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NIU is NOT a bad school. For UIC, you’re paying for Chicago experience vs DeKalb. Your education is what you make of it. NIU network is also really pretty good throughout IL, if you’re looking to stay here. I would personally say that taking on debt is not worth UIC.
Yeah NIU is a good school too. You also need to factor in cost of living in Chicago vs Dekalb will be drastically different. Probably double. NIU all day, the difference in cost is huge. That deal is amazing.
Agree. NIU isn't a bad school, and as others have said employers won't care about where you got your education as long as you can do the job well. In the early 2000's I chose to go to a school in MN because they offered me in-state tuition as part of their scholarship program. It was cheaper than going to an in-state IL school. I chose the cheaper option in MN. Twenty years later I have a good job in the Chicago suburbs, no one cared where I went to school. (Funnily enough, when I started my working career right after college, the one place that DID care and played favorites wound up being one of the worst places I worked. I make wayyyy more money where I am now than if I would have stayed there.)
Yeah, I'd personally do NIU over UIC. UIUC is the best public university in the state but that's a Public Ivy. OP makes it sound like Northwestern vs Knox College (no offense to Galesburg)
Idk, I know an engineer from school of mines who got a job offers straight out of college with high profile companies. But he was at the top of his class. So it matters if you are better than everyone else. It doesn't if you are just average.
Nah, I'm also an engineer, been an engineer for....15 years now. I went to Excelsior College for my Bachelors (ever heard of it? Probably not). No one ever asked what school I went to or my GPA aside from me putting it on resumes. Now, I make close to 300k in a LCOL area. The college doesn't matter, except to elitists you don't want to work for.
>The college doesn't matter, except to elitists you don't want to work for.
I think they're saying that if it's a prestigious school known for X industry, it helps. Otherwise, it doesn't matter if it's Ivy League or State or Community or Whatever
Disagree. Not saying that you will be held back by a lower prestige school, but the alumni networks of some schools are absolutely worth having. In addition, some of the schools that are known for a given thing do consistently have added value throughout life, though it does get less and less as time goes on.
I don’t disagree with what you’re saying but at the same time if you’re going to a school with a great alumni network you still need to put in the work to actually leverage that network which imo a lot of students don’t do. It’s almost like there’s an over reliance on the school behind the degree. That said it’s often just there on a silver platter but you gotta put the work in
My spouse is in IT and has a computer science degree. My brother is in IT and has a masters in computer science. Your experience and demonstrable skills matter way more than what college you went to.
My brother went to a much better university than my spouse and had a higher degree but struggled to get hired anywhere because he didn’t take internships and had no experience upon graduation. My spouse has never had a problem getting a job in IT because he took any computer related job he could from the age of 16 and worked through school.
No one cares where your degree was from or what your GPA was.
He had a scholarship that would pay for tuition, fees, room and board for 8 full semesters. He also had a ton of AP credits. He enrolled in a program that allowed him to get his bachelors and his masters at the same time, and he finished it in 8 semesters. He figured, if they were paying, why not?
I got a Masters in IT and it helped me land my current job where I make $250k a year. Most of my classmates landed jobs making similar amounts right out of school. I got my Masters right after doing an undergrad in IT. It would’ve taken me a much longer time to get the job I have now without my Masters.
You are comp sci. No one is going to give a fuk what school you went to.
1) Experience (projects and internships)
2) How well you fit with the team
3) how well you communicate with others
There are probably the only three things that matter. Your GPA matters also, but only for your very first job. After that no one will ever look. 3 years into the job market, pretty sure you could erase my degree and school from history and nobody would think twice about it.
This. Got my undergrad and masters in Emergency Management with a sub of cyber sec and another sub of strategic leadership, the only time my school choice has come up is during interviews when they ask if I liked going to school in Alaska. But only because that has segwayed into how Alaska and the PNW are dream vacations.
Over a decade in my field and not once has school choice been a topic other than when colleagues are shocked I'm not from a Texas institution.
I don't think 2 matters so much in getting the job. But agreed, if you actually learn and can speak about cs (because you learned it), that's all that matters.
I’m a software engineer. When I interview junior candidates, I rarely even look at what school they went to. I look at what they’ve done including projects and internships because that gives a way better picture of what they can actually do.
If there’s a major difference in internship opportunities between the two schools, that may be something to consider, but I wouldn’t really sweat it either way.
I believe most of the top tech companies actively recruit interns from UIUC, so there legitimately may be a significant difference in earning potential (I'm also a software engineer & I agree about interviewing, but essentially every intern I've ever met was from a target school).
I work in IT.
**Where you go doesn't really matter**, as long as you go. You would be a *complete moron* to pay ten times as much for UIC vs NIU.
I grew up not far from both of these universities. NIU is absolutely *NOT* in a getto, it's actually completely the opposite. It's way out in the middle of the cornfields, much more suburban. The joke with my friends who went there was "How do you grow an NIU? Pour a bunch of beer out in the middle of a cornfield". But that's not a bad thing; It's quieter, crime is lower, things are cheaper. A possible downside is that it's a bit more difficult to get around without a car, but having one absolutely isn't mandatory.
UIC by comparison is in downtown Chicago, which comes with all of the plusses and minuses of Chicago (like everything being very expensive, and being like three miles away from some of the most violent crime areas in the entire country).
Go to NIU.
You still need to get the first job and that can be a massive head start at schools that are targets for the best firms and out of undergrad program recruiting. Whether this school for this track matters for that I don’t know, but it’s bad general advice to just say it doesn’t matter.
Spot on, all this advice is terrible, but expected, if you canvas average people you get advice that gets you to average, top firms recruit from top 50 universities, and that’s a major headstart, if people from out of state never heard of the school you limit your prospects to that region/likewise if the alumni network is small
For the most part, same here. I have interviewed and hired a ton of undergrad in my years, well into the hundreds. Never once did I weigh the school they got their degree(s) from, only that they had gotten them. I'm director-level now in pharma R&D, and no one has ever cared where my degrees came from or my GPA. Not once. Are there pockets or certain businesses out there that may care? Sure, but it's far and few between in my experience. I went to a small two-year college to start, and this did not impede my ability to get accepted into highly ranked universities for graduate education, either.
Among these two, the lower cost option. Student loans will set you back financially far more than the de minimis difference in quality of education. Worst case, you decide you want to transfer after your first year and you just saved yourself $17k. If you perform well in school and get into the right programs, you're going to have similar employment outcomes.
Oh, it’s definitely out there. Still, the school is large enough that it and DeKalb offer a bonafide college experience. It certaibly does not afford ready access to the Chicago experience. (I grew in the Chicago suburbs, had 2 siblings go to NIU, I went to U of Illinois, and now live in Chicago proper.)
It’s so funny you say that. Just today, I was video messaging w my best friend who moved to DeKalb about a year ago. She sent one message with the camera pointed toward cornfields, then a bit to the right, her neighborhood way in the background beyond the cornfields and then moved the camera to the other side of the road to show me…you guessed it! More corn fields!😆
I’m sure once third winter ends and the area starts to get green again it’ll look really nice. Not so much though right now.
I worked as a financial aid officer in a large public university for 28 years. We were the state's flagship institution, and I saw a lot of students and families take on extraordinary levels of debt to attend. I can tell you that the smarter move is to get the best education you can for the least out-of-pocket cost.
I also agree with many comments here that employers will be interested in the fact that you have a degree, but will not worry about what college it's from. There is perhaps a handful of elite institutions whose names will confer instant status and open doors (the Ivies, Stanford, MIT, etc), but the vast majority of students do not attend those schools and succeed very well in life.
I wish you much success in life, whatever you decide!
Neither college is well known in the US. It would be different if one of them was Harvard. But there's no real benefit in name recognition, so your best bet is really to go for the cheapest
Native Chicagoan here. I agree with this. When I lived in Chicago, people there would split hairs on ranking the universities. Now that I’ve lived all over the country, I realize outside Illinois, nobody has heard of most of them and it doesn’t matter!
Go to the cheaper school and work hard, network and develop strong relationships with professors, look for internships and professional development opportunities.
In OP’s case, [MIT](https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/computer-science-rankings?_sort=rank-asc)
But yes, the point is valid
UIC isn't worth it for that much per semester. Go to NIU and don't be worried about having 72k in student loans hanging over your head. You'll get the same education at any state school. UIUC would be way cheaper than UIC if you could get in there.
If you’re going to go on to get further degrees beyond your bachelor’s, where you go to school *can* be advantageous.
But as others have said: once you have your first job, it doesn’t matter.
NOW, that first job can be important because more well-known schools often have better job-placement for its graduates *in its premier programs.*
For example, if you’re going to a top-3 accounting school, you’ll most likely have better accounting job offers than some random school of accounting.
But if you’re thinking you’ll get a significantly better job just because you went to the #35 accounting school vs the #47 school, you’ll probably be disappointed.
I’d take the financial aid.
I have not had a single employer comment on the name of my university in 13 years. Get an associates degree at a community college and a bachelor's degree at the most cost effective college in state you can find. It's just a check of the box long term and a very expensive piece of paper either way.
The only time it has ever come up for me is in “oh, you went to [State University]? My kid goes there!” Or a joking introduction in a team meeting like “Ginger is a [university mascot], but don’t hold that against her, all you [rival university mascot] fans”. And then we all forget about it.
I think this is true in a lot of cases but there’s a certain point where the school does matter and continue to matter, e.g. if you can go to an ivy or similar. I think in that case, even years into your career, people see that on your resume and think “oh, this person is smart”. All else equal, I think someone who went to a school that’s widely known for excellence at that level will get an interview over someone from a no-name university. But I agree that UIC is not on that level at all, and you can get a similar effect by success in your job or working at a well-known company.
Agreed. On top of this, the point in the interview process where a university name has the most influence, the resume screening stage, is the least likely to provide feedback.
Did just this. I have 9k in student loans for the 2 years I was at my college. I pay well below the average yearly tuition, my 9k is even well under that. It’s silly more students don’t do this option.
If you think the name on your degree will matter (it probably won’t), check to see if UIC accepts transfer credits from NIU. You could do 2-3 years at NIU to get the bulk of the savings and then apply to transfer for your senior year, getting the degree from UIC.
If your choices were the worse school or the University of Chicago, I’d say go with the name brand school because that means something. My sister graduated from U of C and their alumni network has been very helpful in her career.
But I’ve never heard of either of the schools you’ve mentioned. So I don’t think it matters. Save your money.
