IVY LEAGUER IN THE CITY or NOT?

[thecountmc3]

I am a college student who attended a top 50 university in FL for most of my college career. Feeling unsatisfied with my course work there, and out of place in the student body, I decided to transfer. I was accepted to Columbia University to continue my studies. Due to some personal issues (family and finance related), I ended up taking a leave of absense from the school after my 1st semester.

My mom just wants me to go back to my old school and finish out. She thinks the economy is going to tank even further and I will be a hobo without a degree durin a recession. I am not sure what to do. Is an Ivy League undergrad degree really that valuable? Is it's almni network something I'll wish I had? I think I'm scared to give it up.
Would it be worth adding an extra year to my undergrad to go Ivy?

[KenNYC]

First of all, is your question whether or not you should finish your undergrad degree at all? If that is the question, the answer is without doubt yes.

If your question is whether you should finish it in FL or at Columbia, there will be some other things to take into consideration. Is it your final degree, or do you intend to go to grad school later? If you get a grad degree, people are not going to be so interested in where you went to college. If its your final degree, it's going to matter when applying for jobs.

Your mother is also somewhat right about being a hobo without a degree, although not just in a recession. This doesn't apply all over the board, if you have special talents or skills you can make a living off, that's great, but for regular people, having a degree or not is only going to matter more and more. Columbia is a great school, and the name factor will carry you some way to get jobs. It won't necessarily get you a better job than the FL school, but it will certainly make it easier. If you want to work and stay in FL, ignore all of that and just stick to local.

[justfabulouslyme]

I was accepted to Columbia University.


I ended up taking a leave of absense from the school after my 1st semester.

And to think, poor miss moi couldn't even get into N.Y.U. (I'll never live that one down!)

But to answer your question... sadly our society is all about the name and so an Ivy League degree certainly wouldn't hurt you! The big problem with that is that they are notoriously expensive to attend.