Which university is worth it

Accou3

My oldest son has offer from Cambridge university for a masters course, 27k total... he is has offer from Edinburgh university for similar course, cost 27k... both course cost same. I told him cambridge is best but he wants to go Edinburgh for better time, nicer city and so on. He did he wants to live and work in Edinburgh .. Which should he choose? He’ll get a postgraduate loan to cover 11k of the costs... we will fund the rest... which should he choose? Is it worth the money?

Inner_Zone

Accou3 wrote: »

My oldest son has offer from Cambridge university for a masters course, 27k total... he is has offer from Edinburgh university for similar course, cost 27k... both course cost same. I told him cambridge is best but he wants to go Edinburgh for better time, nicer city and so on. He did he wants to live and work in Edinburgh .. Which should he choose? He’ll get a postgraduate loan to cover 11k of the costs... we will fund the rest... which should he choose? Is it worth the money?

Heard Nottingham University's very good, for parents to choose.

Accou3

Inner_Zone wrote: »

Heard Nottingham University's very good, for parents to choose.

My youngest is at Nottingham but isn’t enjoying it

prowla

I would say Cambridge; both are nice places, in all honesty.

Aylesbury_Duck

He should choose whichever one he wants to choose. Based on the extremely limited information you've provided, no one can say which would be the better option. It's easy to be lazily blinded by Cambridge but it isn't the best university for all courses.

Inner_Zone

Accou3 wrote: »

My youngest is at Nottingham but isn’t enjoying it

Woosh!!!!!!

ElefantEd

If your son is doing a Masters he is an adult. It's up to him to decide which course gives the best training combined with the best quality of life.


Whether a Masters is worth £27k or not is another matter and will largely depend on how you define "worth". From a purely financial point of view, it may or may not depending on whether it unlocks doors to higher paying jobs or a better career. But there are benefits to education other than the money aspect which your son may also be considering.


Both Edinburgh and Cambridge are expensive to live in, which you also need to take into account.

Manxman_in_exile

What is he going to study? (Is it, for instance, medieval Scottish history?).


Given that both are very pleasant cities (personally I prefer Cambridge to Edinburgh) I'd go for whichever has the better academic reputation/scholars for the subject he's doing.


That is unless he wants to get a lot of hill walking in, in which case Edinburgh is a no-brainer.


Out of interest, what's the other one studying in Nottingham?

peter_the_piper

I would imagine an employer would look at the peoples degree and in all probability would go for the Cambridge one.

waamo

If the subject is anything to do with art then not Cambridge. They don't even know what the colour blue looks like.

Fosterdog

peter_the_piper wrote: »

I would imagine an employer would look at the peoples degree and in all probability would go for the Cambridge one.

That all depends on the area of study, a friend of mine had offers from both Cambridge and Oxford but chose to attend Swansea Uni instead as the particular course she wanted had a much better programme and world recognised leaders in the field as lecturers, a degree in this particular subject would look far better to an employer coming from Swansea than from Cambridge or Oxford.

The only time it would automatically look better to an employer is if it's a generic degree just to have any qualification with no intention of working in the particular field. If you want to work in a particular field though you will find that there are far more unis offering a more sought after degree.