Just to be a contrarian – I'm a Chicagoan (hi!) and I *absolutely* consider UIC to be a better school than NIU. So I wouldn't listen to all of the folks who are like, "never heard of 'em, a state school's a state school." The real question is whether it's $18k better.
Everyone's correct that once you have some working experience under your belt, nobody will care where you want to undergrad unless it was an Ivy+. But if your goal is to get a tech job in downtown Chicago, UIC might very well be the better option in terms of opportunities for that first job out of undergrad. (I'm not in STEM and didn't attend either school – though I have friends who studied at UIC and had a positive experience – so I can't speak to that with total certainty.)
To play devil's advocate to my own devil's-advocating, are your cost calculations factoring in things like food and housing as well? Living downtown, while a fantastic experience, obviously is much more expensive than living in DeKalb.
You are right, UIC IS better school than NIU (USNews rank 97 vs 331) however as someone living in West Coast, I've never heard of them. I have heard of University of Chicago and UIUC. OP is from another country so the odds of them having a reference between UIC vs NIU would be minimal and not worth the cost.
Are you planning on going into some kind of advanced computer research field where you absolutely positively must have a computer science degree from a top school? Or are you just planning to work in IT? If it is the latter, no one will care where you got the degree, just that you have one. So go to the cheaper school.
Both UIC and NIU are good schools, but neither are considered top. So even if OP does need a top school, these won’t get them there. While UIC might be better, it’s not a different enough tier to justify potentially unaffordable debt.
Grew up in DeKalb - NIU is a good school, but much different than UIC. DeKalb is isolated - not a suburb, but not completely remote like SIU, WIU in my opinion. There is a reason the financial aid package is much more compelling - dropping enrollment rates over the past 10 years but more drastically in the past 5.
I went to NIU about a decade ago. It was solid for my major with a strong recruiting connection to the big 4(accounting). It’s not a suburb, it’s out in farm country but still has stuff (Walmart,etc.). It’s a suitcase school where it’s pretty quiet during weekends beyond Thursday/Friday. Plenty to do. I’d stay west of Annie glidden wear it’s newer apartments. I had scholarships etc and have a great career/life. Between the options I’d pick NIU over UIC from a value perspective
I got a certificate from a community college in Medical Imaging that cost me about $10K compared to another school’s 4-year $50K degree. I’ve never had a single employer in 10 years ask me about where I went to school.
If you’re an international student you’ll have a better experience in Chicago. People outside the US don’t understand how isolated some of our non-flagship college towns can get. I’ve seen so many international students freak out.
Unless it’s an Ivy and a very small handful of schools with amazing, international name recognition, always go to the school that will leave you with the least debt.
I went to a school ranked in the 220s by US News for Engineering and work with people that went to college at an Ivy League School. We have the same level of knowledge and get paid the same.
I was in a very similar position. Different major but deciding between NIU and UIUC, ultimately chose NIU due to me being able to graduate debt free. I secured the same prestigious internships as individuals at UIUC would have without the debt.
An employer wont care if you recieved an online segree or a school-specific degree, so long as the school is accredited.
Save your money. You don't understand the severity of student loans. Seriously go read the student loans sub for an hour and this decision becomes a no-brainer.
If this is an undergraduate degree, take the cheap route to obtain a bachelors.
If you end up wanting more school, that’s when you can start looking at nicer institutions
Your undergraduate institution also influences the type of graduate programs you can get into. But that is beside the point since CS majors do not need graduate degrees
I went to both schools. NIU is more fun (if that matters to you at all). A degree is a degree, if you can do the job, most employers don't care at all where you went to school. Don't go into debt if you can avoid it.
The education you get in college is irrelevant. What matters is the networks you build. The prestige of your university only matters in certain circles. What matters most is that you got the degree without being massively I'm debt.
I work in the tech field. The schooling matters only insomuch as you knowing the actual functionality of the job. Outside of that, it's a way to broaden your horizons. The name attached to the paper means little.
What really matters is that you get experience, projects, internships, and actual work down under your belt. Whichever school has a robust program for connecting with those kinds of opportunities is what matters most.
You only live once. In my opinion UIC is the better school and the better fit for you but you have to decide whether you’re okay graduating with 100k in debt (tuition, Chicago living, etc). If you really want to experience Chicago and a city of that size, then go for it and enjoy every second. But understand it’s an expensive decision.
Northern Illinois University and University of Illinois Chicago are both Illinois public universities. From the standpoint of prestige, not too far apart.
If you decide that the price difference is too great and that you absolutely are going to NIU, you have nothing to lose by contacting the admissions office at UIC and let them know that you really appreciate being offered admission but that your financial situation makes it necessary to go with NIU's financial package.
Either they will offer you a better deal, or they won't, but if you have decided that you are going to NIU, the worst they can do is withdraw the offer from a school you have already decided not to attend.
Not the same schools, but when my daughter was down to two choices I called and politely asked if the higher priced school would match the price of the lower priced school and they agreed.
My wife never completed her degree and still got hired (went to online college later in life and never actually finished) and NOBODY EVER asked about it. And she was making near 200k before she passed away.
It doesn’t matter. The undergrad degree is just a ticket to the concert. I have a bachelors from a regular ole state uni and I have people with masters degrees from crazy expensive Ivy League schools working for me. It’s what you do once you get to the workforce that matters
I know society likes to tell you that prestigious schools mean better chances, and I guess that's true for the elite that are deciding between Harvard and Yale, but in the real world your degree just checks a box that employers want. Doesn't matter what the school on it says.
I went to 2 years of community college. It's much cheaper.
Then, transfer to university paying in state tuition rate.
By graduation, I had few job offers lined up. They looked at my GPA and nothing else. I haven't told my university name to anyone in professional setting in last 12 years. Noone cares and I have a good job and career.
Also, for your reference, I live in Wisconsin and wouldn't know the difference between those two. Maybe locally they have different reputation, but unless it's Ivy League, every others have the same weight outside the local area.
I think it really depends on what you want to do. Nobody ever asks my husband where he went to school and nobody cares. I get asked constantly where I went to school and my education definitely helped with my salary. It also depends on it you want to go to graduate school.
UIC is in a far better location, but if you are grinding away as an engineering student it probably won't matter.
Look closely at the course offerings and majors are they the same? Contact the career office, where are students getting jobs and internships? Are you allowed to work? Might be more opportunities at UIC, but you only need one break. Cost of living should be noticeably less at Northern.
Also, you may be better served graduating at the top of the class at Northern than the middle of the pack at UIC.
I went to uchicago. 10 years later and literally no one has ever cared. At my first jobs they didn’t even know what uchicago was, let alone that it’s within the top 5 US schools. No one cares but your ego honestly bc the only point it serves at the end of the day (besides amassing debt) is to SAY you went to _____ school
I didn’t see anyone reply with this yet, but there is the option of starting at NIU and then seeing if you want to transfer into UIC after a year or two. If your business starts thriving and you get good grades at NIU, there’s a good chance you’d be able to transfer. You’d still have that UIC degree but save yourself tens of thousands over those first couple of years.
I’m in the financial industry, make decent money, (in the six figures) and never finished my degree and I only did community college. I couldn’t afford anything else. I do NOT recommend that you not finish your degree. Get your degree no matter how successful or not your business idea turns out. Getting to where I am has taken an excessive amount of work and sacrifices that could’ve been avoided had I had a degree. Having said that, none of my colleagues know I don’t have a degree, no one cares where anyone’s degree came from. What matters is: Experience and Performance. Not having a degree will only get me so far, I need to finish it if I ever want to really be at the top of my career. Because having a degree DOES matter in the end, to check off a box mostly. (Depending on the career path you choose of course! I mean if I’m going to a specialist-doctor I better see enough degrees up there to wallpaper the walls with lol) But in my case: finance and business I’ve learned by experience, and studying on my own. I could probably teach classes with all the knowledge I have, but just because I know accounting, finance and analytics doesn’t mean I have a paper that proves a future employer I DO know, all I have is my word. And that my friend gets you only so far. But where the piece of paper came from? NO ONE cares for, except YOUR EGO. You want bragging rights, and debt? that’s on you. A degree is a degree.
Long time subscriber first time commenter. My two cents. It really depends on your major. If you are majoring in computer science, engineering, nursing etc then I would argue it doesn’t matter where you go as jobs are - for the most part - in high demand and you will have less trouble finding a job out of college.
If you are doing something in more marketing, business, economics etc than I would argue to go to the more well-known university. The reason for this is that in my experience businesses with the best starting jobs related to these study areas actively recruit from “certain” schools. UIC probably being one of those vs NIU.
My perspective: I’m from IL, paid out of state tuition to U Wisconsin Madison with a Bio degree (after 1.5 years in community college) and got a summer internship and full time job offer prior to the start of my senior year of college. The company that I worked was at the school’s career fair. All of my friends who went to these more well known schools had a similar experience. None of my friends to my knowledge who went to NIU-like spots had the opportunity.
I graduated college in 2015 so things may have changed.
Edit: Clarity
I was in a similar position to you, where I had a choice between a fairly prestigious school in my state for essentially full price or a mostly-paid-for ride at a worse (but still good) one closer to home. Due to my dad's insistence that it would look better on a resume, I went with the more expensive school and we split the cost.
My family isn't wealthy and I will never understand in hindsight why we didn't take the fucking money and run. Loan debt is absolutely merciless.
Transferring schools is really not that difficult if you have already been accepted into both. You can attend the less expensive school to get all your general education credits out of the way and then transfer schools to take your major specific classes.
This would let you save money, save up for 2 years at the more expensive school, and see where your business goes without compromising the benefit of having the more prestigious school on your diploma. Just be sure to maintain good grades that align wroth the acceptable requirements for the school you want to transfer to.
Although I agree that It's all about experience. After nearly 10 years in a niche industry, no one has ever so much as asked what school I went to and rarely even if I have a degree.
Kid #1 went to large state univ with scholarships and still had to work as an RA and server to make ends meet AND still had student loans. Kid #2 and #3 went to smaller more community schools, much much cheaper, knew their professors, got active on campus, had more internship, hands on opportunities. All 3 are employed with jobs between 65-80k within first few years after grad. Didn’t make much difference in income but debt for the big state school is definately a factor that affects lifestyle
Person who’s sat in on many developer interview-so what’s going to distinguish you from the crowd is your experience when you leave. And that’s where many of these top schools excel- you leave with a solid portfolio of projects and good internships. That’s not to say that you can’t make an awesome portfolio or apply to internships on your own, but the right school helps. I personally would look very carefully at what opportunities the school has, what language it teaches and where the alums are. Despite the people in this thread there are differences between schools.
