USC versus UT Austin versus Northeastern - Advice please!!

Hi, fellow CCers! I’m a current senior from Texas (peep the user). As you could probably tell from the title of this post, I am choosing between 3 colleges: University of Southern California, University of Texas Austin, and Northeastern University.

A few things about me: I am a business major with premed (I want to own my own practice one day), but I am not 100% set on medicine. There is a chance I will want to change this later down the road because I don’t know if I can stomach medical procedures.

I really like USC because I feel like there are a lot of valuable connections there, the campus is gorgeous and has lots of school spirit, there are small classroom sizes with a great business program, and lots of help for internships, jobs, etc. from the college itself. However, you are kind of stuck on campus. I really like UT Austin because it is close to home (this is also a con), its business program is great, and I love my home city. However, I am not in Honors and there is a sink or swim vibe since it is a public school (which may be beneficial in the future when you have to vie for yourself anyway). I really like NEU’s co-op program, Boston, and I am in Honors. However, I’ve heard NEU is a commuter school with few parties/school spirit, very few people graduate in 4 years (which isn’t great if I want to go to med school or get an MBA), and I’ve heard you have to fight with other Boston college students (like from MIT, Harvard, etc) for internships. Although, another thing to consider is that the co-op program may allow me to decide between business and medicine.

With UT as a baseline (since it is cheapest), USC is about $40k TOTAL more than UT and NEU is about $25-30k TOTAL more than UT (and that’s IF I graduate in 4 years with 2 co-ops).

Are there any other things I have failed to consider? My parents are trying to leave it up to me, which honestly makes the decision harder. Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Assuming that USC is $40,000 more per year and that NEU is almost $30,000 more per year

Would that not be worth it?

I’m a USC alum. At USC, being stuck on campus isn’t as much of a problem as it used to be since there’s a light rail line there now that can take you to many places in LA. Plus, there are lots more restaurants and shops surrounding campus than there were just a few years ago. But I wouldn’t take out any big loans to go to USC over Texas.

Would you need any loans at all?

UT Austin is a very good university. Having a degree from a Texas university and also being a Texas resident might make it easier to get admitted to one of the very good public medical schools in Texas (we are not from Texas so I have not looked at this in detail).

However I think that you are choosing from among three very good universities. I do not think that there is a bad choice here unless it involves taking on debt.

By the way, the one doctor that I knew that had his own practice ended up working for a fairly large health care center due to the amount of paperwork needed to run his own practice. The paperwork was a killer.

UT is the more affordable option, especially if you’re thinking NOT going into medicine. You really want to keep the debt down for undergraduate, otherwise you’re going to cripple your future. Plus, we’re going through a major economic recession, and there’s a reasonable possibility of layoffs happening. That’ll make a school like USC unaffordable VERY quickly. I really think you’d be wise to choose UT,

Piling in on everybody else: the key question is $$: graduating w/o debt is the gift that keeps on giving. If your parents can cover any of them w/o debt- happy days! ask them if they can & will also cover grad school as well. If they say yes- even happier days! In which case go for the one your heart secretly wants (I have a guess…).

BUT: if debt is involved, the one w/ the least debt is your best choice. If no debt, but no grad school, ask your parents if they would put the ‘extra’ cost into a grad school fund for you (ie, you go to UT-A & they put the $40K/year that they would have spent to send you to USC in a savings account for you). When you graduate from UT, you will not only be debt free, but you will have a nest egg of $160K, which will pay for med school + living expenses in Texas, or most of a top-10 MBA program, or a down payment on a house, or…

It’s $40k more total for USC, so only $10k more per year (for USC) and then $30k more total for NEU, so $8k more per year for Northeastern