<p>My son & I recently visited UNION College in Schenectady NY. The campus is beautiful and the energy their seems great. I have heard some interesting things about their Engineering Program and was fairly excited. My excitement plummeted when I saw their 60k price tag and very limited Merit & Offers despite their reputation for meeting need.</p>
<p>Could this or any school be worth 40-60k a year?</p>
<p>You’ve asked two very good, but very different questions.</p>
<p>Starting with your last question first, “Could this or any school be worth 40-60K a year?” Everyone has an opinion, but on the surface, as a pure investment, the answer to that would seem to be no. There just aren’t many if any engineering jobs that can be had to justify the additional cost over attending an instate flagship school. </p>
<p>The calculus is much more complex though than the simple dollar amount. There’s a number, say $120K, that can be factored for the cost of the education, the part you should see financial return on. The rest is for intangibles, the experience of a small private school, smaller classes, closer relationships with professors, connections, etc. Each family has to decide if they can or even want to justify the added expense not for the paper, but for the added experience. It’s an easier calculation if you are eligible for need-based aid, not so much if you’ll be paying full price.</p>
<p>The second question, how does Union and in general, how do any of the liberal arts/engineering schools (Bucknell, Lafayette and to a degree Lehigh and Dartmouth) stack up, is hard to answer. They collectively produce so few engineers relative to the whole output that your likelihood of running into an opinion here is low.</p>
<p>I’m in the same boat with my son. In fact we’ll be making the same circuit in about three weeks. What we’ve decided to do is to print the typical four year curriculum map for each school we’ll be visiting and compare it to our flagship school. He’ll then go to the placement offices at each that we visit and learn more about who hires their graduates.</p>
<p>I know i really didn’t answer anything. I’m not sure there are concrete answers to those questions.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>M</p>
<p>P.S. One of my partners (not an engineer) graduated from Union and still has great things to say about it.</p>
<p>We did see some others schools we looked at like TCNJ and Rose Hulman that seem much less expensive but perhaps a different Campus experience. But their reputations for Engineering seem very strong.</p>
<p>Also-Looking at NY State Schools like Stony Brook seems to beat all hands down cost wise at like 22k. But I hear Stony Brook can be a bit large and factory like for kids.</p>
<p>I know nothing about TCNJ, but Rose-Hulman is very different in mission than Union. Union is a Liberal Arts school that offers engineering, much like Lafayette and Bucknell. RH is a Tech school. There are 39 engineering classes in Union’s catalog, 379 in RH’s.</p>
<p>The reason to consider Union, Dartmouth, Lafayette, Bucknell, Trinity, Santa Clara, etc. is out of a desire for a broader education. That may come at the expense of the depth of the engineering experience. There are only so many hours. It is the reason a BS in Engineering at Dartmouth takes 5 years.</p>
<p>M</p>
<p>Union is a really nice school, no doubt about it. I loved the campus. The engineering program is so small and intimate that I’m sure the students get a very intimate and personalized educational experience…and in theory, I love the idea of a kid being able to get a solid engineering education within a more comprehensive LA program. While the idea of a school being ‘worth it’ is so subjective, I think you have to take a hard look at the realities of post-graduate employment. When recruiters…for jobs and grad school…come a-calling, are they going to be more impressed with a kid coming from a program out of Union or say, a RPI right down the road? It’s a question we’ve had to ask ourselves too.</p>
<p>My friend who is a Union alumnus refers to them as RPU. ;-)</p>
<p>Seriously though, that is the question. How does the broader education approach impact a person in the long run? You might say they aren’t as focused as engineers, but they are also, in theory, more worldly, eloquent and able to discuss deeper, non-technical issues. Both have their advantages.</p>
<p>There’s no easy answer to that conundrum.</p>
<p>M</p>
<p>Are you eligible for financial aid? Or are you just looking at merit awards? If your EFC is low, then you have the option of applying to schools who are good at meeting need and some of those are engineering schools that are more LAC-like (Tufts is an example). Otherwise, if you are relying on merit money, it is hard to get enough to make it cheaper than your state school. Some schools are more generous than others, and it also depends on how much they want your student. So for example it helps to be a girl applying to RPI or WPI, where they are trying to improve their male/female ratio.</p>
<p>Usually, you just need to cast a wide net…</p>
<p>As for Union, my husband has worked with several Union grads and found them to be great engineers who are also interesting people to work with. We looked at Union when my son was applying to schools, but my son didn’t like Union as much as the other schools that made his list. My husband I liked it better than he did ;)</p>
<p>FWIW, I have two friends who went to Union for engineering in the '80s. One is a 7-figure patent attorney, the other is a data analyst and senior VP of a megabank.</p>