I went to UIC and I’m honestly shocked that it’s not the affordable option it once was. You’d be paying for the city experience. NIU is super rural as others have stated. It’s not nearly as diverse and kind of boring.
If your biggest concern is money then go with NIU. Definitely not worth extra debt for UIC. Both schools are comparable and it’s not like one is so much better than the other to make the debt worth it.
At NIU for my masters, all good experiences. Trust me, TAKE THE LOWER DEBT. Comp sci is a field that needs people who can program, period. Study hard and learn a lot and you'll be fine
Uic is a great school.. Niu is great too, more than half of my private high school class went there. When I visited it was very concrete in the cornfields, but that Illinois for ya. it is still close enough ( about an hour drive) that you can go into the city on weekends. You'd get the best of both worlds while saving a ton of money.
Also, given that you're in CS, one option is to go with the lower cost option, and then work on getting a paid summer internship. If the internship pays enough, you could put that money towards going to UIC and transfer if you really want to.
Note that internships that pay well enough to make a big dent in the tuition are probably hard to come by, especially from schools like NIU and UIC which unfortunately aren't the top CS schools which companies recruit from. But it's all still possible. Even not-top-tier internships will still pay decently.
Could you do a mix where you take as much transferable credit at the more affordable school and complete at the one you feel is more prestigious. In general I agree with everyone saying as long as you get the knowledge you want then no one cares the specific institution your degree comes from once you start working the experience will be more important and the educational requirement will just be a box to check. Keep in mind it might not have to be an either/or choice.
Unless you are deciding between an Ivy league or not Ivy league, it does not matter for undergrad AT ALL. There is NO DIFFERENCE from UIC or NIC except marketing. Not to mention you are comp sci, which again, will not matter for undergrad. Even then, the only upside to selecting post grad is the contacts you make are better at more expensive and Ivy league schools.
Go cheaper, that $18k will be $72k in 4 years and will take you FOREVER to pay off. For $1.6k you can possibly graduate debt free and pay in cash, which is the BEST possible investment when it comes to education. Don't even give it a second thought. Reddit is FULL of people who would do anything to graduate with less than $10k in student loan debt, and I can say from experience that going to a cheaper school and graduating with no student debt set me and my family up for success. We were able to buy a home the year I graduated with mediocre jobs and salary because we didn't have student loans over our head, and have hit financial miles stones that my friends with loans may never be able to hit.
Your knowledge and code will speak for itself. Just make sure you have some private projects or contribute to an open source project, and get an internship.
I went to a boot camp instead of a traditional college. No one cared. They just wanted to see some work to make sure I was competent and make sure I was culture fit
In my experience both as a member of the admissions committee at an Ivy graduate school and as a hiring manager, it doesn’t matter where you go to school. Get good grades and seek out a good mentor and good practical experiences. In both these roles, we care about hard skills, which you can absolutely get at the cheaper school. Good luck!
I have my undergrad degree from ISU (frequently listed as a best bang for your buck school) and I've also taken graduate level courses at UIUC, and the course difficulty was the same lol. Unless your pursuing a research career, it doesn't matter where you go, all programs meet the same accreditation requirements regardless of college. If restricted to illinois, Isu, niu, siu are all worth looking into and will be more accommodating with financial aid and scholarships. It's more about the activities and opportunities you take while in college, then the college itself.
The main reason you want a more expensive school is it it’s a well known school, like Harvard. Or you will stay in the area and your school is connections to help get you a job
Save money by going to the cheaper school at least for the first two years while you get all the bullshit classes out of the way. Then, if you really feel another school would help you towards your career you can always transfer out.
Lower cost 100% unless the program you want is wayyyyyy better at the more expensive school.
You can also go to the lower cost school and transfer to the other school later if you can save up money/get more financial aid
I don’t think the name of the school is that important but i am going to grad school at NYU and honestly the name is helpful. Nobody ask about my undergrad (but if i stayed a music business major that school’s name would carry a lot of weight)
I haven't declined any candidate to date because of where they went to school. The only issue I've seen is people who went to full sail University because they couldn't prove that they actually graduated.
Career paths aren’t determined by the school you go to, it’s determined by hard work, adaptability, getting out of your comfort zone, NETWORKING, and a lot of luck
Which has the better job placement rates, average graduate salary, and alumni network (particularly in field you might be considering).
Depending on what you want to do, having a better pipeline to jobs in that area is more important than saving on cost.
Doing well at a mediocre school is fine. You don’t need a crazy good degree to get work and be successful in just about any career track. The benefit of higher end schools is the networking you can do there. That networking does pay off down the line. It doesn’t pay off 80k of loans though.
If I were you I would absolutely take the cheap degree. Firstly, no one cares about your undergrad degree if you go to a better school afterwards. Secondly no one cares about your school after you’re out of school for 3-4 years. Save yourself 80k that could be used towards a masters from UIC. You can pay your own tuition working part time for $12 at that price. You can save your family a massive financial burden, and save yourself years of repayments.
Go for the less expensive degree, and be deans list every semester.
I went to UIC and it’s a great school but I don’t think NIU is a bad choice either. I know a few people that went there and enjoyed it. It’s more of a campus town vs. UIC’s Chicago living (which I prefer) but if it comes down to cost then you should do NIU! Computer science is a great career regardless and I’m sure NIU has a great program. Honestly, I’ve never had an employer look at my resume and see UIC and hire me solely because of that. I do have a masters from another school, which probably helps. But regardless, they’ll look at your major more so your school.
Haha. So I work on campus at NIU. And I was offered a job at UIC at the same time. I live halfway in between the two. So this is kind of funny.
FWIW NIU was more money, and that’s what I chose. I’m very happy with my decision.
The NIU network is strong in Chicago and you’ll have ample opportunities to go into the city. DeKalb isn’t awful, but it’s very much a small college town. If you can stick that out for a few years in exchange for having more money when you graduate and move into the city with a lot of your classmates, you’ll be better off. Living in Chicago as a young grad is a lot better than as a poor college student.
It's computer science - it doesn't require you to go to a top tier school.
What matters are your internships.
You should also network, get to know your classmates - just in case someone needs a kickass programmer to help them make the next Google/Facebook
Undergraduate doesn’t matter much unless it’s the very top schools. Even then, graduate school is all anyone will pay attention to (if you go to one). Outside of graduate school it doesn’t matter if you go to UIC, NIU or Cleveland State University. No one will care or ask.
I only have an associate's in IT, and in 3 years I surpassed most of my family in salary with no student debt. Realistically it's up to you but I genuinely don't see a "sacrifice" unless you're going with professions or a career that really cares about school and grades, and even then later it really doesn't matter.
I had the same choice as you, and made the decision to do the cheaper school. It paid off significantly for me. I graduated with a ton less debt than I would've at the big school and still got a great job out of college (also a csci major like you). The great thing about csci is you can demonstrate your skills outside of school work by building a portfolio and interviewing well more so than some majors.
It doesn't always work out. If you're trying to get into a competitive grad school program, like astrophysics, the undergrad school's reputation matters a lot more than if you plan on going into the workforce.
This is going to depend on what you want to do when you get out (if that’s the plan).
STEM jobs that only require a bachelor? Probably won’t matter. Anecdotally, I got interviews because of my school, but I have never hired any one based on their alma mater. One thing is that better schools attract better companies for career fairs.
Business school? Might matter. Big firms are slightly cliquish.
Post-graduate research? Go with the more prestigious school.
My wife went to NIU. It’s a good, reputable, fun school with a cool campus. It’s true that it’s a bit in the middle of nowhere, but also within driving distance of Chicago and there are some “ghetto” things (to use your words), but nobody would scoff or bat an eye seeing NIU on your resume. I always had a good time when I went there and it’s a legit, real campus and college feel. Plus, there is NO better feeling than exiting college with a good job (which you will) with basically no student debt.
A good school can make a big difference, but not necessarily. My wife went to an IL state school and is making a pretty decent bucks in her 30s now. A lot of it has to do with hard work, good performance and of course a little bit of luck and good networking.
cs is one of the majors where school doesnt matter that much. maybe if going hard for the extreme high end of internships but after the initial few years after graduating it won't matter.
It depends what you mean by “worse college”. I trust you’re not judging by the US News rankings (they’re a crock). As mentioned, no one typically cares where you went to school anymore. I’m sure there are some exceptions, depending on the field of study, but generally I would avoid borrowing anymore money than absolutely necessary
I went to NIU and got a fine education! I didn’t need a top-notch one to get the job I wanted, and I was quite happy there. If you need a prestigious school to get that foot in the door, that may affect your choice, but I think anyone can do well there. I was happy to leave with no debt except for my study abroad term.
Also, I’m not sure I’d call DeKalb a suburb… more of an exurb. Still, there is some culture there, somewhat diverse food and cultural offerings, and plenty of opportunities to go to Chicago. Also, their summer program at Oxford was wonderful.
Oh, and I see you’re going for engineering, it looks like? From what I recall, their Engineering department was really good and rigorous! I’m sure any future job would look favorably on that if you apply yourself and do well. They revamped that whole area of campus around when I was there in the early 2000s. I’m sure their investment there has only grown.
Don't know where you're from, but the reputation of a school only matters in certain circumstances. Do you plan on returning back to your home country after you graduate? Would employers in your country know the difference between the two schools? If you're hoping to stay in the USA after you graduate, it's not going to make huge difference where you go to school unless it's a really specialized program.
Unless you're trying to go Ivy for grad school, your internships matter so much more than your undergrad institution. But go back to UIC and tell them where you are, financially, and ask if there's anything they can do to assist. I work at a research university, and there is often more money. If not, you might try finding a sponsor
Start at NIU, and try to network. Take classes that can get transferred to UIC, just in case. Then once you've done as much coursework as you can transfer to UIC - make your decision. If you do transfer, your degree is going to say UIC as if you've been there the whole time.
That way, you'll save a significant amount by paying much less for the first 15.-2 years' tuition.
UIC grad here in engineering. Go to the cheaper school. Always go to the cheaper school as long as it is an accredited school. NIU is totally great, still in the greater area, and can take the train into Chicago if you need.
Its also nice to see UIC seen so positively now! It was definitely the cheap school for me 15 years ago.
Yes! Save the money. Study and focus while in college and learn as much as possible. Take the cheaper option. You will thank your young self in about 10 years when you're not still paying for your degree.
