College selection vs cost

tfiga

Mouseketeer
Joined
Jun 16, 2005
My son is completing his junior year and we are trying to figure out which school to attend based on cost vs future earnings/job opportunities. My son is planning to study chemical engineering. If he lives at home he can go to a regional college and his total debt after scholarships and his 529 account would be approx. $8k. If he goes to a stronger state school or well respected tech school he will have debt of approx. $60k due to living on campus. Is it worth going to a better school? In case anyone is in Michigan and are familiar with our schools. The regional college with minimal debt are Wayne State University or Oakland University. The big ticket schools are Michigan State or Michigan Technology University.

Any advice would be appreciated.

TIA
 
My son is completing his junior year and we are trying to figure out which school to attend based on cost vs future earnings/job opportunities. My son is planning to study chemical engineering. If he lives at home he can go to a regional college and his total debt after scholarships and his 529 account would be approx. $8k. If he goes to a stronger state school or well respected tech school he will have debt of approx. $60k due to living on campus. Is it worth going to a better school? In case anyone is in Michigan and are familiar with our schools. The regional college with minimal debt are Wayne State University or Oakland University. The big ticket schools are Michigan State or Michigan Technology University.

Any advice would be appreciated.

TIA
Do the schools your son is considering post any information about job placement rates and starting salary ranges on their websites? I’d start there to see how much the cache a degree from a higher ranked school gets you. For some degrees it makes a big difference; for others it doesn’t.
 
I'd talk to people working in Chemical Engineering and see what they think.

In my experience, where you got your degree wasn't even on the list employers used in evaluating applicants. Job skills and experience were. And I THINK most Engineering programs has internships (they prefer calling them Co-ops) where companies evaluate students before they graduate. Most Engineer Students have a job before their graduate, often with the firm they co-oped with.
 


Internships and co-ops are two different things. With a co-op, you take a semester off from school, to work at a company for 8 months. Typically, two co-op terms are done--you graduate in 5 years versus 4, but co-ops are paid. For engineers, this can be lucrative, get your foot in the door at a good company, and give you work experience, making them an excellent choice for motivated students. Internships are all over the map--some are summer-only, some for a semester, some are paid, some unpaid, etc.

OP--It might be worthwhile to look at each school's graduate recruitment center. When I was in engineering school (back in the Stone Age!), many, many companies came to our school and actively recruited various types of engineers. Most students had multiple offers by graduation. Note: This was Massachusetts in the 1980's. A smaller school might get less campus recruitment, so he might have to do more work on his own, especially if he has a particular specialty. But, that might be true anyway, if he specializes.

On the good side, once he lands a job, he'll probably making a decent salary--engineering is considered one of the few fields where some student loan debt isn't so bad, due to the job availability and salary. Not that I'm a fan of student loan debt, but it may be worth the trade-off in a higher quality school. On the good side, a master's would likely be paid for by his employer, so he should only have undergraduate costs to contend with.
 
Nowadays it does seem to be more about the internship and co-op opportunities than the relative "prestige" of the school. Our daughter is in the college search process now for business programs and the schools place a heavy emphasis on the importance of practical experience (they call it experiential learning) during college. Networking seems pretty key also. How strong is the alumni network and how successful is this in getting referrals for employment? Consider proximity of the colleges to places where your son would be able to intern - are there enough companies nearby where he could get some internship opportunity during the school year? Just some things to think about.
 
The last of 4 kids is graduating high school in a month, so I've been through the college process a few times for various majors (music, art, chemistry/chemical engineering that later switched to business).

In addition to all the advise above about internships, recruitment center contacts, etc, my suggestion would be to apply to ALL the schools. You never know what financial aid offers will be made and each school will have other merit scholarships that may offset what you're expecting to pay for room/board.

Best of luck!
 
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We will be touring schools starting this month. Based on the responses it appears that co-op and/or internships are key. We will definitely ask questions regarding these opportunities. I would appreciate any other suggestions or information anyone has.
 
Do the schools your son is considering post any information about job placement rates and starting salary ranges on their websites? I’d start there to see how much the cache a degree from a higher ranked school gets you. For some degrees it makes a big difference; for others it doesn’t.
They do post information but it includes all engineering majors so I am not sure if the students not working in their field are all the chemical engineering students.
 
While it is true that employers often have a recruiting relationship with specific schools, that doesn’t mean that they only look at applicants from that school. And, in general, the school doesn’t really matter to employers unless it has the reputation for being a bad school for that degree.

The best thing he could do is try to find out what employers go to recruiting events at that school. If there are some good companies there, then it probably doesn’t have a reputation for turning out sub-par graduates.
 
Take a look at the graduation rates of the colleges. My undergrad’s 5 year graduation rate was dismal at under 50%, mostly because it’s private and students lost funding. It also had terrible support systems for struggling students.

Past that, for engineering, you want to make sure the college is ABET accredited. There are a few engineering schools that don’t have the correct accreditation, which could hurt your son when looking for jobs.
 
