Is CMU Undergrad worth the debt?
So... yesterday I was officially accepted into Carnegie Mellon. Now I'm wondering - is it worth the money?
It costs 55k a year - assuming parents provide 15k a year, I provide 5k a year, and CMU gives me a grant of 10k a year, that leaves 25k a year, or 100k worth of debt.
Short and sweet: is it worth the debt over a public university (specifically, University of Maryland)?
I've crunched some numbers and assumed I get an S&T job out of undergrad in NYC. The numbers would look somewhat like this:
Apartment: 1500
Utilities: 200
Other: 50
Total Rent: 1750
Food 300
Metro 100
Cable 100
Cell 100
Misc 150
Total Misc: 750
Total Monthly Cost: 2500
Total Yearly Expense Cost: 30000
Total College Loan Monthly Cost: 1075
Total Yearly Debt Cost : 13000
Total Yearly Important Incidentals: 2000
Total Yearly Cost: 45000
How Much I Will Be Making: 65000 +25000 Bonus = 90000
Net Income = Earnings/2 = 45000
So net balance = 0... so it should be doable (if these numbers look off, please correct me!)
All opinions would be welcome!
Pretty sure you will be paying more than $300 a month on food.
only if you got into the cs program
no its not worth it--esp in the context of you determining "worth" through whether you get a FT S&T job out of undergrad (assume you mean BB?). Contingent on you achieving top academic status, networking your face off, interning every summer, and preparing to kick ass in a soph/jr summer analyst role, it is likely that you could get a FT offer from a desk coming out of U of Maryland.
I got into the CS program at CMU- even got some financial aid- weighed it against $17K/year Illinois and figured it was not worth the extra $100K (at the time) to go to the #1 ranked CS school instead of the #5 ranked CS school. Best decision I ever made- saved $100K and wound up in roughly the same spot I would have had I spent the extra money on CMU.
Maryland College Park is an excellent CS program- roughly in line with Illinois. If you are a Maryland resident and get to pay in-state tuition, I'd take Maryland over CMU.
CMU is a great program- arguably the best in the country, but it's hard to sell it- or any other private school- over a top ten state school for engineering if you're paying in-state tuition.
As for landing in S&T, it's hard to land as a sales guy or trader straight out of undergrad with a CS background. The banks will probably want to take advantage of your programming skills for the first few years and have you work as an analytics developer pricing these products first before they move you into trading. It's just as cool of a job and the comp/selectivity situation is similar or perhaps a little better, but the work is different. You'll be sitting up with research and management rather than on the trading floor and it will be much quieter.
Keep your options open and don't write off Google or IBM so fast.
Not having $100k+ in debt was also the best decision I ever made. Being called to active duty 2nd year out of undergrad allowed me to buy an entire condo in cash and rent it out instead of paying back educational loans. If I had taken $100+k in education debt, it would have set me back 5 years at the time.
And having a very high income in a low cost of living area also contributes to rapid wealth creation.
It wasn't for me. Took full tuition scholarship to a state school instead of paying 40k per year at CMU. You can always transfer out of UMD in 2 years if you are still worried about getting into S&T and get the target/semi-target diploma at half-cost.
Just for the record, people will say it's tough to get into a BB out of state school. But if you can get into CMU for CS, H/Y/P/W for something generic like math, econ, or finance would have been a slam dunk. You're going to learn pretty much the same material at College Park and once you land the interview- which you will, you're going to be smarter than the kids you're up against. The one thing is how confident you'll be interviewing against a bunch of target school kids.
The good news in the land of programming is that the interviews are 95% technical. Can you get the algorithm to run in O(n^2*logn) time? Can you spot the opportunity to do a radix sort rather than a divide-and-conquer sort? The guy interviewing you might be from Harvard, he might hate your guts for being from a state school, but if you can solve the problem and the Harvard CS major you're interviewing against can't, they really have no choice, do they? The last thing Goldman wants is to lose a brilliant programmer to Morgan Stanley or Citadel.
Your answers are generally very good - however seems the OP is aiming for an S&T -- CS may be a strong option, esp in a structuring role or a quant product desk, but you can take pretty high maths doing a quant fin/econometrics/bs in econ type degree and waste less time w info that is non core to your actual job. If he's just going for a flow desk then undergrad biz or econ will likely be fine... I think if he's evaluating success on the basis of getting an S&T job (seems so) then spending so much money on CMU (which isn't H/Y/P/W/S in the eyes of S&T recruiting) doesn't seem to make sense. If he measured success in any other way (aside from his ultimate goal of getting a generic entry level S&T job) my answer might be diff
I didn't apply SCS for CMU... just MCS Math and Tepper :S
Although wherever I'll go I'll likely have at least a CS Minor.
If you go to CMU Happy will buy you a beer so there is that to consider too...