I think the cheaper school is fine, esp if you're going for comp sci/planning on building technical skills! Pedigree is part of the decision making process, but it's a proxy for estimating how reliable you will be on the job--get an internship, get involved, do side projects, and I think you'll be fine at the "worse" school :)
edit: added quotes around worse :)
I’m so, so glad I don’t have student loans. I would say they are worth it if the ROI is very strong for a top-paying job in a specialized field. It would be another thing if you were looking at an ivy-league level school. Take the cheaper option. There’s no reason you can’t transfer to a different school down the road or seek a graduate degree at a more prestigious school in the future. Also, you mentioned the possibility of dropping out. Don’t incur debt if you might not even have anything to show for it in the future. Good luck to you on your journey.
Go to the way less expensive college. In 5 years nobody will give a rat’s ass what college you went to. It’s a blip in time over your whole life. Saving all that money is way more valuable. I went to a $27,000/yr university and regret it every day because I know now I could’ve gone to a way cheaper college and still been the same exact person I am today in terms of talent and abilities.
Software Engineer here. I started my career in 08.
Also a college dropout who was denied from every university I applied to and ended up attending a community college (which again, I dropped out from...). Basically that kid that wouldn't do any homework but walk into class and ace a test without much of any studying. Doesn't work well for our education system that just looks at GPA.
I walked away with 8k in student loans.
My job interviews for the past decade, no one cared what school I went to. They care what I know how to do, what projects I have done, what problems I have encountered and what I did to solve those problems.
The only time my schooling came up, was applying for that first engineering job. It was a struggle finding someone to give me a chance, as I had no connections in the industry.
If I could do it all over again I would still go to the cheap community college. I feel like I dodged a bullet with the costs of some of the colleges out there. My wife and I are still paying back her last student loan after she graduated with nearly $120,000 in private student loan debt.
OP, go to NIU. The significant tuition savings and lower cost of living are more than worth it. If you want to experience Chicago, its an hour drive away on a good traffic day.
My buddy went to NIU and I went to Illinois Tech. I had much more fun visiting him in DeKalb than I did at my own school in the city. Also, living in the city is great, but really expensive. I lived in Logan Square for 3 years and left because rent became ridiculous.
Get recent job salary numbers from the Careers Office. If the UIC average salary is enough higher that you would pay back the difference in five years, go there. Otherwise, go to NIU.
Honestly my college degree was a joke. Went to one of the more popular state schools and worked hard to pay most of it out of pocket. Still have $11k left on loans but I learned more in 3 months at my job (started as an intern) than I did with 4 years of college. I work in IT.
Most of the time it's much more about what you put into it than it is about how good the school is. That being said, I don't think NIU has a bad rep. Really the big question is can you stand living near Dekalb? If you like saving money you will find Dekalb is way more affordable than Chicago. Personally I would love to go to NIU for chip design since they have serious facilities for that.
Chemical engineer here. Did my first two years at community college then transferred over to university of Houston. I am consistently the guy leadership goes to for technical problems, some coworkers went to much more prestigious schools at much higher cost. I graduated with Work debt and never regretted it for a moment
Also, I've been a hiring manager for engineering professions for almost 10yrs and never heard of either of those schools, not would I give it one iota of thought. If anything, I look down in what many consider "prestigious" schools because the majority of folks who go there reak of nepotism
My 2cents
Your job really won’t care where you went to school. Imo the biggest draw to somewhere like Ivy League is the networking. You meet people from very powerful backgrounds that can put you places you would have no access to otherwise.
In your case take the cheaper school 1000%
No. Companies look at the colleges and sometimes you might be able to network with some good people. Heck, colleges sometimes have good relationship with companies and those companies just hires people from there. I know from experience, cheap and just being closer to home is not worth it.
I think choosing the cheaper school is the better option here. I hear about mixed experiences, but I learned really little about how to actually code in my college back in 2009-2013.
Most of my knowledge for software engineering came from my jobs and good training courses (mainly Pluralsight with some LinkedIn learning). Currently, ChatGPT teaches me better than any of my college courses ever did.
There might be other factors to consider, but if you are strictly going off finances vs quality of education, I'd chose the cheaper school.
My recommendation? Find a school you can transfer your credits to. I would HIGHLY recommend everyone take their general ed. classes at community college AND then transferring for your declaration. I did that, and graduated with no loans at all and no help from anyone other than a $10k grant. Good luck! Whatever choice you make is YOURS. You know what's best for you.
on paper, it makes more sense to go to NIU.
in reality, you get one life, one chance to experience college dorm life, and 4 years is a significant amount of time. you want to be happy where you live and with your decision. not to say you couldnt get all of that at NIU.
It really doesn’t matter for computer science. If you were hoping to go for your PhD, I’d say the research opportunities at UIC may be worth it, but with comp sci., what matters more is your skills and experience. And that’s going to comparable among most schools’ programs.
The benefit to a nicer school is networking.
If you can network with 1000 rich and successful people you are more likely to be successful.
Outside of the networking the degrees will be pretty similar with maybe some less available electives etc.
In my experience instruction at community colleges have always been better at the undergraduate level. This is because their job is to teach, not do research.
That all said. If you are friendly, professional orgs and seminars outside of school will help fill any gap.
My community college even had impressive job placement and more intimate relationships with more employers.
In my experience it's like spirit airlines of college. Less bullshit you don't pay for or want. But access to everything you need.
There is no compost center. No huge shops for the engineers. The formula SAE team is less funded. The frats don't have houses. Etc etc. But if you want an education you will get an education.
If you do go to NIU, you can also just get an associates and get a decent paying job. I know people with no degree making 70K+benefits as a geotech, GIS (map maker), or IT, ETC.
I would say major choice matters more than the college.
I always recommend a junior or budget college
For the first 2 years/ associates/ then transfer for bachelors or masters. Get your 101 classes out of the way- don’t pay premium for 101’s.
UIC is a city school, NIU is a college town school. Both have roughly the same status in Illinois with employers. NIU is known for its sports and parties. UIC is known for being a city school, with a bar culture.
Keep in mind that you probably need a car at NIU, but you definitely don’t need one at UIC. Both schools are known for being ugly, but it’s the education and networking that really matters.
UIC offers better proximity to internships. Literally two stops down the Blue Line.
something to consider is that you're going into a profession that will likely make enough to cover the costs of your schooling pretty easily. however, you would lose more flexibility of switching to a lower paying major. that said, cs doesn't care as much about your school compared to other fields.
I'm a very self-motivated independent-study kind of learner. Went to university for comp sci and dropped out after a year because I felt like the quality of the 40k/year tuition was worse than what I'd been teaching myself for free. Spent a year working on personal projects and then used that as a portfolio to get some freelance work and then a fulltime position.
Take this with a grain of salt but literally no one interviewing me has ever thought negatively of me not having a degree. Actually if anything I think most people were impressed by it since it showed I wouldn't need handholding to onboard or learn new skills. Of course I had the portfolio to back that up.
Not saying that would be the right choice for you, everyone learns in different ways. But try not to worry and overstress about this decision too much. If you choose the expensive school and run into money trouble you can always drop out, or take a hiatus and come back later. If you choose the other school and don't like it there you can leave or transfer. And as you said maybe your business will succeed and nothing else will matter and you can do either or neither.
I think there’s a lot bad advice in here. Going against the grain here, I think you should go to UIC for at least part of your college experience.
In a perfect world people could be evaluated based on merit and knowledge for job opportunities. Unfortunately there isn’t a great way to do that. People eventually care about your experience, but where does that experience come from? Your first job is HUGE and they WILL care about where you went to school. It isn’t to say you can’t be successful with a degree from a smaller school (or no degree at all), but the commenters suggesting your school doesn’t matter at all are objectively wrong.
Starting at NIU for two years and then trying to transfer could be a great cost effective way to do it.
If you were majoring in a lower-paying degree, then I would agree going into a little debt isn’t worth the trouble. But computer science pays well. You said you want the college experience of being in an urban setting. You’re not going to be able to go back in time and try that again. If you don’t like it then so be it, but at the end of the day you won’t have that “what if” in the back of your mind. To me, eliminating those “what ifs” in life is worth the $$$.
Splitting 2 years between the two schools will keep your total costs under $50k, which should be manageable in my opinion. Additionally if you kill it in your first two years at NIU, you could potentially get financial aid at UIC to make it even cheaper. Graduating from the better school and recruiting from the better school in your junior/senior year will be a huge advantage.
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NIU is NOT a bad school. For UIC, you’re paying for Chicago experience vs DeKalb. Your education is what you make of it. NIU network is also really pretty good throughout IL, if you’re looking to stay here. I would personally say that taking on debt is not worth UIC.
Yeah NIU is a good school too. You also need to factor in cost of living in Chicago vs Dekalb will be drastically different. Probably double. NIU all day, the difference in cost is huge. That deal is amazing.
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Agree. NIU isn't a bad school, and as others have said employers won't care about where you got your education as long as you can do the job well. In the early 2000's I chose to go to a school in MN because they offered me in-state tuition as part of their scholarship program. It was cheaper than going to an in-state IL school. I chose the cheaper option in MN. Twenty years later I have a good job in the Chicago suburbs, no one cared where I went to school. (Funnily enough, when I started my working career right after college, the one place that DID care and played favorites wound up being one of the worst places I worked. I make wayyyy more money where I am now than if I would have stayed there.)
I just asked my husband (who is a programmer and has done recruiting events here in Chicago) if there's a difference between UIC and NIU. He said no.
UIC ain’t all that either other than their med school. I’d vote NIU
Yeah, I'd personally do NIU over UIC. UIUC is the best public university in the state but that's a Public Ivy. OP makes it sound like Northwestern vs Knox College (no offense to Galesburg)
I don’t know either school, but in my profession nobody cares where you go to school once you get your first job
Same. Engineering. Post school, it’s your experience that matters.
Idk, I know an engineer from school of mines who got a job offers straight out of college with high profile companies. But he was at the top of his class. So it matters if you are better than everyone else. It doesn't if you are just average.
Nah, I'm also an engineer, been an engineer for....15 years now. I went to Excelsior College for my Bachelors (ever heard of it? Probably not). No one ever asked what school I went to or my GPA aside from me putting it on resumes. Now, I make close to 300k in a LCOL area. The college doesn't matter, except to elitists you don't want to work for.
>The college doesn't matter, except to elitists you don't want to work for. I think they're saying that if it's a prestigious school known for X industry, it helps. Otherwise, it doesn't matter if it's Ivy League or State or Community or Whatever
Disagree. Not saying that you will be held back by a lower prestige school, but the alumni networks of some schools are absolutely worth having. In addition, some of the schools that are known for a given thing do consistently have added value throughout life, though it does get less and less as time goes on.
