I’d strongly disagree with the student loans thing. Winding up with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans puts serious, crippling limitations on your post-graduation degrees of freedom. By all means, go to the best school you can, but the economy is uncertain, and there’s no guarantee of that ‘good job.’ Paying off student loans on a service industry salary may well be a form of Hell.
OK, I’m updating on the loans thing, but I’m still not fully convinced either way. Obviously there’s no guarantee of a good job, but a big name on your diploma will undoubtedly make it easier to get those jobs, no? Especially if you major in something sensible, and take appropriate steps so that you get recruited as you leave university?
I do think that having a big name on your diploma improves hireability (depending on what you intend to do), but I suspect, on average, that the improvement is substantially less than a hundred percent. And given that we’re discussing a question of free for a smaller school, or potentially-hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars for a big school, it’s a very expensive less-than-an-order-of-magnitude improvement.
Now, the above is a little misleading. Even a full-ride scholarship, school costs money in terms of lost time and opportunity. That said, most people fresh into the job market can’t expect to make as much as it costs to go to school at a big name school like MIT, so time is not the majority of the cost here either way.
I’d also point out that majoring in something sensible and putting yourself out to recruiters improves your odds no matter what school you go to, and reduces the margin between expensive and cheap schools.
I’d strongly disagree with the student loans thing. Winding up with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans puts serious, crippling limitations on your post-graduation degrees of freedom. By all means, go to the best school you can, but the economy is uncertain, and there’s no guarantee of that ‘good job.’ Paying off student loans on a service industry salary may well be a form of Hell.
OK, I’m updating on the loans thing, but I’m still not fully convinced either way. Obviously there’s no guarantee of a good job, but a big name on your diploma will undoubtedly make it easier to get those jobs, no? Especially if you major in something sensible, and take appropriate steps so that you get recruited as you leave university?
I do think that having a big name on your diploma improves hireability (depending on what you intend to do), but I suspect, on average, that the improvement is substantially less than a hundred percent. And given that we’re discussing a question of free for a smaller school, or potentially-hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars for a big school, it’s a very expensive less-than-an-order-of-magnitude improvement.
Now, the above is a little misleading. Even a full-ride scholarship, school costs money in terms of lost time and opportunity. That said, most people fresh into the job market can’t expect to make as much as it costs to go to school at a big name school like MIT, so time is not the majority of the cost here either way.
I’d also point out that majoring in something sensible and putting yourself out to recruiters improves your odds no matter what school you go to, and reduces the margin between expensive and cheap schools.