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 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.