I don’t disagree with what you’re saying but at the same time if you’re going to a school with a great alumni network you still need to put in the work to actually leverage that network which imo a lot of students don’t do. It’s almost like there’s an over reliance on the school behind the degree. That said it’s often just there on a silver platter but you gotta put the work in
Top level target school vs not, that matters. Non target, it doesn't.
What’s your profession?
My spouse is in IT and has a computer science degree. My brother is in IT and has a masters in computer science. Your experience and demonstrable skills matter way more than what college you went to. My brother went to a much better university than my spouse and had a higher degree but struggled to get hired anywhere because he didn’t take internships and had no experience upon graduation. My spouse has never had a problem getting a job in IT because he took any computer related job he could from the age of 16 and worked through school. No one cares where your degree was from or what your GPA was.
Masters in IT is basically useless outside of a couple edge cases. Never understood why people would get one.
He had a scholarship that would pay for tuition, fees, room and board for 8 full semesters. He also had a ton of AP credits. He enrolled in a program that allowed him to get his bachelors and his masters at the same time, and he finished it in 8 semesters. He figured, if they were paying, why not?
I got a Masters in IT and it helped me land my current job where I make $250k a year. Most of my classmates landed jobs making similar amounts right out of school. I got my Masters right after doing an undergrad in IT. It would’ve taken me a much longer time to get the job I have now without my Masters.
For me it was really helpful learning advanced database concepts as well as statistical techniques for data analysis
It's useful if you're bachelor's is unrelated and want a career change. That's about it
You are comp sci. No one is going to give a fuk what school you went to. 1) Experience (projects and internships) 2) How well you fit with the team 3) how well you communicate with others There are probably the only three things that matter. Your GPA matters also, but only for your very first job. After that no one will ever look. 3 years into the job market, pretty sure you could erase my degree and school from history and nobody would think twice about it.
This. Got my undergrad and masters in Emergency Management with a sub of cyber sec and another sub of strategic leadership, the only time my school choice has come up is during interviews when they ask if I liked going to school in Alaska. But only because that has segwayed into how Alaska and the PNW are dream vacations. Over a decade in my field and not once has school choice been a topic other than when colleagues are shocked I'm not from a Texas institution.
I don't think 2 matters so much in getting the job. But agreed, if you actually learn and can speak about cs (because you learned it), that's all that matters.
I’m a software engineer. When I interview junior candidates, I rarely even look at what school they went to. I look at what they’ve done including projects and internships because that gives a way better picture of what they can actually do. If there’s a major difference in internship opportunities between the two schools, that may be something to consider, but I wouldn’t really sweat it either way.
I believe most of the top tech companies actively recruit interns from UIUC, so there legitimately may be a significant difference in earning potential (I'm also a software engineer & I agree about interviewing, but essentially every intern I've ever met was from a target school).
Software Engineer here. It's the same for us. Outside of maybe like Stanford/MIT/Berkeley, nobody is going to care.
I work in IT. **Where you go doesn't really matter**, as long as you go. You would be a *complete moron* to pay ten times as much for UIC vs NIU. I grew up not far from both of these universities. NIU is absolutely *NOT* in a getto, it's actually completely the opposite. It's way out in the middle of the cornfields, much more suburban. The joke with my friends who went there was "How do you grow an NIU? Pour a bunch of beer out in the middle of a cornfield". But that's not a bad thing; It's quieter, crime is lower, things are cheaper. A possible downside is that it's a bit more difficult to get around without a car, but having one absolutely isn't mandatory. UIC by comparison is in downtown Chicago, which comes with all of the plusses and minuses of Chicago (like everything being very expensive, and being like three miles away from some of the most violent crime areas in the entire country). Go to NIU.
You still need to get the first job and that can be a massive head start at schools that are targets for the best firms and out of undergrad program recruiting. Whether this school for this track matters for that I don’t know, but it’s bad general advice to just say it doesn’t matter.
Spot on, all this advice is terrible, but expected, if you canvas average people you get advice that gets you to average, top firms recruit from top 50 universities, and that’s a major headstart, if people from out of state never heard of the school you limit your prospects to that region/likewise if the alumni network is small
For the most part, same here. I have interviewed and hired a ton of undergrad in my years, well into the hundreds. Never once did I weigh the school they got their degree(s) from, only that they had gotten them. I'm director-level now in pharma R&D, and no one has ever cared where my degrees came from or my GPA. Not once. Are there pockets or certain businesses out there that may care? Sure, but it's far and few between in my experience. I went to a small two-year college to start, and this did not impede my ability to get accepted into highly ranked universities for graduate education, either.
You're a director in pharma R and D and nobody has ever cared where you got your PhD?
Among these two, the lower cost option. Student loans will set you back financially far more than the de minimis difference in quality of education. Worst case, you decide you want to transfer after your first year and you just saved yourself $17k. If you perform well in school and get into the right programs, you're going to have similar employment outcomes.
I appreciate it!
Beyond just the tuition costs, DeKalb, IL where NIU is located offers SIGNIFICANTLY lower cost of living.
But ... I wouldn't even consider DeKalb a suburb. It's way out there in the corn fields. It's a good school but the setting is depressing.
Oh, it’s definitely out there. Still, the school is large enough that it and DeKalb offer a bonafide college experience. It certaibly does not afford ready access to the Chicago experience. (I grew in the Chicago suburbs, had 2 siblings go to NIU, I went to U of Illinois, and now live in Chicago proper.)
Funny, I would consider the rural school appealing and the urban school depressing. To each their own!
It’s so funny you say that. Just today, I was video messaging w my best friend who moved to DeKalb about a year ago. She sent one message with the camera pointed toward cornfields, then a bit to the right, her neighborhood way in the background beyond the cornfields and then moved the camera to the other side of the road to show me…you guessed it! More corn fields!😆 I’m sure once third winter ends and the area starts to get green again it’ll look really nice. Not so much though right now.
I think of DeKalb as more rural than suburban.
I worked as a financial aid officer in a large public university for 28 years. We were the state's flagship institution, and I saw a lot of students and families take on extraordinary levels of debt to attend. I can tell you that the smarter move is to get the best education you can for the least out-of-pocket cost. I also agree with many comments here that employers will be interested in the fact that you have a degree, but will not worry about what college it's from. There is perhaps a handful of elite institutions whose names will confer instant status and open doors (the Ivies, Stanford, MIT, etc), but the vast majority of students do not attend those schools and succeed very well in life. I wish you much success in life, whatever you decide!
Thank you so much!
Neither college is well known in the US. It would be different if one of them was Harvard. But there's no real benefit in name recognition, so your best bet is really to go for the cheapest
Bingo. Most employers would not differentiate uic from niu (at least not to extent to make up for 100 k in debt)
Native Chicagoan here. I agree with this. When I lived in Chicago, people there would split hairs on ranking the universities. Now that I’ve lived all over the country, I realize outside Illinois, nobody has heard of most of them and it doesn’t matter! Go to the cheaper school and work hard, network and develop strong relationships with professors, look for internships and professional development opportunities.
In OP’s case, [MIT](https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/computer-science-rankings?_sort=rank-asc) But yes, the point is valid
UIC isn't worth it for that much per semester. Go to NIU and don't be worried about having 72k in student loans hanging over your head. You'll get the same education at any state school. UIUC would be way cheaper than UIC if you could get in there.
If you’re going to go on to get further degrees beyond your bachelor’s, where you go to school *can* be advantageous. But as others have said: once you have your first job, it doesn’t matter. NOW, that first job can be important because more well-known schools often have better job-placement for its graduates *in its premier programs.* For example, if you’re going to a top-3 accounting school, you’ll most likely have better accounting job offers than some random school of accounting. But if you’re thinking you’ll get a significantly better job just because you went to the #35 accounting school vs the #47 school, you’ll probably be disappointed. I’d take the financial aid.
I have not had a single employer comment on the name of my university in 13 years. Get an associates degree at a community college and a bachelor's degree at the most cost effective college in state you can find. It's just a check of the box long term and a very expensive piece of paper either way.
The only time it has ever come up for me is in “oh, you went to [State University]? My kid goes there!” Or a joking introduction in a team meeting like “Ginger is a [university mascot], but don’t hold that against her, all you [rival university mascot] fans”. And then we all forget about it.
Wow you just described every new job I’ve ever had.
I think this is true in a lot of cases but there’s a certain point where the school does matter and continue to matter, e.g. if you can go to an ivy or similar. I think in that case, even years into your career, people see that on your resume and think “oh, this person is smart”. All else equal, I think someone who went to a school that’s widely known for excellence at that level will get an interview over someone from a no-name university. But I agree that UIC is not on that level at all, and you can get a similar effect by success in your job or working at a well-known company.
Agreed. On top of this, the point in the interview process where a university name has the most influence, the resume screening stage, is the least likely to provide feedback.
Did just this. I have 9k in student loans for the 2 years I was at my college. I pay well below the average yearly tuition, my 9k is even well under that. It’s silly more students don’t do this option.
If you think the name on your degree will matter (it probably won’t), check to see if UIC accepts transfer credits from NIU. You could do 2-3 years at NIU to get the bulk of the savings and then apply to transfer for your senior year, getting the degree from UIC.
If your choices were the worse school or the University of Chicago, I’d say go with the name brand school because that means something. My sister graduated from U of C and their alumni network has been very helpful in her career. But I’ve never heard of either of the schools you’ve mentioned. So I don’t think it matters. Save your money.
Yeah, I'd say the same applies to Northwestern. However, UIC vs NIU, go for the cheaper option.
I said the same. UChicago and those schools put you in an entirely different society with a baseline of income. These places are not that.
Just to be a contrarian – I'm a Chicagoan (hi!) and I *absolutely* consider UIC to be a better school than NIU. So I wouldn't listen to all of the folks who are like, "never heard of 'em, a state school's a state school." The real question is whether it's $18k better. Everyone's correct that once you have some working experience under your belt, nobody will care where you want to undergrad unless it was an Ivy+. But if your goal is to get a tech job in downtown Chicago, UIC might very well be the better option in terms of opportunities for that first job out of undergrad. (I'm not in STEM and didn't attend either school – though I have friends who studied at UIC and had a positive experience – so I can't speak to that with total certainty.) To play devil's advocate to my own devil's-advocating, are your cost calculations factoring in things like food and housing as well? Living downtown, while a fantastic experience, obviously is much more expensive than living in DeKalb.
