UMD vs Rutgers Honors vs UMass for CS

College Search & Selection
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UMD , Rutgers Honors or UMass Amherst

UMD or Rutger Honors or UMass

So my choice finally comes down to these 3 schools for Computer Scoence Major.
Umass - cost about $42 k
Rutgers Honors - $25k
UMD honors - $47 k

Parents are willing to pay most of the cost (full for Rutgers).
Any advise …

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How much debt will your parents have to take on to send you to UMD or UMass?

Both are considered better than Rutgers for CS but not worth taking on a lot of debt.

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I guess I will have to take total 30-40k debt

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Rutgers. No debt

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Rutgers. Cheap. Good enough. Close to NYC for jobs. If u do insist on debt, umass highly rated for comp sci. Plus the food is fantastic, the dorms are good.

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can you take that much debt? you can only borrow ~$27K in your own name- the rest would have to be your parents borrowing it

Rutgers honors is a terrific option- take it and have a great time.

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I really disagree - UMD is generally considered one of the top colleges for CS. While I don’t really think that it’s worth having $40,000 in debt, the $5,000 difference per year from UMass may be worth it.

In any case, Rutgers is the best choice.

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Yea. 22k fed loan plus parent loan/saving for rest

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Agreed. Aside from cost (which justifies picking Rutgers), I too would recommend UMD over UMass.

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I am considering Umass pretty much out. If I am going for 42k then I might as well go for UMD at 47k. Not much diff in grand scheme of things unlike with Rutgers where it’s 80-90 k over 4 years

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Rutgers honors is really really good, IMO. I know Jersey kids wanna get out of Jersey, but it’s full of really high achieving kids saving a lot of $.

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So, @Deshmukhn - I guess you have your answer then. Rutgers seems to be the unanimous choice of all posters on this thread.

Good luck.

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We committed to Rutgers Honors. Thanks you for everyone’s input.

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Glad to hear. Best wishes to your daughter.

For the benefit of future readers, would you mind sharing what solidified the decision?

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We considered several factors…not in the order of priority

  1. Honors vs Non Honors- having honors college at Rutgers vs regular student at UMD. Rutgers won.
  2. Campus: UMD has slight edge with no bus system. However honor dorm at Rutgers are better. Facilities at UMD seemed better with the new Iribe center.
  3. Education - most important factor- we reviewed the course content for CS and syllabus of some of the courses and it seems very comparable. Being both state schools, they covers mostly same material. UMD might have bit of edge with more electives but at Rutgers you can do graduate level courses as a part of honors college if you are really up to the challenge. And given you can only take 8-10 electives out of 30-35, don’t see much issue. UMD probably is better if you are focusing on Cybersecurity but my kids are mostly into DS, ML/AI. Rutgers is pretty comparable in that aspect. UMD is more theory based and I guess may make you better equipped for grad school. The class size is also comparable and UMD is equally crowded.
  4. Ranking - UMD is better ranked although for DS/AI/ML is pretty close as per csranking.org.
  5. Job placement- UMD has better career fair but as per the post graduate report, only 13% people got job via career fair. Rutgers also had pretty decent job outcome as per their post graduate report for 2020,21. Starting salary is also almost same. Most people I spoked to from UMD and Rutgers said no one really cared where they are from or even asked. Rutgers might be even better for NY/NJ job market.
  6. Proximity to home - no contest. Rutgers wins.
  7. Prestige- Rutgers gets looked down upon in NJ. I guess they will have to get over it. I guess after few months no one would care.
  8. Cost - UMD cost $100k per person more as compared to Rutgers.
  9. Dorm life - Being honors dorm Rutgers wins
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