see that the Culinary Institute of America comes in at #38 
)
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We visited. The food is really good. But it is 10-15F colder for two months of the year though. Not trivial.
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Rutgers announced honors college decision today and both of them got in making it more complicated.
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Ha ha! Yes. This means they’ll get merit $$, widening the COA gap vs UMD.
But, congratulations to them both.
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