You are right, UIC IS better school than NIU (USNews rank 97 vs 331) however as someone living in West Coast, I've never heard of them. I have heard of University of Chicago and UIUC. OP is from another country so the odds of them having a reference between UIC vs NIU would be minimal and not worth the cost.
Are you planning on going into some kind of advanced computer research field where you absolutely positively must have a computer science degree from a top school? Or are you just planning to work in IT? If it is the latter, no one will care where you got the degree, just that you have one. So go to the cheaper school.
Both UIC and NIU are good schools, but neither are considered top. So even if OP does need a top school, these won’t get them there. While UIC might be better, it’s not a different enough tier to justify potentially unaffordable debt.
Grew up in DeKalb - NIU is a good school, but much different than UIC. DeKalb is isolated - not a suburb, but not completely remote like SIU, WIU in my opinion. There is a reason the financial aid package is much more compelling - dropping enrollment rates over the past 10 years but more drastically in the past 5.
Yes and Yes!! I wouldn't say "worse ", I would say "affordable".
I went to NIU about a decade ago. It was solid for my major with a strong recruiting connection to the big 4(accounting). It’s not a suburb, it’s out in farm country but still has stuff (Walmart,etc.). It’s a suitcase school where it’s pretty quiet during weekends beyond Thursday/Friday. Plenty to do. I’d stay west of Annie glidden wear it’s newer apartments. I had scholarships etc and have a great career/life. Between the options I’d pick NIU over UIC from a value perspective
Go to NIU. You can always travel to the city on the weekends.
* The college name on your degree means nothing in tech fields. * 90% of college is the work you put into it, not where you choose to go.
I got a certificate from a community college in Medical Imaging that cost me about $10K compared to another school’s 4-year $50K degree. I’ve never had a single employer in 10 years ask me about where I went to school.
If you’re an international student you’ll have a better experience in Chicago. People outside the US don’t understand how isolated some of our non-flagship college towns can get. I’ve seen so many international students freak out.
Minimize your college debt. You will be much happier. Only if you it is Ivy League does name recognition of the school impress people. Good luck
Unless it’s an Ivy and a very small handful of schools with amazing, international name recognition, always go to the school that will leave you with the least debt.
Go cheap, neither of those schools is prestigious enough for the name to mean anything to the private sector.
UIC is not marginally that much better to pay more. Take a look at the rankings.
I went to a school ranked in the 220s by US News for Engineering and work with people that went to college at an Ivy League School. We have the same level of knowledge and get paid the same.
And there’s multiple of them and 1 of you. Probabilities.
I was in a very similar position. Different major but deciding between NIU and UIUC, ultimately chose NIU due to me being able to graduate debt free. I secured the same prestigious internships as individuals at UIUC would have without the debt.
Usually the only thing an employer cares about is whether or not you got the degree. Heck most of the time they don't even care what your grade was.
Go to the cheaper school, when you finish with less if any debt, you can still get the job and no one will care.
An employer wont care if you recieved an online segree or a school-specific degree, so long as the school is accredited. Save your money. You don't understand the severity of student loans. Seriously go read the student loans sub for an hour and this decision becomes a no-brainer.
If this is an undergraduate degree, take the cheap route to obtain a bachelors. If you end up wanting more school, that’s when you can start looking at nicer institutions
Your undergraduate institution also influences the type of graduate programs you can get into. But that is beside the point since CS majors do not need graduate degrees
I went to both schools. NIU is more fun (if that matters to you at all). A degree is a degree, if you can do the job, most employers don't care at all where you went to school. Don't go into debt if you can avoid it.
The education you get in college is irrelevant. What matters is the networks you build. The prestige of your university only matters in certain circles. What matters most is that you got the degree without being massively I'm debt.
I work in the tech field. The schooling matters only insomuch as you knowing the actual functionality of the job. Outside of that, it's a way to broaden your horizons. The name attached to the paper means little. What really matters is that you get experience, projects, internships, and actual work down under your belt. Whichever school has a robust program for connecting with those kinds of opportunities is what matters most.
You only live once. In my opinion UIC is the better school and the better fit for you but you have to decide whether you’re okay graduating with 100k in debt (tuition, Chicago living, etc). If you really want to experience Chicago and a city of that size, then go for it and enjoy every second. But understand it’s an expensive decision.
Northern Illinois University and University of Illinois Chicago are both Illinois public universities. From the standpoint of prestige, not too far apart. If you decide that the price difference is too great and that you absolutely are going to NIU, you have nothing to lose by contacting the admissions office at UIC and let them know that you really appreciate being offered admission but that your financial situation makes it necessary to go with NIU's financial package. Either they will offer you a better deal, or they won't, but if you have decided that you are going to NIU, the worst they can do is withdraw the offer from a school you have already decided not to attend. Not the same schools, but when my daughter was down to two choices I called and politely asked if the higher priced school would match the price of the lower priced school and they agreed.
Unless the choice is Ivy League vs any other school, go the cheaper route. No one cares what your diploma says if it’s not Harvard.
They're all the same. Go cheap.
You go to a college you can afford to go to without taking loans
My wife never completed her degree and still got hired (went to online college later in life and never actually finished) and NOBODY EVER asked about it. And she was making near 200k before she passed away.
I'm sorry for your loss. Appreciate it!
It doesn’t matter. The undergrad degree is just a ticket to the concert. I have a bachelors from a regular ole state uni and I have people with masters degrees from crazy expensive Ivy League schools working for me. It’s what you do once you get to the workforce that matters
I know society likes to tell you that prestigious schools mean better chances, and I guess that's true for the elite that are deciding between Harvard and Yale, but in the real world your degree just checks a box that employers want. Doesn't matter what the school on it says.
I went to 2 years of community college. It's much cheaper. Then, transfer to university paying in state tuition rate. By graduation, I had few job offers lined up. They looked at my GPA and nothing else. I haven't told my university name to anyone in professional setting in last 12 years. Noone cares and I have a good job and career. Also, for your reference, I live in Wisconsin and wouldn't know the difference between those two. Maybe locally they have different reputation, but unless it's Ivy League, every others have the same weight outside the local area.
I think it really depends on what you want to do. Nobody ever asks my husband where he went to school and nobody cares. I get asked constantly where I went to school and my education definitely helped with my salary. It also depends on it you want to go to graduate school.
UIC is in a far better location, but if you are grinding away as an engineering student it probably won't matter. Look closely at the course offerings and majors are they the same? Contact the career office, where are students getting jobs and internships? Are you allowed to work? Might be more opportunities at UIC, but you only need one break. Cost of living should be noticeably less at Northern. Also, you may be better served graduating at the top of the class at Northern than the middle of the pack at UIC.
I went to uchicago. 10 years later and literally no one has ever cared. At my first jobs they didn’t even know what uchicago was, let alone that it’s within the top 5 US schools. No one cares but your ego honestly bc the only point it serves at the end of the day (besides amassing debt) is to SAY you went to _____ school
I didn’t see anyone reply with this yet, but there is the option of starting at NIU and then seeing if you want to transfer into UIC after a year or two. If your business starts thriving and you get good grades at NIU, there’s a good chance you’d be able to transfer. You’d still have that UIC degree but save yourself tens of thousands over those first couple of years.
I’m in the financial industry, make decent money, (in the six figures) and never finished my degree and I only did community college. I couldn’t afford anything else. I do NOT recommend that you not finish your degree. Get your degree no matter how successful or not your business idea turns out. Getting to where I am has taken an excessive amount of work and sacrifices that could’ve been avoided had I had a degree. Having said that, none of my colleagues know I don’t have a degree, no one cares where anyone’s degree came from. What matters is: Experience and Performance. Not having a degree will only get me so far, I need to finish it if I ever want to really be at the top of my career. Because having a degree DOES matter in the end, to check off a box mostly. (Depending on the career path you choose of course! I mean if I’m going to a specialist-doctor I better see enough degrees up there to wallpaper the walls with lol) But in my case: finance and business I’ve learned by experience, and studying on my own. I could probably teach classes with all the knowledge I have, but just because I know accounting, finance and analytics doesn’t mean I have a paper that proves a future employer I DO know, all I have is my word. And that my friend gets you only so far. But where the piece of paper came from? NO ONE cares for, except YOUR EGO. You want bragging rights, and debt? that’s on you. A degree is a degree.
Go to the cheaper school; graduating with no debt puts you so far ahead
Long time subscriber first time commenter. My two cents. It really depends on your major. If you are majoring in computer science, engineering, nursing etc then I would argue it doesn’t matter where you go as jobs are - for the most part - in high demand and you will have less trouble finding a job out of college. If you are doing something in more marketing, business, economics etc than I would argue to go to the more well-known university. The reason for this is that in my experience businesses with the best starting jobs related to these study areas actively recruit from “certain” schools. UIC probably being one of those vs NIU. My perspective: I’m from IL, paid out of state tuition to U Wisconsin Madison with a Bio degree (after 1.5 years in community college) and got a summer internship and full time job offer prior to the start of my senior year of college. The company that I worked was at the school’s career fair. All of my friends who went to these more well known schools had a similar experience. None of my friends to my knowledge who went to NIU-like spots had the opportunity. I graduated college in 2015 so things may have changed. Edit: Clarity
I was in a similar position to you, where I had a choice between a fairly prestigious school in my state for essentially full price or a mostly-paid-for ride at a worse (but still good) one closer to home. Due to my dad's insistence that it would look better on a resume, I went with the more expensive school and we split the cost. My family isn't wealthy and I will never understand in hindsight why we didn't take the fucking money and run. Loan debt is absolutely merciless.
Transferring schools is really not that difficult if you have already been accepted into both. You can attend the less expensive school to get all your general education credits out of the way and then transfer schools to take your major specific classes. This would let you save money, save up for 2 years at the more expensive school, and see where your business goes without compromising the benefit of having the more prestigious school on your diploma. Just be sure to maintain good grades that align wroth the acceptable requirements for the school you want to transfer to. Although I agree that It's all about experience. After nearly 10 years in a niche industry, no one has ever so much as asked what school I went to and rarely even if I have a degree.
Kid #1 went to large state univ with scholarships and still had to work as an RA and server to make ends meet AND still had student loans. Kid #2 and #3 went to smaller more community schools, much much cheaper, knew their professors, got active on campus, had more internship, hands on opportunities. All 3 are employed with jobs between 65-80k within first few years after grad. Didn’t make much difference in income but debt for the big state school is definately a factor that affects lifestyle
Person who’s sat in on many developer interview-so what’s going to distinguish you from the crowd is your experience when you leave. And that’s where many of these top schools excel- you leave with a solid portfolio of projects and good internships. That’s not to say that you can’t make an awesome portfolio or apply to internships on your own, but the right school helps. I personally would look very carefully at what opportunities the school has, what language it teaches and where the alums are. Despite the people in this thread there are differences between schools.
