College Choice for Veteran

I'm a professor at an institution similar to UC-Davis. My advice is to go there, not necessarily because the instruction could be better but due to the education you will gain from fellow students. I'm not saying that SFSU students are necessarily of lower quality that UC-Davis, its just that at a school with more "full-time" students has more opportunities for peer-learning than one that does not. SFSU is somewhat of a commuter school, just like your situation, and folks that live at home or have families are much less likely to form quality study groups that help each other learn the material and concepts for a particular course.

As an aside, an economics degree from a good institution can be quite lucrative. Especially graduate degrees ($150K+ starting salaries for Ph.D.s). Some information for you if graduate school is really in your future - I know that our grad admissions committee would be leery to give a graduate from SFSU a second look but would absolutely love a UC-Davis grad. So if your target is a good grad school, UC-Davis will help you to get there are well, chances are one of your professors will know somebody where you want to go which can help quite a bit for admission at the top places.

Tough to quantify the difference in education unless you're in a very specific field (law). My impression is that for most programs, you need the piece of paper; the majority of your education is up to you and how passionate you are about the subject. 90k in the bank is an enormous advantage for a graduate; you won't be desperate to take a shitty job asap and its essentialy a house (unless you insist on living in Marin or something).

edit: Re-read Animale's post; definitely a pertinent consideration. I think I've seen studies that show how much influence our peer group has on our own performance.

Anyway, interesting question. What unit(s) were you with? 2/4 --> 5th Marines here.

Tour both. "Hottest Ass" is a category that should not be completely ignored.

I can't put a metric on it... but you don't wanna be looking at slampigs all day either.

Edit: Obviously I'm not completely serious, but I mean I'm not being completely facetious. Learning is nice, and a degree is better... but if the scenery is good that don't hurt either.

Are you planning on getting a graduate degree? In general (not sure if this is true for econ), people only care about your latest degree. So a B.S. from a random directional statue school won't matter if you get an advanced degree at a "better" school

Like Eidal said, for most people you're only getting a degree to get the piece of paper. No one really cares where you went to school once you get into the workforce; only that you went.

It'd be incredibly hard to pass on $90k, at least in my opinion. I weighed out going to UCLA for an MBA a few years ago and decided against it due to pretty much the exact same reason. When you factor in tuition (I have about 10 months left of GI Bill, so it'd soften the blow a bit) and lost wages from not working for 2 years, there was no salary post-MBA that'd make it worthwhile. It was something like $300k in opportunity cost to get it.

I'm in IT, I know nothing of your economics. But in my field unless we are talking some hot shit MIT grad, your school doesn't mean much and your career is generally limited by who you know and how hard you are willing to push yourself. I would go SFSU, although Animale brings up some good points for consideration.

I go to George Mason University right now, and I am pretty sure it would be considered more of a commuter school. Honestly I don't mind it, I find that when I am forced to group with the younger kids they often don't have the same drive and structure that I have. I'm not trying to brag, just saying, I'm older and was in the military. If I can here at 18 I probably wouldn't give much of a shit either. I have the most success when doing work solo or grouped with older guys, usually vets.

kidRiot_sl said:

I feel a big decision is whether or not I will pursue a graduates degree. Which ever school I attend will dry up my benefits. So I will have to pay for grad school out of pocket no matter what. With that said, I will have to work a few years in my field to have enough experience and money to attend grad school. This factor makes SFSU more appealing, as I will have a good chunk of change in the bank. Though UC Davis will initially help my resume, and has more opportunities for internships (which may be a factor leading to a job).

So looking for employment straight out of school, UC Davis will provide more opportunities (their Economics program is apparently exceptional.) With the Economics major, I feel a degree from a more competitive school is better. But at SFSU, I could major in Applied Mathematics with Economics Emphasis. I'm really trying to see what the job market could be in two to three years.

With having to pay for grad school out of pocket, that is if I decide to go, the cash saved from SFSU and income earned from working will put me in a much better position financially to attend grad school. And I would love to attend grad school...



No way. I was with 2/5 Fox Co from 2010 to 2012.

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Cool, you relieved us in AFG. Not sure which company of ours you replaced; I likely spent some time at your PB though, lol. I felt bad for you guys; sounded like a lot of that deployment would be tearing down infrastructure while trying to stay safe in an atmosphere of over-eager officers hunting for glory.

