Yale vs USC full ride

Long story short: the amount of money my family has set aside for college is enough to cover most of undergrad OR part of law school (not both). I got into Yale (which I love) and USC with a full ride (which I also love, although a little less). If I go to Yale, I have to pay almost full tuition and then figure out how to pay law school. If I go to USC, I get a lot of my law school paid but I don’t get the school, prestige, or network I initially wanted going into college. Help?

If you’re going in to law, your law school network and prestige is going to matter most. I would save the money for law school as that may mean attending the best law school you can get in to vs. a full-ride at a lesser law school.

I would rather turn down Yale undergrad for USC undergrad than have to turn down YLS for USC law because I can’t afford YLS.

Easy decision. USC is well regarded and won’t hold you back at all. Save the money and work hard.
By the way I am a yale grad.

USC full ride. It won’t seem quite as impressive to some but not one of those people will be writing you a check for law school. Also USC is much better weather and an area not so besieged by covid 19.

Neither area off campus is remarkable or a great college town.

Congrats on a job well done.

USC. And I’ve got a Yale degree as well.

yale

Yale for sure
But I feel like the USC environment is much more fun

My daughter was in a similar position last year… one thing that helped her make a decision was mapping out her potential course selection over the four years. The college she chose allowed her to use her AP scores to get into more advanced classes right away, and offered the language she wanted to take… The advanced class and the language class are her favorites now, so she feels she made the right call. But if there had been no significant difference in the course offerings/ requirements, it would have been a lot harder to justify the added expense. Especially since USC has the fantastic weather in its “pro” column.

A full ride to USC is the better choice versus paying almost full cost at Yale.

It’s the free ride now or the $250,000 debt later…Even working at BigLaw it will take a good while to pay that off (BigLaw firms are all in very expensive cities).

@mammamia123 . . . so what you’re inferring – and I’m taking gigantic liberties with this – is that you have numerous siblings or at least a couple of them who will need their college educations funded also (or maybe they’re in college at present, or maybe they’re done). And USC’s ride is obviously merit-based and you don’t even remotely qualify for need at Yale, which doesn’t offer merit. Partially true, flat-out wrong?

That’s a $300,000+ difference if I understand it correctly. No school, not even Yale, is worth the difference. And you have a great alternative in USC.

Don’t be a debt slave. Pick USC.

You are a very lucky ducky to have a full ride at a top 20 college. Yes, Yale is better and smaller but it’s not like you are comparing Yale to UTD or Kansas State, USC is in same tier and a great deal at $0 cost.

partly true, no sibs but still have to pay like 90% of yale’s cost.

So . . . I don’t actually think that USC, fine school that it is, is in the “same tier” as Yale.

Also, you think you want to go to law school now, but you could very easily change your mind. You may decide to go into consulting, or investment banking, or politics or any number of other things (and I’d urge you to keep an open mind about other possibilities – most lawyers don’t like being lawyers). If you want to change course and do any of the things I’ve listed, Yale will get you in the door more easily than USC.

Again, USC is a fine school and you can do anything from there. But it just is not Yale.

Congrats again.

I know that Yale is hard to walk away from as a high school student. It’s a real accomplishment. USC and a full ride is an equivalent accomplishment.

But interestingly - billionaires produced by colleges.

USC #8 30. Yale #7 31

If it’s politics or government that has been mentioned.

Nancy Pelosi. Trinity Washington U
Mitch McConnell. U of Louisville
Mike Pence. Hanover College
Joe Biden. U Del.

If you want a behind the scenes role in the nsc, state department, foreign service or as a congressional aid- it will be much more important where
you go to grad or law school.

I think you can do just fine in business , law or government - if any of these become your path out of either fine university.

Yale is at a higher tier in terms of its brand. (subjective and engrained over many years) .

Graduating from either with your hard work and wonderful natural gifts will make no difference in your ultimate success, opportunities and happiness.

Take the free ride. Or think of it as if someone offered you $320,000 in cash to go to USC.

It’s the same offer.

It’s also the equivalent of free law school and a Porsche with gas money for a few years. Lol.

And we are taking about one of the finest and most selective universities in the USA as well in USC.

However, what ever you choose, good luck and have fun too.

@cinnamon1212: “Yale will get you in the door more easily than USC.”

On the one hand, yes, that’s true. USC isn’t Yale. On the other hand, $250K+ can be invested many ways, and if the OP does well at USC, they can get in to an elite masters program that opens doors to IB/MC/politics as well as Yale undergrad.

Or work a few years and get an M7 MBA (requires drive, accomplishments, etc., but that would be true if you want to leverage the benefits of a Yale degree as well, IMO).

Or just invest that $250K. At fairly conservative 5% real returns, after 40 years (when the OP would be about 58) that $250K would be over $1.7M in today’s dollars, or pretty much enough to retire on. And that is not counting any career earnings or compounding on those investments.

Life doesn’t end immediately after undergrad, after all.

Save your money for grad school. USC is prestigious enough. Focus on getting a great GPA, LSAT score, and letters of recommendation for law school and graduate debt free.

Yale is pretty much my favorite campus anywhere, but unless you really, really, really, really love Yale more than USC, I’d take the full ride and go to USC. (I actually did go to USC.) Where you go to law school is going to matter a lot more than where you went to undergrad.

USC specifically targets scholarship money to steal students like you away from places like Yale, so you can be sure that USC really does want you. And it’s always nice to feel wanted.

“Yale will get you in the door more easily than USC.”

That would depend on the discipline, if it’s engineering or computer science, USC will open more doors, at least on the west coast. I agree that if the change of major is to some other humanities or social science field, then Yale for sure.