<p>My son got the under graduate admission in to UT Austin. They gave him 600 dollars scholarship. Everything else they offered is in the form of subsidized/unsubsidized/plus loans. Comes to about 14000 dollars per semester. Overall, we are looking at atleast 35000 dollars per year that we need to spend from our pocket. He is interested in Electrical/Computer Engineering.</p>
<p>He got admission in to UT Dallas. Same Major. UTD gave him full ride. They have also offered him 3000 dollars per semester stipend. That is a total of 6000 dollars per year stipend that the colleges is going to pay him. So, basically, there is nothing to spend from our pocket and we get additional money from the school. We live in Dallas.</p>
<p>We have spoken to several people and the feedback we got was that UT Austin is a better school from a job opportunity perspective and will be a great college to study at considering the future career prospects.</p>
<p>We are not in a position to spend so much money for UT Austin. We have to take loans at least for 25000 per year. </p>
<p>Any advice on if it its really worth to spend so much money for UT Austin ? Thanks and really appreciate your feedback! God Bless !</p>
<p>We had a similar decision to make between UT and OU. Went with the better money. </p>
<p>A couple of considerations. 1) If grad school is a thought, that school will be the key for ‘jobs’ not the undergrad school 2) Can always transfer into UT in a couple of years - degree will say UT, not UTD. 3) Long term, the job thing will not be nearly as big of an issue as people think. UTD’s reputation is rapdily growing.</p>
<p>We had our son do the math between the debt he woudl incur and the difference in earning potential between the schools. That is a big eye-opener. The salary and job differences were tiny, but starting out life with 80-120K in debt is awful.</p>
<p>Our older son has a good friend a year ahead of him in school who goes to UT Dallas on scholarship. He’s very sharp and seems happy there. From what I have heard here on CC, in many cases, it is not where you go, but what you accomplish while you’re there that counts, especially in engineering. (I’m pretty new here - take with a grain of salt) I would think that the gift of graduating without a huge millstone of debt around his neck would outweigh any advantages (if any) that your son might have from attending UT Austin. There are student loan repayment calculators out there that will give an idea of how tough that much debt would be. If you are thinking of borrowing that for him, what does that mean for your retirement, your lifestyle? If UTD wants him enough to offer that deal, there might be other advantages of going there, too - more attention, good internships, etc. </p>
<p>Take the full ride at UTD.
For an engineer, school prestige matters very little - what will matter is professional performance: his grades, his internships (and his internship’s supervisor’s report), his on-campus involvement, whether he got into research for a professor, completed a project, etc.
Graduating debt-free is going to be a godsend. He’ll thank you every day for not being shackled by debt at graduation.
In addition, if he got a full ride, he probably got into the Honors College - meaning he’ll get a very good experience, probably even better than at UT’s, since he’ll get excellent students for classmates, a close relationship with professors (UT’s freshman classes are HUGE and professors don’t know students at all), and lots of opportunities.
And if your son wants the “full college experience”, since he’s “saving” you money by going to UT Dallas, you may let him “dorm” rather than commute from home – that is, live on campus so that he can participate more easily in academic and other activities, get involved, etc. All of which is very important since it builds a resume and helps in networking, plus research has shown that students who live on campus have a better experience at college, better grades, are more involved, and generally do better than commuting students.</p>