Hi there, chemical engineer here! I graduated four years ago and I actively recruit interns and recent graduates for my company.

I definitely agree that you want to make sure the school has a strong career center with career fairs and company connections. That’s where you land those internships or co-ops. See if you can talk to upperclassmen (or better yet- recent grads) there to get their gauge on success in getting those internships and what the recruitment process is like.

As far as debt goes, I’m a huge supporter of whatever option results in the least amount of debt, especially if your student is a hard worker. Unless the school is absolute garbage, they will come out with the necessary skills. I was able to graduate without debt due to some great scholarships and working through school and the freedom that comes with that is indescribable. The fact that I can put my income toward other things is something many of my friends don’t understand.
 
I can’t stress enough the importance of a good internship. My son has been told this a number of times. And he will have 3 internships or field work under his belt when he graduates. He is not in engineering but I think it holds true for any field.
My niece’s husband went to a community college. He had to set up his own internship. He ended up with a guy with his own business. A one man operation. That did not help him much at all because there was no opportunity for hire at that business after graduation. It took him forever to find a job.
When I was ready to student teach, one of the professors sat down one on one with me and talked about the kinds of experiences I was interested in. I ended up with 3 different placements that gave me experience, and most importantly, connections which helped me in my job search after graduation.
So I don’t think the school itself is necessarily the single most important factor of a quality education. But how much support do they give the students in making them marketable after graduation. And what businesses have a working relationship with the school to offer graduates job opportunities.
 
I would have him apply to all of the schools he is interested in, regardless of the cost. My DS18 is graduation in 2 weeks and applied to three school, one because it was a state school/far less expensive, and he knew he would get in. In our experience, the more expensive private colleges offered him far more financial aid than the state school did. He will be going to a private school that is a much better fit for him for less than it would have cost us at the state school.
 
I agree - apply to ALL the schools he wants, see what they offer, and THEN decide. My DD is gonna apply to the expensive private school as her "last choice" just to see how much they want her - if they offer a package that's as good as what it costs to go elsewhere, they might move to #1 b/c they are the top 2 in the US for the program she wants...but at $54K just for tuition, we would never pay to go there unless she gets a merit scholarship (which they do offer) or a package that brings the total cost down to the very low 5 figures (aka, the total cost expectation of the state schools)...but, it can't really hurt to know if they'd pony up or not:)...
 
Here's another vote for apply to private, expensive schools. DS went to a state school. Very little scholarship/grant money. Luckily we saved so his debt wasn't too bad. DD went to a really expensive private school. After scholarships/grants it was actually cheaper for her to go there rather than the state university.
 
My daughter just finished her Freshman year at Michigan Tech for engineering. She left home being very shy and introverted, and the small school environment was exactly what she needed. She came home at happy, confident and more outgoing person. The small class size and campus were exactly what she needed. There was free tutoring for all classes, the school wants to keep up their great reputation and have their students graduate. Her local school would have been U of M Dearborn. It was a very hard decision financially, but it ended up being the best place for her.
Tech has the largest engineering job fair in the state, and most students, end up with internships ( or co-ops) for at least 2 summers. It has a 92 percent placement rate, but for engineering students, it's higher than that. Not that I'm pushing Tech, but it has a great reputation, as does U of M (next to impossible for a Michigan resident to get into, but that's another story), Michigan State and Kettering University.
 
My daughter just finished her Freshman year at Michigan Tech for engineering. She left home being very shy and introverted, and the small school environment was exactly what she needed. She came home at happy, confident and more outgoing person. The small class size and campus were exactly what she needed. There was free tutoring for all classes, the school wants to keep up their great reputation and have their students graduate. Her local school would have been U of M Dearborn. It was a very hard decision financially, but it ended up being the best place for her.
Tech has the largest engineering job fair in the state, and most students, end up with internships ( or co-ops) for at least 2 summers. It has a 92 percent placement rate, but for engineering students, it's higher than that. Not that I'm pushing Tech, but it has a great reputation, as does U of M (next to impossible for a Michigan resident to get into, but that's another story), Michigan State and Kettering University.
Thank you. It is great to hear a review of Michigan Tech. We have ruled out Kettering as tution alone is $45k a year and even with what he could receive in scholarship money, the cost is prohibitive. After reading all the posts he is going to apply to every school in state (with the exception of U of M) with a chemical engineering program and see what happens.
 
Hi,
May 1st just passed and my son decided on the school that was the right fit and the right cost. His heart was set on a school that was 78k a year. He earned their highest merit scholarship, but would have needed to take a significant loan. We ran the numbers and gave him the info. He just couldn't stomach the amount he would be paying back. He researched and found a state school in GA. We visited it and he liked it as much as his first choice school. It was 1/3rd of the price with a great program. Anyway, what I would suggest is also visiting all the schools. It really helps with the decision process but I agree with having as little debt as possible also.

Good luck.
 

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