[Golden]

Which college would you choose?
U of Michigan $80k/year

U of Wisconsin $30k/year

U of Wisconsin-Eau Claire $20k/year

No scholarships, no grants. Paying full price.

Wants to go to dental or medical school.

I am considering factors like overall cost, quality of education, potential return on investment, and any other relevant aspects.

How should I weigh these options? Is the higher cost of the University of Michigan justified compared to the more affordable options?

What are the long-term implications of choosing a more expensive school versus a less expensive one?

[Lauren]

UW or UWEC. Get a cheap undergrad as you’ll pay soooo much more for grad school.

[Charlotte]

Dental and medical school are so expensive so I would do the undergrad as cheaply as possible.

Two years of community college, CLEP & AP credits, living at home and commuting.

The no scholarship thing is a bit worrisome – does this student have the aptitude / grades / work ethic to actually get into dental or medical school and succeed?

[Damaso]

Are you letting your kid decide or are you choosing for them. If you can answer this then you can easily come to an answer.

Good luck!!!!

[Christina]

For medical school, I’d go to UofM. Where you go for undergrad matters. It opens doors to better medical school, then residency.

If going to dental school, then it doesn’t matter.

My husband is on a few medical school admissions committee- they do look at your undergraduate school.

[Cody]

Wisconsin. Big enough name to carry weight on applications and paying $240k for a useless undergrad degree is wasteful.

Save that for medical/dental school.

[Charlene]

UW Wisconsin is a good school system. Go the cheapest possible. UW-Waukesha may give the cheapest associates degree and then transfer to a four year school (UW-Madison, Eau Claire, Milwaukee, etc)

to finish off the bachelor’s degree.

[Elle]

None of your options. Consider going to school in a socioeconomic depressed state, like MS or AL.

They have the lowest literacy rates and receive the most in scholarships and grants due to this.

Additionally the state colleges give out tons to good students who keep their scores up to increase their ratings.

What I did – Meridian community college for associates and pre-reqs.

1000 out the door a semester (10-15 years ago) Anything over full time credit hours was tuition free up to 21 credit hours.

Have to prove academically capable to participate.

Partnered with MS State University next door and got a transfer scholarship (full ride) for academic merit to attend either location in Starkville or Meridian for undergrad.

Now the military is going to help pay for my grad school.

[Jason]

Had a similar discussion/decision with my daughter. I know you’re local to Madison, as am I, and LaCrosse (better in Sciences IMO) was our “other” school.

I wanted UWL because of cost, but she wanted a big school.

Ultimately going pre-med at Madison.

Grades and MCAT are way more important than school, but the connections and research opportunities may be greater at bigger schools though.

[Linda]

Just some thinking points- If your child is considering dental or medical school, their grades must be good, which makes me wonder why here she did not qualify for merit aid.

That seems odd to me.

My inclination is to say go with the cheapest option as you have expensive grad school to worry about.

The one question I would want to ask from a dental or medical graduate is does your undergraduate school matter for medical or dental school acceptance.

One last point to consider is that many students change their mind once they get into the undergrad program which again points to the lesser cost option.

You don’t say in your post, but are you, the parents absorbing this cost for your student?

No loans?

Does this include the plan for medical or dental school as well and lastly, is this something you can easily afford because that will change the answer.

[Kara]

I’d ask about it in a different way. Where does your child want to go? They should get the best undergraduate degree they can because so many kids change their mind on majors when they get to school.

College can be a means to an end or something very important as far as networking and life experience.

[Jin]

Go the cheapest route. People don’t care or ask where their dentist went to school

[Katrina]

Has anyone in their life ever walked into a business and said “ok but WHICH college did you get the degree at, because if it’s not the one I’d choose, im going to someone else”…

or called around for a dentist with “can you tell me which school your employees attended?”

Go with the cheapest.

[Sheila]

Little biased but I’m a UW Madison grad Madison is an amazing city/school!

[Miranda]

Eau Claire for price and because one of my best friends works there and would help you if you needed anything!

[Todd]

I’d guide to paying as little as possible for the undergrad degree. I believe the Univ of Wisconsin has a guarantee transfer agreement with technical/community colleges, so I’d even look to do a year there before moving to the 4 year school.

(My son did one year of community college then transferred to a private university to finish, he graduated this spring and is now working in his desired field for a national media company)

[Krista]

Community college first, majority then directly feed into the UW system so it’s honestly a waste imo to pay that much for the first two years.

UW is great so either one

[Mike]

I know it’s not one of your options, but have you considered looking at Marquette?

I’m not sure if they still offer it, but at one time they had a 3+3 program where if you were accepted into it, after three years of undergrad you went straight into Dental school avoiding that fourth year.

Obviously, it’s for very high performers and is very competitive.

Also, Marquette is fairly well endowed and does offer aggressive financial packages to be able to compete with state schools.

Just a thought.

[Delaina]

Organic chem at Madison was insanely difficult ! I almost had a mental breakdown.

Consider UWEC instead.

Madison weeds out many many motivated students

[Damon]

It would not be Michigan.
I don’t have any special knowledge on whether one of the UW schools has a better reputation in science.

But I’d choose either of those with the understanding it’s a $40k difference over 4 years which isn’t going to be life changing over their dental careers.

They should have a good undergraduate experience.

[Lara]

UW Mad is an excellent school. I would weigh the quality of education between the two UW campuses.

That cost is insane for Michigan, I’m assuming it’s out of state tuition.

[Aaron]

I think it’s kind of obvious not to go with U Michigan without scholarships.

Also most college students end up changing their majors, so although the interest in dental/medical school is there now, it may not be, especially depending on whether the student can get through the weed out science classes needed for those routes.

I lived and worked in Madison after college and loved it.

It’s a great city.

It’s the state capital and there are lots of opportunities for a variety of jobs and internships there.

Madison is also a very bicycle friendly city.

I’m not familiar with the other locations.

[Jason]

Which place clearly has the best medical or dental school? Which will pay the highest dividends?

Do they want to make the lowest pay band for their field or the highest?

Schooling is an investment.

Networks are VERY important, and lifelong earnings blow away the cost factor on some degrees.

Think about that when comparing to “lowest price.”

[Margaret]

One of the bottom 2.
If you are helping to pay for undergrad consider having them take out loans for undergrad and saving your contribution for graduate school.

Undergrad loans are lower interest and subsidized while grad school loans are not subsidized so if those can be payed outright you’ll save them a lot of money in interest.

If they don’t go to grad school, just pay a lump sum at the end.

[Kate]

I went to Michigan and would be biased to say that I would choose it, but I was also in-state which is a huge financial difference.

I’m not sure how true it is, but I recall there being rumors amongst students that Michigan (and probably lots of other big name schools) that they wouldn’t necessarily accept a lot of their undergraduate students to their upper level programs ie dental/medical.

The reason for this being that Michigan wants to get their name on as many students as possible, so they would be more inclined to accept non-Michigan undergraduate students for their post grad programs.

If Michigan is still a school of interest 4 years later, it may work out better to do Wisconsin for undergrad and then Michigan for dental/med

[Author]

Posts