Hey, you can't live in New York City on $30 K a year. My car costs alone are approx. $15 K per year. 2 bedroom apartment is $4 K per month. Plus you need to provide for emergency medical expenses, entertainment, etc. Anyway, if you stay focused on your game, the $100 K debt will seem like pocket change after a few years. If you lose your focus, the $100 K debt will make your life miserable for many years. The collection agencies are unscrupulous monsters when they know that you cannot file for bankruptcy. If you are planning to terminate your education with a Bachelor degree, then I would take the $100 K debt and get the CMU brand on my resume. Otherwise, go to Maryland, and then after working for three years, target a Top 5 MBA. That will give you the brand name and alumni network and also the $180 K debt.
That's exactly what I'm aiming for and why I applied to math/business. If I do Comp Sci I won't have time to do computational finance (unless I remove any semblance of a social life....)
Also, I'm not measuring success by an achievment of an S&T job. I was just pulling numbers to see that I could actually pull it off financially... my end goal is (for now) HF. Also, I like the atmosphere of CMU more - the people, the city, everything. If only it wasn't so expensive....
Dang I thought you got in the CS program. CMU to CS is like Johns Hopkins to Medicine.
Just keep in mind that if you go to your state school, the whole time you may be wondering "what if..."
CMU is a very well respected school and if you get in their Computational Finance program then you are gold.
if you wanna do sales and trading, go to michigan, get into ross, get a bba in finance with a math minor
The only undergrad institutions I would consider going into 100K+ debt for are...
None.
Go to a state school and you'll do okay.
Sidenote: Man am I glad I finished undergrad a couple of years back. You new guys are getting railroaded by these institutions. It's really sad.
Bumping for more opinions.
What kind of HF are you aiming for? What kind of strategy?
I just like the concept of hedging (i.e I'm actually fascinated by the idea and not the money... well, the money is nice too...) so I guess L/S fund? But seriously, it's way too early to be that streamlined.
EDIT: well fuck I'm being hypocritical aren't I...
It's not absurd to have an idea. You supposedly have made up your mind that you want to work at a HF (because you are Fascinated with the idea of hedging, and of course not the money) - you can't handle 1% more introspection to see if you like quant macro vs. fundamental equity investing?
debt is never worth it
The top 5% are going to either be architects at Google or work as quants or TAs at Citadel/Getco/Jump.
As someone interested in finance, you will want to naturally have some fin/accy courses under your belt and be particularly strong in data structures, algorithms, machine learning, and probability/calculus.
I picked a decent state school, but definitely a non-target-think Minnesota-over Michigan to save $80,000 over 4 years. I'd make the same decision if I had to do it all over.
You see the reality euroazn, is that you can always go fwd, but you can never go backward. I rarely hear of a person with an undergrad state degree wanting to get into finance say, "Man, I should have went to Harvard, I'm screwed for life." Their debt is manageable by comparison and they can always go to a top tier MBA/MS program and achieve that pedigree if they feel they are lacking and want to make up for lost ground.
However, if you go to an expensive undergrad and can't get a solid ROI post graduation, that debt doesn't reset itself. You are stuck my friend. A top tier program will only add to the pain.
No offence to any of you folks out there.
While we may disagree on the statistical reference, there can be no quarrel with the reality that life does not end after undergraduate. Graduate school is always an option and an equitable equalizer.
That really scared me when I was trying to decide between Illinois- a school very similar to Maryland in CS- and CMU. CMU is an amazing Comp Sci school- particularly in robotics. But Maryland and Illinois are pretty darned strong, too, and kids from those schools beat CMU and MIT grads out for jobs all the time. MIT CS: Maryland CS::Princeton Econ:Chicago Econ.
I got lucky- I graduated in a year when CMU and MIT kids were landing jobs that could cover their debt burden. But if you graduate in a bad year, you may find yourself unable to make payments on your debt and wind up in this career death spiral where nobody wants to keep you employed because they have to deal with garnishing your wages.
So the conservative and IMHO wise route here is Maryland College Park. But the folks over at QuantNet- nearly all with CS and Math undergrad backgrounds who work in S&T, are going to give you a whole lot more and better advice than I can.
But here's the thing - what if I don't know if I want to be a quant? I want to do finance, not necessarily quant finance. Besides, if I go to UMD I don't see it as trivial as landing a great quant job... The way you're posting makes it seem that all I need is decent grades.
The following observations are based on a huge pool of friends coming out of state schools with quantitative backgrounds, and a small number coming out of CMU/MIT:
I realize there is a bit of a selection problem. My colleagues tend to be people from schools like CMU/MIT who (obviously) ended up in finance, so it seems almost like a 100% rate to me from those schools, whereas I know many of my state school friends from high school, so I hear more about rejections from them.
Well you just answered your own query. Your heart is set on CMU and you will have a lot of regret if you go to Maryland, even though it is a good school. Take the $100 K debt and work hard. CMU takes good care of their students and ensures that they get good jobs. On their website, they proudly announce that the default rate on student loans is less than 0.4% whereas, for state schools, it is usually around 6%-7% of the students. $100 K seems to be a lot when you are in college, but it is really peanuts compared to what you will make later on. Of course, if you party too hard when you are in school, the $100 K debt will sink you for life.
