How to decide when the “fancy private� school is worth it vs the “good enough� public

[Sebastian (a lady)]

One of the things we did was to dig into the degree requirements and course offerings for programs our kids were interested in. We found these through a lot of searches for "major requirements " or "course of study" or "sample degree plan".

 

For the stem kid, what was the expected first math course? If it was below calculus that seemed a bad sign for a major that was usually math heavy. What courses were required? Would the degree be broad or have specialist tracks? Were there interdisciplinary projects?

 

For the humanities kid we did the same thing. With him there was the added trick that his area of interest gets branded different things at various schools. Then he had to figure out if what looked like the right program focused on what he wanted? Was it literature and art focused or politics, economics and history focused? How much foreign language did they offer. (The school he is at has more 2nd year sections in his language than some other schools offered across all four years taught.)

 

Because my kids were both interested in becoming Naval officers, the list of schools with ROTC units was a major starting point for their decision making.

[madteaparty]

Even if not free, it's really hard to beat the SUNY price. Because he has taken so many DE classes just check to see if the schools he's interested in even offer further classes in his area of study. I don't know anything about specific majors (esp STEM ones) but I think Cornell also has some transfer agreement with a SUNY