re: Bama offering full ride. . .vs paying more to go to a better school

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My kid has Duke in his list. Also has MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, and Yale.


All of them except Duke I could justify. Problem is he is interested in biomedical engineering. Duke is 2 in the country. GA Tech is 1. We live in GA and it will cost about 10k a year as opposed to 83k a year.


Now if he gets into a reach school I’ll pay because of the name recognition. Might be stupid but people that go to Harvard or MIT tend to have higher trajectories.

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So over the course of 4 years, you could save 100k + a year if he chooses GA Tech over a name brand school?

That is $400,000.

You think the name brand school would put him ahead in life over $400,000 sitting in a retirement account when he graduates at 22?

The math ain't mathin for me.

I did biomedical engineering and have lots of thoughts on it (aka, I wish I had not done it).

I’d ask your kid to really think about why biomed and what they want their career to look like after they graduate with it. If it’s to go to med school, then there are a lot easier routes. Trust me when I say it sucks to realize that organic chem is your easiest course in a given semester, when for most people that is one the hardest courses they’ll take during all of college.

Biomed is also a jack of all trades engineering degree, but doesn’t go as deep into topics other engineers are more knowledgeable about. If they want to pivot to another engineering discipline, it will be challenging and require more coursework.

Jobs in the BME field often require graduate degrees, so be prepared to obtain a Masters if not a PhD before hitting the work force.

That being said, it is a fascinating field of study and they’ll learn a lot across a variety of topics.

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Problem is he is interested in biomedical engineering. Duke is 2 in the country. GA Tech is 1. We live in GA and it will cost about 10k a year as opposed to 83k a year.

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For biomedical undergraduate it doesn’t matter. Go to cheapest school. Will need a graduate degree likely to do anything significant in that field and they can get into any graduate school from GT. And get graduate school paid for.