I have to get into a top grad school, which I think we are forgetting is non-trivial.
I love a high school kid busting illini's balls.
Yo kid, IP is an actual quant. He also doesnt need the Internet to hold his hand. Working in finance requires a ball sack. Grow one, talk to your parents and pick a fuckif school.
My advice, go to maryland. The quant field is being super saturated right now. You have way too many variables in your CMU calc to consider it anything but a swag. That 100k can easily become 150 real quick and you could be out of work for 6-12 months from graduation.
picked an ivy over free ride plus some at top state school. best decision i've ever made. sure i have loans to pay off but the most important, most fun, and most formative years of my life were spent at a smaller, more intimate, older, more interesting school with cooler traditions, better resources, smaller classes, and a much smarter and more diverse student body. how much is that worth to me? more than one year's salary (~$120,000), that's for sure. some day i'll be earning that in a month. it blows my fucking mind that anyone would ever suggest going to a state school just to save money, honestly i think it's kind of sad
"I BELIEVE I CAN FLY! I BELIEVE I CAN TOUCH THE SKY! I THINK IT ABOUT IT EVERY NIGHT AND DAY..." (sing along if you know the lyrics)
The $120K difference between a state school engineering degree and a private school engineering degree generally pays for a professor who can speak English with a slightly less thick accent. That's about it. Engineering is a tough sink-or-swim major that is exactly what it is. You either know how to do it or you don't.
although cmu is kind of lame, probably not a big difference in experience between it and maryland. if anything, maryland would probably be more fun, which is why i would probably go with maryland in your specific case
Just got my Financial Aid... I have no idea why CMU gets such a bad rap for financial aid... I got double what I expected. Not 10k but 20. I am definitely going now...
you will fail, homo.
$20K worth of grants would pretty much seal the deal for me, too. $50K tuition difference is a lot more manageable. Best of luck getting into the MSCF program.
I don't neccessarily want to apply to their MSCF... when I was talking about Computational finance I was talking about the BSCF...
Either way I'm happy :P
wall street does recruit CMU undergrads. pretty sure they go after the undergrad Tepper kids (bschool) and undergrad quant types. I have more exp with the CMU MBAs but I have continually been impressed. It's a serious school though; rigorous, lots of homework, dedicated and interesting student body....Maryland is a full fledged party school by comparison. (don't know much of anything about maryland by the way)
Maryland CP is a legit engineering school. You'll have good opportunities, and if you need a bigger brand name after graduation you'll be in good position for a MIT/Stanford/CMU/Berkeley 1-yr MS (assuming good GPA). 1yr MS debtBS debt.
It's an excellent engineering school. But against Carnegie-Mellon, the #1 CS school in the country and also an excellent Math/Finance school, I think CMU is worth the extra $10k/year. It might not be worth an extra $20K- and Maryland grads can compete well against CMU grads on Wall Street quant development interviews- but I think it might be worth an extra $10-15K/year to go to the #1 CS school in the country- as well as a banking target school- over another excellent school like Maryland which isn't quite as much of a target for front-office finance roles.
one of the best threads here.. i'm definitely considering a CS degree over math now..
congrats to the OP btw.
Glad some others are finding this thread useful. BTW, if you're a Carengie Mellon Student or Alumn, join the group!
Looking back - only half a year later! - I realize that I was a biased little brat (sorry Illini lol) but I don't regret my decision and love this school!
The honors program in math is just great and if you are really the cream of the crop you have the opportunity to simultaneously obtain a Masters in mathematics at the end of 4 years of undergrad. The only problem is, how do I have time for everything+honors math+some cs courses :C
Additionally, while recruitment (finance wise) isn't what you'd get at an Ivy - particulary for internships - there's still quite a bit of recruiters on campus and even as a freshman I may get the opportunity to intern in New York for the summer at a fairly respectable firm.
Plus, social life isn't actually half that bad if you make the effort. Parties every Friday/Saturday night and know that Fringe parties and Lambda parties are the best. Your welcome.
I got waitlisted at CMU for EE and I decided to go down the street instead for half the price instead of waiting. Terrible decision really. But I have to say CMU parties suck. I'm not saying it makes up for the fact that it's a way better school, but the CMU parties I've been to have been absolutely atrocious. Any time you guys are on campus we can tell who you are. Don't think you're blending in just because you're not wearing a CMU hoodie. You can tell who goes to CMU from across Forbes. It's a fantastic school populated by weird ass people, man.
Although I have to say, I've been to a Pitt Frat party where the brothers mistook me for a Pitt freshman and tried to get me to rush. My friends have been mistaken for pitt students too. I'd say that 25% of the CMU population has a solid social life.
But again - All CMU parties suck /except/ for Fringe or Lambda. You should check em' out.
For 25k a year, I would def go to cmu. It's not like 60k a year -- but I'm not sure how the interest on your loans would work out. How did you find out whether you got in so early (did you apply ED)?
Also, S&T jobs pay a lot more. Someone I know (I know this is anecdotal) works at some trading desk at a major BB and makes about 150k a year first year out of college.
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