Engineering Tuition: Should I Go to Temple or Drexel?

[Poker-face]

Hi all,

I am a non-traditional student recently back to school. I have just been accepted to Temple and Drexel University for engineering. For those of you who never heard of them they are part of the big 5 universities in Philadelphia. I am settled and need to commute to where ever I choose to go to school and these two are the only reasonable schools that I can commute to.

My question is when is tuition just too much that it’s not worth it?
There is a large consensus that Drexel is much superior in regards to engineering than Temple. Of course their tuition represents that as well.

Total out of pocket cost Temple - $70,000
Total out of pocket cost Drexel - $100,000

This is shock to me because I am currently at a small sate school with tuition around $12,000 a year, but no engineering option.

Any opinions on going into so much debt to become an engineer, and if it is worth it would the extra money at Drexel be worth it?

Thanks for any input.

 

[russ_watters]

I'm a Drexel grad - and a non-traditional one.

Though I would tend to agree that Drexel is better, it isn't by enough to matter much and the grades you get in school are much more important. However, in this economy what is at least as important is a good co-op program, which Drexel has, but I'm not sure if Temple does. But being a non-traditional student, I didn't do a co-op and I'm not sure if that means you won't either...