how come smart people go to expensive colleges?

[Duckers]

I know some guy who got accepted into MIT, I don't think he is a 'genius', he just happens to be smarter than the average high school student.

My question to him, which he did not answer, was that why he would go to such a expensive college if he could get a good education at a regular state college.

How is the education from MIT better than that from a state college?

I personally don't think is where you go, but how hard you work and how much you are willing to learn. If you consider yourself a genius, you don't need to go to college!

I would go to MIT only if I got a full scholarship or if I was rich, otherwise I would never spend my money. Of course, that's just my opinion and I am not saying that I would be eligible to attend a college such as this one.

 

[luckydragon]

its the prestige, once u come out of MIT or harvard etc, companies are lined up to hire you. i understand your point if a person is smart then they will learn well at any place but the world doesnt always work like that, your degree and where you got it from matters alot.

 

[DesignDawg]

lucky,

Where you got your degree from doesn't matter NEAR as much as people generally think.

Ricky
DesignDawg

 

[somethingwitty]

Generally, people go to an expensive college based on reputation..studies show that you will earn back the extra money you pay for your education with better paying jobs.

When I was looking at colleges, I felt like I could have a great experience at either Upenn or Northwestern-I chose to focus on penn because of those studies. I won't claim that I'm getting a much better education here than I would have at northwestern, but I do anticipate certain opportunities in the future based on my college's reputation.

 

[beer]

And if you want to go on to a prestigious graduate school, a good undergrad school helps a lot.

 

[GoldenBear]

A degree at MIT will get you pretty far in life in terms of a job and all. The professors at such big schools typically are more recognized and there's a reason they teach at such prestigious schools.

Degrees do mean a whole lot more than your actual capabilities, and often times companies will go to schools like MIT and seek employees there and offer them high paying job; while a state college graduate would typically have to go through the classifieds, make a resume, and go through an overall tougher process. An MIT graduate typically will have little problems finding a good job, and in the long run, I think it is worth it. Any time you have a good opportunity to further yourself educationally, finances shouldn't stop you.

Of course whether he'll succeed at MIT is another story..It is a rather big gamble, since it could be a WHOLE lot of money down the drain after four years, or a great life afterward..

 

[datalink7]

My family isn't rich, so I am pretty much stuck going to a state school (I have good grades, but not quite enough to get alot of scholorships). I hope to transfer into MIT to get my masters and maybe PhD. They have a really good department focused on AI, which is what I want to study.

 

[Turkey]

<< Where you got your degree from doesn't matter NEAR as much as people generally think >>



The only thing that makes something matter is people thinking that it does...



<< How is the education from MIT better than that from a state college? >>


Check out the some of the course descriptions in the classes at MIT vs. the course description for the &quot;same&quot; course at a state school.

Fundamentals of Software Engineering at Oregon State
and
Foundations of Software Engineering at MIT but the more comparable course to the one at OSU is the next course in the catalog, Software Architecting. At MIT, more stuff is covered and in greater depth. It's not always a good thing, but chances are you'll have more work and therefore learn more.

Also, take a look at the different requirements for getting a degree between MIT and OSU. At OSU, you hardly even get into computing.
Course Reqs for CS Degree at OSU

Introduction to 'C' Programming
Introduction to Computer Science I and II (Java)
Data Structures
Operating Systems I and II
Analysis of Algorithms
Fundamentals of Software Engineering
Introduction to Computer Networks
Programming Language Fundamentals
Social and Ethical Issues in Computer Science
Senior Computer Science Electives
Elements of Discrete Mathematics I and II
English Composition
Public Speaking
Senior Capstone Project or Internship

There's no databases, no theory of computation, no computer architecture, and no logic design. Those are kind of basic things that people need to know to be able to be more than corporate robots nowadays, and OSU doesn't provide students with that. At MIT, there are three concentrations of CS depending on whether you want to go into AI, hardware related stuff, or theoretical computer science. I guarantee that you will have more work at MIT than almost any state school, and therefore learn more. There are always exceptions to the rules, but people think highly of MIT students because they generally just know more.

As for paying for what you get, many expensive schools don't have great reputations ($32,053 estimated for one year at Scripps all-women college, #37 on usnews's top 50 liberal arts colleges), while some less expensive schools have incredibly good reputations ($21,202 for entering freshman at Georgia Tech, a state school, #35 on usnews's top 50 overall).

If you think you're &quot;stuck&quot; at a state school, there's a lot of really good ones out there. There's also some private schools that aren't as expensive as they first seem... Rice is really cheap (comparatively) and Case Western Reserve has a scholarship program where if you meet certain academic criteria (SAT, GPA) you get a certain scholarship up to full tuition, end of story. The requirement for the full tuition might be 3.9 w/1550 SAT, but if you've got it you'll pay about $26,000 total for all four years (5k for room and board each year, plus an increase in tuition of $1000/year that isn't covered by scholarship). It's something to look into.