Private vs Public School

[ktjy1987]

When deciding on which school to go to, should whether the school is private or public be a factor?

 

For example, I heard that in general, private schools have better funding than public ones. Will that affect the school's ability to fund projects and the costs associated with attending conferences?

[spellbanisher]

Funding can be pretty idiosyncratic. Some public schools offer pretty good funding, others not so much. I think generally public schools funding is more service-based than private schools, although that probably varies from discipline to discipline, and some big public schools have fellowships. Once you get your funding offers, it is probably best to contact some of the grad students at the programs and ask them about funding that is not included in the offer (such as summer funds, travel money, conference monies, etc). 

 

If terms of if you have to do any service such as teaching or teaching assisting, even the best public schools will have a wider range in the quality of students than private schools. That can be a challenge, but it can also be opportunity to hone your teaching skills. 

[thr0waway]

Ask the grad students how they are funded and if possible try to find out if the professors are funded by the department at all, or if they have to bring in all their own grants

[coffeemachine]

I suppose it goes without saying, but what holds on average for a class of schools (public vs. private) does not necessarily hold of individual schools within those classes. That is, even if private schools have better funding than public, you just might get accepted to a pair of schools --- one public, the other private --- such that the public school has better funding than the private one. So while it is interesting to know what private and public schools are like on average, knowing what is true of public and private schools in general doesn't really affect your choice when deciding between a given pair of schools, provided you have reliable information about the funding situations at these schools.

[MBDT]

I'm not sure there are hard rules about this. The University of Michigan, for instance, is of course a public university, but operates in most senses as a private institution.