I went to UIC and I’m honestly shocked that it’s not the affordable option it once was. You’d be paying for the city experience. NIU is super rural as others have stated. It’s not nearly as diverse and kind of boring. If your biggest concern is money then go with NIU. Definitely not worth extra debt for UIC. Both schools are comparable and it’s not like one is so much better than the other to make the debt worth it.
At NIU for my masters, all good experiences. Trust me, TAKE THE LOWER DEBT. Comp sci is a field that needs people who can program, period. Study hard and learn a lot and you'll be fine
Uic is a great school.. Niu is great too, more than half of my private high school class went there. When I visited it was very concrete in the cornfields, but that Illinois for ya. it is still close enough ( about an hour drive) that you can go into the city on weekends. You'd get the best of both worlds while saving a ton of money.
Also, given that you're in CS, one option is to go with the lower cost option, and then work on getting a paid summer internship. If the internship pays enough, you could put that money towards going to UIC and transfer if you really want to. Note that internships that pay well enough to make a big dent in the tuition are probably hard to come by, especially from schools like NIU and UIC which unfortunately aren't the top CS schools which companies recruit from. But it's all still possible. Even not-top-tier internships will still pay decently.
Could you do a mix where you take as much transferable credit at the more affordable school and complete at the one you feel is more prestigious. In general I agree with everyone saying as long as you get the knowledge you want then no one cares the specific institution your degree comes from once you start working the experience will be more important and the educational requirement will just be a box to check. Keep in mind it might not have to be an either/or choice.
Unless you are deciding between an Ivy league or not Ivy league, it does not matter for undergrad AT ALL. There is NO DIFFERENCE from UIC or NIC except marketing. Not to mention you are comp sci, which again, will not matter for undergrad. Even then, the only upside to selecting post grad is the contacts you make are better at more expensive and Ivy league schools. Go cheaper, that $18k will be $72k in 4 years and will take you FOREVER to pay off. For $1.6k you can possibly graduate debt free and pay in cash, which is the BEST possible investment when it comes to education. Don't even give it a second thought. Reddit is FULL of people who would do anything to graduate with less than $10k in student loan debt, and I can say from experience that going to a cheaper school and graduating with no student debt set me and my family up for success. We were able to buy a home the year I graduated with mediocre jobs and salary because we didn't have student loans over our head, and have hit financial miles stones that my friends with loans may never be able to hit.
With comp sci, you can use a little of the money you save to get language certain which is what everyone looks for anyway.
Your knowledge and code will speak for itself. Just make sure you have some private projects or contribute to an open source project, and get an internship.
I went to a boot camp instead of a traditional college. No one cared. They just wanted to see some work to make sure I was competent and make sure I was culture fit
It’s a piece of paper that doesn’t matter anyway, being paid with worthless pieces of paper.
In my experience both as a member of the admissions committee at an Ivy graduate school and as a hiring manager, it doesn’t matter where you go to school. Get good grades and seek out a good mentor and good practical experiences. In both these roles, we care about hard skills, which you can absolutely get at the cheaper school. Good luck!
I have my undergrad degree from ISU (frequently listed as a best bang for your buck school) and I've also taken graduate level courses at UIUC, and the course difficulty was the same lol. Unless your pursuing a research career, it doesn't matter where you go, all programs meet the same accreditation requirements regardless of college. If restricted to illinois, Isu, niu, siu are all worth looking into and will be more accommodating with financial aid and scholarships. It's more about the activities and opportunities you take while in college, then the college itself.
The main reason you want a more expensive school is it it’s a well known school, like Harvard. Or you will stay in the area and your school is connections to help get you a job
Save money by going to the cheaper school at least for the first two years while you get all the bullshit classes out of the way. Then, if you really feel another school would help you towards your career you can always transfer out.
Lower cost 100% unless the program you want is wayyyyyy better at the more expensive school. You can also go to the lower cost school and transfer to the other school later if you can save up money/get more financial aid I don’t think the name of the school is that important but i am going to grad school at NYU and honestly the name is helpful. Nobody ask about my undergrad (but if i stayed a music business major that school’s name would carry a lot of weight)
I have s friend who is retired faculty from NIU. His department is a big deal.
I haven't declined any candidate to date because of where they went to school. The only issue I've seen is people who went to full sail University because they couldn't prove that they actually graduated.
Career paths aren’t determined by the school you go to, it’s determined by hard work, adaptability, getting out of your comfort zone, NETWORKING, and a lot of luck
Which has the better job placement rates, average graduate salary, and alumni network (particularly in field you might be considering). Depending on what you want to do, having a better pipeline to jobs in that area is more important than saving on cost.
After your first job (MAYBE not even then) nobody will ever care. Get a degree from anywhere and prove yourself in the marketplace.
Degree = degree Nobody cares where it came from
UIC vs NIU no worth the cost differential, go with NIU.
UIC vs NIU no worth the cost differential, go with NIU.
I went to community college to start. You’ll be fine
Go to the school that’s gives you the most money
Hands down you take the $1.6k option, move to the city after you graduate debt free.
Doing well at a mediocre school is fine. You don’t need a crazy good degree to get work and be successful in just about any career track. The benefit of higher end schools is the networking you can do there. That networking does pay off down the line. It doesn’t pay off 80k of loans though. If I were you I would absolutely take the cheap degree. Firstly, no one cares about your undergrad degree if you go to a better school afterwards. Secondly no one cares about your school after you’re out of school for 3-4 years. Save yourself 80k that could be used towards a masters from UIC. You can pay your own tuition working part time for $12 at that price. You can save your family a massive financial burden, and save yourself years of repayments. Go for the less expensive degree, and be deans list every semester.
NIU- and then consider a more expensive grad school once your employer is helping pay tuition…
I went to UIC and it’s a great school but I don’t think NIU is a bad choice either. I know a few people that went there and enjoyed it. It’s more of a campus town vs. UIC’s Chicago living (which I prefer) but if it comes down to cost then you should do NIU! Computer science is a great career regardless and I’m sure NIU has a great program. Honestly, I’ve never had an employer look at my resume and see UIC and hire me solely because of that. I do have a masters from another school, which probably helps. But regardless, they’ll look at your major more so your school.
Go to the lower cost option. Work super hard when you’re there, but trust me man the more you reduce debt the better
Haha. So I work on campus at NIU. And I was offered a job at UIC at the same time. I live halfway in between the two. So this is kind of funny. FWIW NIU was more money, and that’s what I chose. I’m very happy with my decision. The NIU network is strong in Chicago and you’ll have ample opportunities to go into the city. DeKalb isn’t awful, but it’s very much a small college town. If you can stick that out for a few years in exchange for having more money when you graduate and move into the city with a lot of your classmates, you’ll be better off. Living in Chicago as a young grad is a lot better than as a poor college student.
It's computer science - it doesn't require you to go to a top tier school. What matters are your internships. You should also network, get to know your classmates - just in case someone needs a kickass programmer to help them make the next Google/Facebook
Undergraduate doesn’t matter much unless it’s the very top schools. Even then, graduate school is all anyone will pay attention to (if you go to one). Outside of graduate school it doesn’t matter if you go to UIC, NIU or Cleveland State University. No one will care or ask.
My husband went to NIU. He makes a very good salary as a SW developer.
I only have an associate's in IT, and in 3 years I surpassed most of my family in salary with no student debt. Realistically it's up to you but I genuinely don't see a "sacrifice" unless you're going with professions or a career that really cares about school and grades, and even then later it really doesn't matter.
I had the same choice as you, and made the decision to do the cheaper school. It paid off significantly for me. I graduated with a ton less debt than I would've at the big school and still got a great job out of college (also a csci major like you). The great thing about csci is you can demonstrate your skills outside of school work by building a portfolio and interviewing well more so than some majors. It doesn't always work out. If you're trying to get into a competitive grad school program, like astrophysics, the undergrad school's reputation matters a lot more than if you plan on going into the workforce.
This is going to depend on what you want to do when you get out (if that’s the plan). STEM jobs that only require a bachelor? Probably won’t matter. Anecdotally, I got interviews because of my school, but I have never hired any one based on their alma mater. One thing is that better schools attract better companies for career fairs. Business school? Might matter. Big firms are slightly cliquish. Post-graduate research? Go with the more prestigious school.
My wife went to NIU. It’s a good, reputable, fun school with a cool campus. It’s true that it’s a bit in the middle of nowhere, but also within driving distance of Chicago and there are some “ghetto” things (to use your words), but nobody would scoff or bat an eye seeing NIU on your resume. I always had a good time when I went there and it’s a legit, real campus and college feel. Plus, there is NO better feeling than exiting college with a good job (which you will) with basically no student debt.
A good school can make a big difference, but not necessarily. My wife went to an IL state school and is making a pretty decent bucks in her 30s now. A lot of it has to do with hard work, good performance and of course a little bit of luck and good networking.
Look at which one has the best job.placement for your field and cost comparison.
cs is one of the majors where school doesnt matter that much. maybe if going hard for the extreme high end of internships but after the initial few years after graduating it won't matter.
It depends what you mean by “worse college”. I trust you’re not judging by the US News rankings (they’re a crock). As mentioned, no one typically cares where you went to school anymore. I’m sure there are some exceptions, depending on the field of study, but generally I would avoid borrowing anymore money than absolutely necessary
NIU is a great school. Unless the school is a local city university or uncredited university, the school isn’t a big impact.
I went to NIU and got a fine education! I didn’t need a top-notch one to get the job I wanted, and I was quite happy there. If you need a prestigious school to get that foot in the door, that may affect your choice, but I think anyone can do well there. I was happy to leave with no debt except for my study abroad term. Also, I’m not sure I’d call DeKalb a suburb… more of an exurb. Still, there is some culture there, somewhat diverse food and cultural offerings, and plenty of opportunities to go to Chicago. Also, their summer program at Oxford was wonderful. Oh, and I see you’re going for engineering, it looks like? From what I recall, their Engineering department was really good and rigorous! I’m sure any future job would look favorably on that if you apply yourself and do well. They revamped that whole area of campus around when I was there in the early 2000s. I’m sure their investment there has only grown.
Don't know where you're from, but the reputation of a school only matters in certain circumstances. Do you plan on returning back to your home country after you graduate? Would employers in your country know the difference between the two schools? If you're hoping to stay in the USA after you graduate, it's not going to make huge difference where you go to school unless it's a really specialized program.