I guess it depends on your personality. If you are going to do anything and everything to succeed and will go the grad school route, UC Davis seems like it will ultimately be worth the cost in networking opportunities and easier access to grad schools. That's only IF you have the willpower and competence to commit to being amongst the best (because generally in really good programs you will just struggle against foreign exchange students with superior education unless you work your ass off).

If you really don't know/care you just want the paper and see what presents itself, you are gambling 90K on whether you will find passion in something or be committed to it later.

Having gone the smart/cheap route of state school instead of 200k prestige for my bachelors since I didn't really have knowledge of what I would ultimately end up doing, I've had to build those networking opportunities myself. I also knew I didn't want to go immediately to grad school so I had the time and could build my references and my professional experience to beat the pants off any 'lol 3.6 GPA' applicant for a spot.

If you are interested in an economics graduate degree, make sure to use the GI Bill for undergrad. Economics Masters programs aren't widely available as the best (and almost all good) schools offer only PhD programs. PhD programs are fully funded, meaning you pay no tuition and collect (at the top universities) up to $40k/year for being a student.

If you want to go that route, I'd actually advise against doing an economics undergrad. Instead, you should major in physics or math. Nobody on a PhD admissions committee cares if you never took intermediate microeconomics (heck, you could just take it as an elective if you wanted to), because economics in graduate school is nothing like in undergrad. Not having taken (and done well in) real analysis would be a deal breaker at all top schools and courses like topology are fairly useful as well.

In terms of where to do your undergrad, I think UC Davis is a no-brainer, irrespective of what you want to do afterward. You really need to think about this decision in terms of life-time income, not the cost over the next 4 years. Going to a better ranked schools opens opportunities for internships and having a well-connected career services office can help you land a much better job out of college. That effect is going to compound for the rest of your career. For econ PhD programs, SFSU means your application gets pretty much auto-rejected at all good programs, whereas UC Davis gets your application at least looked at. You'll still be competing with people who have Masters degrees in physics from MIT, but at least you'll have a shot.

Soriak_sl said:

SFSU means your application gets pretty much auto-rejected at all good programs, whereas UC Davis gets your application at least looked at. You'll still be competing with people who have Masters degrees in physics from MIT, but at least you'll have a shot.

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I'm going to disagree with this point. Plenty of people I knew in grad school at an R1 university got their bachelor's at small liberal arts colleges or relatively unknown state schools. I won't argue that a more prestigious undergrad can help in many ways, but if you have a killer GPA, good GRE scores, and participate in relevant research or internships, you can get accepted anywhere. Professors really just want smart, hardworking grad students who don't require much handholding, and your research experience and GPA speak volumes more than your undergraduate institution intact regard.

Pinch_sl said:

I'm going to disagree with this point. Plenty of people I knew in grad school at an R1 university got their bachelor's at small liberal arts colleges or relatively unknown state schools. I won't argue that a more prestigious undergrad can help in many ways, but if you have a killer GPA, good GRE scores, and participate in relevant research or internships, you can get accepted anywhere. Professors really just want smart, hardworking grad students who don't require much handholding, and your research experience and GPA speak volumes more than your undergraduate institution intact regard.

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This holds in some fields, but largely not in economics and especially not in the top programs. Internships count for nothing, the GRE is largely a cut-off threshold (in the old regime, anything under 790 would be suspect), and it's expected that you have As in the relevant math courses. Research experience is nice, but pure economics programs don't put all that much weight on that either (because, for the most part, you can't have the necessary knowledge to do useful research as an undergrad in the field). Experience at the Fed might be an exception, but it's likely going to be something to give you an advantage compared to other applicants from similarly ranked universities, rather than something that overcomes undergrad reputation (also, getting that position is largely a function of your undergrad institution).

I don't think most people would even be happy at a top econ program (say Harvard, Chicago, MIT, and Berkeley), so this doesn't have to be the sole objective. Obviously, you'd do just fine career-wise (outside of academia) graduating from, say, Wisconsin. But you're still going to compete with applicants who are mostly indistinguishable from those who did make it into a better ranked program (there's lots of noise in the process). You don't want to needlessly shoot yourself in the foot. You should also signal that you're willing to challenge yourself, surround yourself with smart people, work hard -- and excel even among a group of top students. Those are, for obvious reasons, the kind of students graduate programs want. If you're not willing to invest $90k in that, why should a graduate program invest $500k in you (stipend, tuition, and travel funding for 5 years)?