UPitt vs UTAustin/UIUC/IUBloomington for Business

College Search & Selection
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Agree, I personally think UPitt (~5 hours) or Penn State (~3 hours), combined with reputation, costs, etc. are best suited for him. He’s slowly beginning to understand the importance of graduating college without a student loan.

My older son also had his eyes set on UIUC (Mechanical Engineering) but ended up choosing Penn State to graduate debt free. He loved Penn State, and is happy that he didn’t go to UIUC (~11 hour drive) and avoided a student loan that he would need to repay for the next 10-15 years at least. He’s now working with GE Aerospace in Cincinnati and loving his new job.

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Since another poster wrote about US News rankings for undergraduate accounting:

https://usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/business-accounting

The US News Top 12 undergraduate accounting programs are:

  1. Texas-Austin

  2. Illinois

  3. BYU

  4. Indiana

  5. Michigan

  6. U Penn

  7. Ohio State

  8. USC

  9. NYU

  10. Boston College

  11. Notre Dame

  12. U Florida

(Remainder of list requires subscription.)

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It’s clearly what OP’s student was using given that they applied or are applying to 1,2, and 4 with #3 being a religious school.

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He’s applying to Villanova (for proximity and local reputation), UFL and UMD as well.

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Villanova will be significantly more expensive ($86k/year), and UMD is not cheap either ($60k/year). Merit money isn’t easy to get at either of them.

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Why Nova and UMD ? If your concern may be budget (ie loans), they make no sense. If loans become allowable, then they make sense.

UF is solid but FSU is also very solid and potentially less than half the cost of UF if you get the OOS waiver. And less than Pitt.

U Del (after merit) will be less than UMD.

So I would personally figure out - where does budget fit in? And for an accounting degree, are higher ranked schools worth it?

For proximity and budget (if not wanting loans), SUNY Binghamton might be another option.

Good luck.

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Have you run the NPC on Villanova? Is it affordable without parental loans?
It sounds like your budget is roughly 35K so with the federal loan their budget is roughly 40K. Anything that doesn’t match that amount should be off the table. So, UF, UIUC, UMD, or UT won’t be within budget.
However, applying to UMD, UIUC and UT wouldn’t make sense, especially for Accounting, which is (logically) standardized, with recruiting everywhere.

If he wants OOS, which is very understandable if he’s lived in PA his whole life, he’ll find new climes&places with excellent universities… within budget.

I assume he’s applying or has applied to PSU (+ Schreyer&Sapphire) and Pitt (+Frederick but the advantages aren’t as big a deal as at PSU).

IU Kelley is a very good school and hopefully he’s applied to Hutton (the Business Honors curriculum is a godsend for Kelley majors). With scholarships he’d have a shot at being within budget.

If he likes college towns like State College or Urbana-Champaign, then he’s got SUNY Binghamton, UDel, or, especially, Miami-Ohio.
If he likes urban like UT Austin, then SUNY Albany or UCincinnati (Cincinnatus scholarship+ Honors within Honors/Business), ASU Barrett or UAZ Honors.
He can also look at Virginia: GMU, JMU, CNU.

(The 5.5K federal loan for freshman year + subsequent loans are what’s reasonable for a college graduate to pay back over 10 years so it’s doable; anything above the cumulated 27K for 4 years and problems arise).

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Pitt and PSU are probably the best affordable options. I’m biased to Pitt business because it’s direct admit and much smaller. The other schools other than possibly Kelley will be too expensive.

Our HS probably sends at least 50 to Pitt and PSU combined. Other schools that seem to match cost with scholarships are Ohio State and Michigan State. The thing to look at is most scholarships are only good for four years.

FSU and South Carolina might be affordable with out of state waivers. Both have good business schools. S21 is at FSU now and loves it.

Assuming your son does his part along with some internships the outcomes between the schools should be similar for accounting.

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