Regarding rigor, I did not attend Yale, so I cannot speak for it. But I was a Journalism major at UW, and I thought it was hard. I wrote a whole mess of research papers (one 12-pager was written twice, when my floppy disk somehow didn’t save it properly the first time… oh joy), about two-thirds of my non-STEM exams were essay- or case-based and the multiple choice exams were A-J/K/L rather than A-D. Granted, I had an active social life, and I could have worked harder, but I had a hard time earning A’s there. UW does not seem interested in handing out A’s that aren’t earned. I was a 3.8, single-sitting uncoached 30 kid from northern Wisconsin, and for the first time in my life, I couldn’t coast. A lot of kids simply can’t handle the academics or the academics/social balance, but it isn’t a cakewalk for the other 67ish% who can.
That said, kids can become distracted at Yale too, and I would imagine if one were to not give great effort, it would show in his or her GPA. Yale is a proud school – they care about their grad rate, but they also care about their academic rep.
I have a dog in this race, but if everything else were even or nearly so, I would suggest Yale. But it’s not – it’s six-figures not, and this kid wants to go to med school.
OP, UW is a blast. Paying $5k per annum vs. $70k at Yale makes it, to me, the better choice given your circumstances.
I sometimes wonder about how people make personal finance decisions. Perhaps your parents are willing to part with your future inheritance in order for you to go to Yale and that is admirable. But the money is all in the same pool Assuming that you + parents are out zero for UW Madison x 4 years vs being out $240,000 for going to Yale for 4 years, in what way is that affordable?
To put it in perspective, if you were to invest that amount of money (the 240K) at age 22 and earn 7% per year on average until you retire at age 65 you would be ahead $4.4 million! You are not likely going into medicine for the money, but money does matter. If you are a doctor and figuring out any job, any year, any change, etc. it will always matter to you.
Obviously, Yale is Yale. And $4.4 million in retirement is $4.4 million. That is more than most doctors have in savings when funding their own retirements after a career of work. If you have children or spouse for whom you want to provide in the future, the decision is simple. UW is a good school and offers a lot of opportunities. Wisconsin also has two medical schools in state.
Every year we have similar discussion. Yale’s COA is 280K now. The answer is different for every family, there is no clear answer. My short answer above is based on what OP posted - parents could afford to pay their share and OP would come out with 60K loans. I know so many students who have changed their mind about medical school.
My daughter was offered a full tuition at a 2nd tier LAC. I also had a hard time to walk away from 40K/yr back then, but It was my daughter who said she would be willing to borrow 10k/yr from me to go to an Ivy. I also thought about what we could do with 200K. I decided the ROI on my D could be much higher than if I’ve put it in any other investment.
There is a discussion on the Parent Forum about if it matters what school your kid goes to, maybe it is worth a read. From my personal experience, it does matter and it matters more than just the first job. My older daughter is making top 1% salary at an age of 27 and my younger daughter is finishing up a 2 year internship where they only hired from Ivies and Stanford. I think her internship helped her greatly in getting into a top 4-5 law school. We are again at a crossroad of be a full pay at that top law school or take the scholarship from a lower ranking law school. A very good friend of D2 was just offered an assistant editor job at a major newspaper. He also went to a top ranking school. The competition was fierce because the job paid over 70K with benefits. They had a lot of applicants and they had to use some filters to limit number of people they wanted to interview.
If your parents are liquidating their 401K or emptying out all of their savings acct to pay for Yale then your family can’t afford it. On the other hand, if your parents had put away money and planned on paying for your college (maybe in state), then I wouldn’t miss out on the opportunity of going to Yale. I am in no way saying one couldn’t get a very good education from UW, but it is different than what you would get Yale. You need to make a decision as to what it is worth to you (family).
“The competition was fierce because the job paid over 70K with benefits.”
The thing that struck me about this is that a job like this isn’t very tough to get regardless of the college you went to outsideofprestigeindustries_.
I realize there are more important things than money, but for the sake of argument…
A physician graduating from Harvard undergrad will make exactly as much money as a graduate from a small extension campus of a state university. Undergrad has nothing to do with compensation.
In the situation above, where the recent graduate got the $70K per year job: I assume her alternate path would be a lesser paying job, say $40,000 just for discussion. Say both jobs are in California. the 70K job will take home about 52K after federal, state, social sec, medicare, etc. The 40K job will take home will take home about 33K for a difference of 19K per year.
Keeping the arithmetic simple 240K divided by 20K is a 12 year payback. But the arithmetic is not that simple. If the 240K were invested it would likely double resulting in a payback of 24 years. And that assumes that a 22 year old would start saving 100% of the difference between the two jobs, the likelihood of which is about zero. So the real time to pay back easily exceeds a quarter century for most people.
I am not arguing that making more money is pointless. However, giving up savings and compounding investment returns in exchange for a system of progressive taxation a questionable choice. The same is true on the other end of the workalike calendar. If you are nearing retirement, would you rather have saved more than enough or hope that your final years are the highest paying and maybe you can save the difference realizing that is precisely when companies will wonder about younger, less expensive replacements? I would pick savings.
