re: Are out of state colleges worth it?

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Easier to get a high paying job with a degree from Vanderbilt rather than Southeastern

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Although I don’t agree with your statement, for purposes of argument let’s take your statement as true. You would probably have to work 20-25 years to recoup your initial investment. That’s not including interest and opportunity costs.

Not agreeing that a degree from Vanderbilt is giving you better job prospects than southeastern out of college is ludicrous

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I'd go for the engineer degree from A&M over LSU.

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LSU is an ABET accredited Engineering school. That is what matters most. The laws of physics aren't different in Austin, College Station or Baton Rouge.

I have a son double-majoring in Mechanical Engineering and CS at a US News Top 10 school. He got a merit scholarship covering half the cost of his education. Still, I will pay roughly 200K more for his education than I would have at a state flagship. Why am I doing this? Because he is deciding between being a Quant on Wall Street and going to law school for IP law. He will make crazy $ either way.

He has a math & science aptitude that I don't have, my other son doesn't have and no one in my family has ever had. We did nothing to 'make' him this way - just random chance genetics. He has a great work ethic and is an intellectual freak. For someone like this, you pay the extra money, like paying money for a tennis prodigy to go to a special camp/school in Florida. Short of a unique situation like this, I wouldn't pay extra money for an Engineering degree anywhere.

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The few Vandy grads aren't particularly successful and are social odd

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You can literally look up the stats of average salary out of college and Vanderbilt vs Southeastern is not particularly close

When I was a student 20 years ago at LSU - out of State tuition for me was about the same as in State tuition is now..No way would I have done that now a days.

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For the overwhelming majority of careers, where you get your Bachelors degree does not matter. For a small number of careers, where you get your Bachelors degree matters very much. Some examples....top tier private equity, investment banking, working for the top 3 consulting firms (Bain, Boston Consulting, McKinsey) and high level corporate strategy. For some of these finance roles, going to a school like UVA, Texas or Michigan would open doors that LSU cannot. For pre med, do not chase undergraduate prestige. Get the highest GPA possible at LSU, move heaven & earth to shadow doctors somewhere and kill it on the MCAT.

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/thread


I have worked in finance, legal, and medical fields in both the north and the south. This post is dead on.

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You can literally look up the stats of average salary out of college and Vanderbilt vs Southeastern is not particularly close

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I never insinuated they were. Just relaying my observations of an extremely small sample set. I know probably 5-10 Vandy grads and zero Southeastern grads.

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The networking you get from some schools may be worth it.

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Career wise, maybe. Financially, no way.

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How good does the school have to be to make out of state tuition worth it rather than going to LSU or another in state school. For a major that is useful such as pre med, finance, etc.

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Almost all State Universities offer some form of reciprocity tuition for students from neighboring states or states in a region that allows those students to pay in state or slightly higher in state tuition than a "traditional" out of state student. Most, if not all of these are based on an equal number of students going to the other state as those coming in from the neighboring state...for example for a kid in New Mexico going to school in Colorado there has to be a kid in Colorado going to school in New Mexico (my son went to UC Boulder from New Mexico and paid instate tuition). The student has to apply for this consideration and the slots are limited but there are usually enough slots to go around. It won't, as far as I know, work for cross country students but most regions have something similar.

There are also similar considerations for out of state students to pay in state tuition if their state does not have a school offering the degree program they plan to pursue. I know several kids from my sons high school class went to Texas schools and paid in state tuition because there wasn't a Vet program in New Mexico. Again, there has to be a slot available. New Mexico and Texas kind of have a gentleman's agreement that students from either state can go to the other state and pay in state tuition almost across the board but it is hit or miss.

In state scholarships are usually applicable in these situations. Not always but most lottery scholarships will pay instate tuition at an out of state school with a reciprocity agreement.

My son was a resident of New Mexico and Washington State while attending school in Boulder. He had the New Mexico tuition lottery and when we moved to Washington the Washington lottery which also included a living stipend. He paid in state tuition at Boulder through a reciprocity agreement with New Mexico and the Western Regional Agreement between Washington and Colorado. Had he not had this discount he'd a been fricked.

Finally the schools may not know about these agreements. I know that sounds counter intuitive but UC Boulder did not know, I had to bring it up. They may also be more interested in getting double the tuition for the arse in the desk, but I generally give people and institutions the benefit of the doubt.

This my daughter cannot get into UF living here in Florida. She has good grades and good test scores but not great. There are kids in her grade (one of the best public school) in Florida with great grades and test scores not getting in. We have no option but to go out of state unless we want her at USF, UCF, or UNF. We are looking all around the south and have a few places we have targeted further away.