How much will money factor in your decision?

[dpileofashes]

unfortunately its becoming a make or break issue

school a- cheapest, live with parents

school b- best program, most expensive

school c- safety, but may offer most funding...

[fuzzylogician]

I'm choosing between schools that are a better match but offer less money and schools that are not as good a match (and are ranked lower) but offer a lot more money. I'll choose one of the better matches because they still offer enough funding for me to live reasonably well, and fit is more important to me than more money.

[saritapie]

When it was all hypothetical, I might have said that money doesn't matter (especially when one has state residency). When I got an utterly unfunded offer from Berkeley, I reflected critically on my unfunded year in master's ( :cry: ) and changed my tune. 'Course, it helps when you get a well-funded offer from a well-regarded school. Since that was my choice (no money at Berkeley versus a well-funded offer from a well-regarded school), it wasn't a life-or-death kind of thing, and the money issue actually helped me

[commcycle]

The stipends from schools I was admitted to ranged from 12k - 16k over 3 years, with one offering 30k (25k min. for 5 years). They were a private school with a good endowment, and the others were relatively new. It was also the one I was most interested in, so it was kind of no contest. I couldn't really imagine going to a school where I only had funding for 3 years if another one was offering significantly more over 5.

[fes_alum]

This year I only applied to two programs and knew that there was a possibility of not receiving a scholarship from either. So in some sense, my decision was already made when I applied...money would not factor into my decision. However having been admitted into both programs, I plan to turn down the offer of admission from my second choice school because they didn't offer a scholarship. I'm not sure if I would have accepted their offer anyway had they given me a scholarship. I just needed a program to fall-back on in case I didn't get into my first choice school this year.

[TulipOHare]

I thought I would be able to be rational about the cost... but logic is now failing me to the point where I feel like I'm making a mistake no matter what I do.

(bitchy details have already been whined about here: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=17208

and here: viewtopic.php?f=67&t=17033 )

[jasper.milvain]

I got offers from my top two choices, and money played a part in my decision to go with what was my second choice up until a month ago. I like to think that the high offer just gave me the motivation to really seriously look at the faculty and the structure of the degree and realize that it was really better for me, but I may be fooling myself.