A hard to calculate factor is that compensation arc. For the physician, the slope of the arc is zero. It just doesn’t matter where a person did undergrad. For many other jobs, the Ivy league graduate might have an accelerated compensation arc over a career, mitigating the time for payback of the more expensive education.
I realize there are more important things than money, but for the sake of argument…
A physician graduating from Harvard undergrad will make exactly as much money as a graduate from a small extension campus of a state university. Undergrad has nothing to do with compensation.
In the situation above, where the recent graduate got the $70K per year job: I assume her alternate path would be a lesser paying job, say $40,000 just for discussion. Say both jobs are in California. the 70K job will take home about 52K after federal, state, social sec, medicare, etc. The 40K job will take home will take home about 33K for a difference of 19K per year.
Keeping the arithmetic simple 240K divided by 20K is a 12 year payback. But the arithmetic is not that simple. If the 240K were invested it would likely double resulting in a payback of 24 years. And that assumes that a 22 year old would start saving 100% of the difference between the two jobs, the likelihood of which is about zero. So the real time to pay back easily exceeds a quarter century for most people.
I am not arguing that making more money is pointless. However, giving up savings and compounding investment returns in exchange for a system of progressive taxation a questionable choice. The same is true on the other end of the workalike calendar. If you are nearing retirement, would you rather have saved more than enough or hope that your final years are the highest paying and maybe you can save the difference realizing that is precisely when companies will wonder about younger, less expensive replacements? I would pick savings.
A hard to calculate factor is that compensation arc. For the physician, the slope of the arc is zero. It just doesn’t matter where a person did undergrad. For many other jobs, the Ivy league graduate might have an accelerated compensation arc over a career, mitigating the time for payback of the more expensive education.
To be in the publishing business getting paid 70K 1-2 yrs out of college is very hard. A lot of new graduates are doing it for free as an intern. You can’t get the job if you can’t even get an interview.
It seems to me that if I were not interested in medschool, Yale might the the better option. As most STEM people are able to get into gradschool for a relatively low price.
Agree with the financial analysis of @WISdad23 above. Given the huge disparity in total net costs, I think it is an easy decision if the OP is pretty certain of med school and if the prospects of getting into a good med school between Madison and Yale are equivalent, absent OP’s family being so wealthy that the extra quarter million bucks ± is immaterial to them. If, however, the prospects of med school are not so certain, the calculus does change somewhat. Then it is a question of what Madison offers as likely alternatives to Yale in other departments/interests both academically and student life-wise. Here we have 2 very different institutions. The OP may thrive in both or one may offer a superior fit vs. the other. Besides money, we have to consider the value of the experience for 4 very critical years that OP can never get back.
I shared a personal anecdote on another similar thread involving Georgia Tech vs Harvard. My brother chose to go to an honors program of a top public institution. He ended up at a great med school and then on to residency at one of the top programs in his specialty. He is very successful and happy. He wanted to be a doctor from childhood. However, I am only aware of one friend of his from undergrad that he maintains regular contact with. I, on the other hand, had no clue what I wanted to do/be entering college. I did not decide on a major until junior year. Going to law school was almost a default. My closest friends these days though are predominantly my buddies from Yale. About a dozen of us still take an annual boys’ long weekend trip each year. They are successful doctors, lawyers, bankers, engineers, business owners and journalists – I think we have all made each other smarter and better people. So for me, the money my family invested in Yale was well worth it.
@BKSquared There are lots of personal anecdotes out there of people at large public schools that made plenty of lifelong friends there. Just because that did not happen for your brother does not mean it does not happen for other people. Maybe he was more focused on his studies, or was not as social as you. Who knows. You will never know what would have happened for you had you attended a school like UW. My guess is most kids have a lot of fun there! As they do at Yale. Good luck to the OP with the decision!
60k of debt sounds like a nightmare. You couldn’t give me all of the Yale sweatshirts, mugs, and car decals in the world for 60k in debt when a full ride at a superb school is available. Just my $0.02.
So correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that medical schools care less about the school attended and more so about GPA and MCAT stats. In which case it doesn’t sound like Madison would really hamper me when applying for competitive medical schools.
Based on the career results for my extended family, which includes degrees from Yale and other ivies as well as state flagships, go to Yale, no question. Those who went to elite schools got into similar level grad schools and had their pick of well paying positions after grad school (or undergrad) in their location of choice. Those who attended state flagships had a much rougher road.
I come from a small, rural high school in Wisconsin, and one recent (~6 years ago) graduate went to UW Madison for biomedical engineering and is now at MIT for grad school. My parents had similar paths coming from a lesser UW school and ending up at Uchicago for grad school, although that was decades ago. The opportunities are definitely out there.
In my med school class the majority of my classmates were from a non Ivy schools. I went to one of the top NYC med school. But coming out of an Ivy undergrad did open up a lot of doors for me for residency and post grad. However many of my colleagues are not from elite colleges, and very few people ask a doctor which undergrad they attended. Most do care to ask which med school and post grad training. So if your goal is to go to med school it going to Madison is fine as long as you study hard and get great grades. Buy mediocre grades will certainly not help. Once you get into med school, going to Yale as undergrad in the long run is only to build up your own self esteem.
Does this rare large merit scholarship at Wisconsin come along with any other perks? If this is the Chancellor’s scholarship, what other good things are offered to you as part of the deal?