Computer Vision MS: CMU vs. Columbia vs. Princeton

[slippy0]

I got accepted to the masters programs at CMU Robotics Institute, Columbia, and Princeton, and my goal is to go back to industry as a vision engineer, not to continue on to a PhD. 

Columbia and CMU are tied as my top choice, but neither offer any funding to their masters students, whereas Princeton offers full tuition plus a stipend. I've been out of school working in industry for two years saving up money, and I can afford Columbia and CMU without putting myself into significant debt, so I'm not worried about that. However, the question remains if Columbia or CMU are worth the ~$100k it would cost. Their programs have better vision classes, but no thesis, whereas in Princeton I'd get a larger portion of my experience through thesis work, and fewer high-level classes. In fact, the Princeton degree wouldn't actually be in computer vision, it would just be the focus I would take with my thesis.

Additionally Princeton's computer vision group is relatively young, so they don't have much of a track record to go off of. This combined with the fact that I'd be doing a thesis causes me to feel a lot of uncertainty compared to the reputations of the other programs.

I've begun conversations with the admissions departments and professors, but I'm trying to figure how much a "better" education for a MS continuing on to industry is actually worth. Does a company like Google care more that I took classes in CNNs and photogrammetry, or that I did a thesis on similar topics? 

 

Thanks, and let me know if there are any other details that would be helpful. 

 

 

Edited March 16, 2016 by slippy0
Added details

[blacknighterrant]

Google has very unique hiring procedures and your chances of getting in are probably about the same as a PhD and a non-college graduate, they have over 2.7 million applicants every year for a few thousand jobs. You should not make your decision with google in mind. In the industry, a non-thesis is better than a thesis, because you will have taken more classes and learned more, a thesis is more helpful if you are applying to PhD programs, but even though you aren't planning on doing a PhD now, it may be worthwhile to do thesis just in case you change your mind. Companies will not really care much about which you did at all. Princeton and Carnegie Mellon are better regarded than Columbia in electrical engineering, but all three are closely ranked. Regardless of which you choose companies are not gonna reject you because of which of the three you attended. Princeton is by far your best choice. Why pay for a degree when you don't have to? Companies won't care about whether you did thesis or not, but thesis is better to have just in case you change your mind and decide to go PhD so there is that. Actually the fact that you aren't getting a computer vision degree at princeton is a good thing. An electrical engineering degree is far more useful because a computer vision degree is too specific. You can change your subfocus and get other jobs with an electrical engineering degree if you want to later on while still getting any computer vision job you want, but with the computer vision degree you can only get computer vision jobs.