Ohio State for Less Money or Vanderbilt Peabody for Experience?

[echolikebells]

I posted about this once in the Decisions, Decisions thread, but I want to ask the opinions of the education people, since you lot are the ones that know the rankings for these programs. I am going back and forth between Ohio State and Vanderbilt and can't seem to decide.

Ohio State is my undergrad institution, so I would only hold degrees from OSU and nowhere else. It is a well-ranked GSE but it is obviously not as high as Vanderbilt. The cohort is composed mostly of people I know and have had class with at one point or another. They offered me absolutely no funding, but it is still approx. $30,000 cheaper than Vandy for me. There are faculty here with areas of focus that I find incredibly interesting, but I would likely not get to work with them as they are more part of the literacy program than the M.Ed Teaching and Learning program. Columbus is a city I am familiar with (and I have always lived in Ohio). I could keep my current job, keep my current friends, and be within two hours drive of family.

Vanderbilt accepted me and offered me partial tuition funding, but is still going to cost enough that, when combined with my undergrad debt, I will be $100,000+ in the hole. I love Nashville and think it would be an excellent living experience, although I would go by myself with no family or friends. This means I would be interacting with and potentially networking only with people I've never met before. This also means I would have moving costs that I could avoid by staying in Columbus. As a two year program, it could very likely make me more prepared to go into the classroom. I am not particularly excited about the research happening here that I've read about, but that could be a lack-of-exposure thing. Obviously I am more familiar with what is happening at my institution because, well, it is my institution. I am so intrigued by/feel so positively toward this program in my gut that even with the monetary difference, I haven't been able to completely abandon it.

Is the additional experience and networking worth the added money, since I am going to be significantly in debt anyway? Should I stay at OSU for another degree to save the money, since it is still decently ranked?

[mustangintokyo]

Are you looking towards going into teaching English in high school? (or maybe you're certified already?) If you want to teach, I would probably stay at Ohio. If you move to Nashville and then become certified in Tennessee then it would be difficult (but not impossible at all) to teach in a different state

[michigan girl]

I will echo what missingtokyo: are you planning to seek certification and teach K-12 students? If the answer is yes, then I don't understand why you want to pass up Ohio State (especially if you desire to remain in Ohio).

[echolikebells]

I am planning on seeking 7-12 certification, but I have no idea if I plan on staying (or even starting) in Ohio once I am looking for teaching jobs.

[michigan girl]

School reputation doesn't matter if your career goal is secondary teaching (with certification). Teachers don't earn a decent entry-level salary; therefore, I would not recommend going into too much debt.

[echolikebells]

I should note that I will also eventually be pursuing an advanced degree in English and hopefully looking for a career at a junior college/community college. Will school rep matter more for me than if secondary teaching was the end goal?

[coaksole]

I should note that I will also eventually be pursuing an advanced degree in English and hopefully looking for a career at a junior college/community college. Will school rep matter more for me than if secondary teaching was the end goal?

Go to Vanderbilt.

Think about your long term prospects. If you ever go into management/adminstration, the brand-name will help immensely.

If you still need some reassurance, think about it as possibly giving you a starting salary of $300 more per month as compared to a OSU degree. You'll get your Return on Investment back in just 100 months.

[kismetcapitan]

for what it's worth, there are a LOT of research jobs at Peabody that can cover up to 100% of your tuition. About 2/3rds of my cohort are covering their tuition that way.

if you're certain you just need your certification and that's it, go cheap and go local. If you think you'll do anything outside of the classroom, you'll want to be at Peabody. I'm in the policy department, but I do know that there's crazy research money and projects going on in pedagogy and curriculum development (teaching and learning), and a lot of interesting things they're cooking up over there.