MSW program-Decisiveness is not my strong suit...

[grad-school-or-bust]

Hi all-

I am trying to decide which Master of Social Work program to attend in the fall and am a nervous mess as a result of my indecisiveness.

I have narrowed it down to three schools: UNC-Chapel Hill, Columbia, and NYU. I have visited all of the schools and found positives and negatives about all of them--

-Columbia: technically the best ranked program I am considering and has good name recognition, but it is the most expensive of the three.

-NYU: ranks significantly lower than Columbia and costs only a little less, but I really liked the school and its location when I visited.

-UNC: ranks just a little below Columbia and is significantly cheaper than the other two (but still quite expensive as I am out-of-state.)

My main concern is the cost of the programs. I am going to owe a large sum by the end of my MSW anyway and I can't decide if it's just worth it to spend the extra on Columbia or NYU. I also feel like I might prefer to live in a busier and more diverse place like New York, but I can't decide if it's worth the extra money.

I have to decide by tomorrow so any and all advice is appreciated!! Thanks!

[grad-school-or-bust]

Just to specify the financial differences I'm talking about here:

Columbia costs $70,000 more than UNC and NYU costs $50,000 more than UNC.

Considering I'm going into Social Work, which is definitely not known for generous salaries, is this too much?

[AZmsw]

Just to specify the financial differences I'm talking about here:

Columbia costs $70,000 more than UNC and NYU costs $50,000 more than UNC.

Considering I'm going into Social Work, which is definitely not known for generous salaries, is this too much?

First of all, rankings don't matter. They make little to no difference for an MSW grad, with a few exceptions. What employers will be looking for is licensure. If you'd prefer to pay $50,000-70,000 more for a name, that's your prerogative but I certainly wouldn't.

I ran into cost issues in making my decision, and what may help is crunching the numbers on your loans. Go to bankrate.com and there is a loan calculator under College Finance. For example, let's say you take out $100,000 in loans. You'll probably take out more after room, board, living expenses, etc. but for the sake of simplicity we'll say 100. At a rate of 6.8% (Stafford loan interest) it will take you 15 years of $900 a month payments to pay that off. Keep in mind that the interest rate will be higher because most of your loans will probably be Grad PLUS, which I think is 8.5%. On a $50,000 a year salary (which is generous) you'll be earning roughly $3,000 a month and paying $1,000 to $1,500 a month out of that for the next 15 years. It's a little easier to make the decision when you're presented with the real numbers.

[Nia_nia11]

Hi all-

I am trying to decide which Master of Social Work program to attend in the fall and am a nervous mess as a result of my indecisiveness.

I have narrowed it down to three schools: UNC-Chapel Hill, Columbia, and NYU. I have visited all of the schools and found positives and negatives about all of them--

-Columbia: technically the best ranked program I am considering and has good name recognition, but it is the most expensive of the three.

-NYU: ranks significantly lower than Columbia and costs only a little less, but I really liked the school and its location when I visited.

-UNC: ranks just a little below Columbia and is significantly cheaper than the other two (but still quite expensive as I am out-of-state.)

My main concern is the cost of the programs. I am going to owe a large sum by the end of my MSW anyway and I can't decide if it's just worth it to spend the extra on Columbia or NYU. I also feel like I might prefer to live in a busier and more diverse place like New York, but I can't decide if it's worth the extra money.

I have to decide by tomorrow so any and all advice is appreciated!! Thanks!

Just curious... which school did you end up choosing?

[grad-school-or-bust]

I ended up choosing UNC. At the time I made my decision, the cost seemed like a really big factor to me. Looking back, I'm not sure I should have weighed it as heavily as I did but I'm still really excited about my choice. Hopefully it was the right one!