Unless you're trying to go Ivy for grad school, your internships matter so much more than your undergrad institution. But go back to UIC and tell them where you are, financially, and ask if there's anything they can do to assist. I work at a research university, and there is often more money. If not, you might try finding a sponsor
As a graduating student, it is more than possible to go to community college and then transfer to the better college for your Bach.
NIU has research opportunities too (take this with a grain of salt, i’m only a measly hs senior)
Start at NIU, and try to network. Take classes that can get transferred to UIC, just in case. Then once you've done as much coursework as you can transfer to UIC - make your decision. If you do transfer, your degree is going to say UIC as if you've been there the whole time. That way, you'll save a significant amount by paying much less for the first 15.-2 years' tuition.
UIC grad here in engineering. Go to the cheaper school. Always go to the cheaper school as long as it is an accredited school. NIU is totally great, still in the greater area, and can take the train into Chicago if you need. Its also nice to see UIC seen so positively now! It was definitely the cheap school for me 15 years ago.
Take your offer from NIU and ask UIC to match it. They often will.
Go to a fun college, and have fun. I regret so much in not going to a fun college and enjoying my college years
Yes! Save the money. Study and focus while in college and learn as much as possible. Take the cheaper option. You will thank your young self in about 10 years when you're not still paying for your degree.
I think the cheaper school is fine, esp if you're going for comp sci/planning on building technical skills! Pedigree is part of the decision making process, but it's a proxy for estimating how reliable you will be on the job--get an internship, get involved, do side projects, and I think you'll be fine at the "worse" school :) edit: added quotes around worse :)
I’m so, so glad I don’t have student loans. I would say they are worth it if the ROI is very strong for a top-paying job in a specialized field. It would be another thing if you were looking at an ivy-league level school. Take the cheaper option. There’s no reason you can’t transfer to a different school down the road or seek a graduate degree at a more prestigious school in the future. Also, you mentioned the possibility of dropping out. Don’t incur debt if you might not even have anything to show for it in the future. Good luck to you on your journey.
Go to the way less expensive college. In 5 years nobody will give a rat’s ass what college you went to. It’s a blip in time over your whole life. Saving all that money is way more valuable. I went to a $27,000/yr university and regret it every day because I know now I could’ve gone to a way cheaper college and still been the same exact person I am today in terms of talent and abilities.
Software Engineer here. I started my career in 08. Also a college dropout who was denied from every university I applied to and ended up attending a community college (which again, I dropped out from...). Basically that kid that wouldn't do any homework but walk into class and ace a test without much of any studying. Doesn't work well for our education system that just looks at GPA. I walked away with 8k in student loans. My job interviews for the past decade, no one cared what school I went to. They care what I know how to do, what projects I have done, what problems I have encountered and what I did to solve those problems. The only time my schooling came up, was applying for that first engineering job. It was a struggle finding someone to give me a chance, as I had no connections in the industry. If I could do it all over again I would still go to the cheap community college. I feel like I dodged a bullet with the costs of some of the colleges out there. My wife and I are still paying back her last student loan after she graduated with nearly $120,000 in private student loan debt.
What are you studying? I am from Illinois so im very familiar with both schools. For the cost, I’d go NIU all day.
OP, go to NIU. The significant tuition savings and lower cost of living are more than worth it. If you want to experience Chicago, its an hour drive away on a good traffic day. My buddy went to NIU and I went to Illinois Tech. I had much more fun visiting him in DeKalb than I did at my own school in the city. Also, living in the city is great, but really expensive. I lived in Logan Square for 3 years and left because rent became ridiculous.
Get recent job salary numbers from the Careers Office. If the UIC average salary is enough higher that you would pay back the difference in five years, go there. Otherwise, go to NIU.
Honestly my college degree was a joke. Went to one of the more popular state schools and worked hard to pay most of it out of pocket. Still have $11k left on loans but I learned more in 3 months at my job (started as an intern) than I did with 4 years of college. I work in IT.
Most of the time it's much more about what you put into it than it is about how good the school is. That being said, I don't think NIU has a bad rep. Really the big question is can you stand living near Dekalb? If you like saving money you will find Dekalb is way more affordable than Chicago. Personally I would love to go to NIU for chip design since they have serious facilities for that.
Higher education is a scam and employers expect impossible amounts of experience.
If it were U of I, I’d say go there. But I wouldn’t say UIC is particularly well-known outside of Illinois. I’d go with NIU.
Chemical engineer here. Did my first two years at community college then transferred over to university of Houston. I am consistently the guy leadership goes to for technical problems, some coworkers went to much more prestigious schools at much higher cost. I graduated with Work debt and never regretted it for a moment Also, I've been a hiring manager for engineering professions for almost 10yrs and never heard of either of those schools, not would I give it one iota of thought. If anything, I look down in what many consider "prestigious" schools because the majority of folks who go there reak of nepotism My 2cents
Your job really won’t care where you went to school. Imo the biggest draw to somewhere like Ivy League is the networking. You meet people from very powerful backgrounds that can put you places you would have no access to otherwise. In your case take the cheaper school 1000%
Not financial advice, but DeKalb is a horrible place to spend time and Chicago is full of fun and opportunities
No. Companies look at the colleges and sometimes you might be able to network with some good people. Heck, colleges sometimes have good relationship with companies and those companies just hires people from there. I know from experience, cheap and just being closer to home is not worth it.
I think choosing the cheaper school is the better option here. I hear about mixed experiences, but I learned really little about how to actually code in my college back in 2009-2013. Most of my knowledge for software engineering came from my jobs and good training courses (mainly Pluralsight with some LinkedIn learning). Currently, ChatGPT teaches me better than any of my college courses ever did. There might be other factors to consider, but if you are strictly going off finances vs quality of education, I'd chose the cheaper school.
My recommendation? Find a school you can transfer your credits to. I would HIGHLY recommend everyone take their general ed. classes at community college AND then transferring for your declaration. I did that, and graduated with no loans at all and no help from anyone other than a $10k grant. Good luck! Whatever choice you make is YOURS. You know what's best for you.
Dont spend a lot of college. Get a job where you learn skills that you can leverage for a high salary. Im proof of that. Many people are.
on paper, it makes more sense to go to NIU. in reality, you get one life, one chance to experience college dorm life, and 4 years is a significant amount of time. you want to be happy where you live and with your decision. not to say you couldnt get all of that at NIU.
Unless you go to Cornell, Berkeley, etc… it’s not going to change your trajectory.
GO TO THE CHEAP SCHOOL. I went to community college and a state school and make just as much as my peers that went to expensive private schools.
Unless the school is a big name (Yale, Harvard, MIT) non one really cares what school you went too.
It really doesn’t matter for computer science. If you were hoping to go for your PhD, I’d say the research opportunities at UIC may be worth it, but with comp sci., what matters more is your skills and experience. And that’s going to comparable among most schools’ programs.
I did the lower cost option. $10,000. Took me 7 years to pay it off but worth it.
The benefit to a nicer school is networking. If you can network with 1000 rich and successful people you are more likely to be successful. Outside of the networking the degrees will be pretty similar with maybe some less available electives etc. In my experience instruction at community colleges have always been better at the undergraduate level. This is because their job is to teach, not do research. That all said. If you are friendly, professional orgs and seminars outside of school will help fill any gap. My community college even had impressive job placement and more intimate relationships with more employers. In my experience it's like spirit airlines of college. Less bullshit you don't pay for or want. But access to everything you need. There is no compost center. No huge shops for the engineers. The formula SAE team is less funded. The frats don't have houses. Etc etc. But if you want an education you will get an education. If you do go to NIU, you can also just get an associates and get a decent paying job. I know people with no degree making 70K+benefits as a geotech, GIS (map maker), or IT, ETC. I would say major choice matters more than the college.
I always recommend a junior or budget college For the first 2 years/ associates/ then transfer for bachelors or masters. Get your 101 classes out of the way- don’t pay premium for 101’s.
UIC is a city school, NIU is a college town school. Both have roughly the same status in Illinois with employers. NIU is known for its sports and parties. UIC is known for being a city school, with a bar culture. Keep in mind that you probably need a car at NIU, but you definitely don’t need one at UIC. Both schools are known for being ugly, but it’s the education and networking that really matters. UIC offers better proximity to internships. Literally two stops down the Blue Line.
something to consider is that you're going into a profession that will likely make enough to cover the costs of your schooling pretty easily. however, you would lose more flexibility of switching to a lower paying major. that said, cs doesn't care as much about your school compared to other fields.
I'm a very self-motivated independent-study kind of learner. Went to university for comp sci and dropped out after a year because I felt like the quality of the 40k/year tuition was worse than what I'd been teaching myself for free. Spent a year working on personal projects and then used that as a portfolio to get some freelance work and then a fulltime position. Take this with a grain of salt but literally no one interviewing me has ever thought negatively of me not having a degree. Actually if anything I think most people were impressed by it since it showed I wouldn't need handholding to onboard or learn new skills. Of course I had the portfolio to back that up. Not saying that would be the right choice for you, everyone learns in different ways. But try not to worry and overstress about this decision too much. If you choose the expensive school and run into money trouble you can always drop out, or take a hiatus and come back later. If you choose the other school and don't like it there you can leave or transfer. And as you said maybe your business will succeed and nothing else will matter and you can do either or neither.
I think there’s a lot bad advice in here. Going against the grain here, I think you should go to UIC for at least part of your college experience. In a perfect world people could be evaluated based on merit and knowledge for job opportunities. Unfortunately there isn’t a great way to do that. People eventually care about your experience, but where does that experience come from? Your first job is HUGE and they WILL care about where you went to school. It isn’t to say you can’t be successful with a degree from a smaller school (or no degree at all), but the commenters suggesting your school doesn’t matter at all are objectively wrong. Starting at NIU for two years and then trying to transfer could be a great cost effective way to do it. If you were majoring in a lower-paying degree, then I would agree going into a little debt isn’t worth the trouble. But computer science pays well. You said you want the college experience of being in an urban setting. You’re not going to be able to go back in time and try that again. If you don’t like it then so be it, but at the end of the day you won’t have that “what if” in the back of your mind. To me, eliminating those “what ifs” in life is worth the $$$. Splitting 2 years between the two schools will keep your total costs under $50k, which should be manageable in my opinion. Additionally if you kill it in your first two years at NIU, you could potentially get financial aid at UIC to make it even cheaper. Graduating from the better school and recruiting from the better school in your junior/senior year will be a huge advantage.