UT or TU? AKA dream or free?

[MakinChoices]

So I got an offer from my "reach" school yesterday, but won't know about funding until August. At the same time, I could take a Graduate Assistantship at the local private school which would cover tuition and give me a monthly stipend. After doing the math, it'll cost me about 100,000K to move (including out of state tuition, rent, gas in my car, food in my belly etc) while I could stay in town for literally half that. There's of course a chance I would get scholarships/assistantships but no guarantees.

 

The out of state school has an ideal program for me, focusing on language disorders in bilingual children. After 4 years in Japan teaching ESL and working with kids who weren't fluent in either English or Japanese, I'm pretty passionate about the topic and really would love to work in the bilingualism lab and specialize in this area. My home school offers no electives, and in my state there are no similar programs.

 

Thoughts?

 

[Tronathan]

You don't really provide enough details but I am assuming that you are talking about UT Austin vs. Tulsa. I would pay the extra 50k over 5 years with all things equal just to live in Austin instead of Tulsa. If you are talking about a master's then 50k is pretty steep and you probably want to consider if you will make some of that back by landing a better job.